Here's my first post for my young adult lit grad class: In Angela Johnson’s young adult novel, The First Part Last, she tells the story of a teen pregnancy and the weight it places on young Bobby’s life, and she organizes the novel in a way that creates suspense about the climactic childbirth. Johnson labels the book’s chapters “Now” and “Then,” choosing to “leap frog” on the timeline of the story, alternately narrating events that happen before and after the birth of Feather.

As a reader, the trip back and forth across the timeline of the story highlighted the somber tone of the novel that stayed consistent throughout, and raised questions for me about the presence of Nia “then,” and her conspicuous absence “now.” I read the dialogue between Nia and Bobby “then” for clues. Did the teens break up? Did Nia die in childbirth? Did Nia’s parents disappear? When I reached the childbirth, Johnson’s organizational strategy had it’s full impact. I flipped pages furiously. I had to know how Feather entered the story and why Nia exited, and why tone of this cautionary novel seemed so grey. Since this book deals with teen pregnancy and includes some sexual situations (although nothing explicit) teachers might want to make sure parents are OK with students reading about mature topics. It is just under 200 pages and a quick read. As for text's complexity, it is probably a good selection for a struggling high school reader, since it is pretty accessible.

More help from Twitterverse...

@TchEngRox I'll check out Westerfeld. I'm already a big Myers fan, so he's making the list. Thx.

— Joe Dillon (@onewheeljoe) January 29, 2012

Some help from Twitterverse...

@onewheeljoe how about-maze runner, across the universe, matched, if I stay

— Jennifer Arzola (@jenniferarzola) January 29, 2012

I’ve decided that I will post all of my coursework for my graduate courses online from this point on, in an effort to think about the differences between writing for a class and writing for a global audience. Although most of the courses I’m taking in pursuit of a masters of education degree from the University of Colorado at Denver have a blended, or hybrid, component- we are supposed to post much of our work in an e-college course shell- I want to experiment with 21st century participation by putting all my work in open online spaces, including, but not limited to Blogger, YouTube, and SoundCloud. Also, I plan to tweet each of my blog posts in an attempt to gather feedback from a wide audience that might inform my participation in the class.

Here’s the current context:
My masters will be in reading and writing curriculum, when I complete my remaining four courses. This semester, I enrolled in a course about young adult literature. In our first meeting, our instructor let us know that he requires students to read 20 young adult titles over the 16-week course and asks that we not reread books that we’ve read previously. For each book we read, we have to post a brief writing in the course discussion forum that amounts to a written book talk. These writings must provide some background about the book and also convey my impression of the book. I must also include any potential concerns that using the book in class could cause for another teacher. For example, I would need to indicate if there were offensive language in the book.


What’s Next:
The first few action items for me in this class are as follows:

• Reread The Outsiders, by SE Hinton.  (It will be the only common text in the course and it does not count as one of my 20 titles.)

• I have to generate a list of the 20 books I will read for the course.

• Before February 6th, I have to read Reading Ladders, by Teri S. Lesesne. I’ll present the book with a few of my classmates, and they’ve asked me to try to “cover”chapters 6 and 7. I’ve agreed, although I’m already thinking about creating an activity for the class with th time I’m allotted or writing a commentary I have tentatively titled, “From Reading Ladders to Reading Trailheads: Inspiring wide reading in engaged adolescents.” I may just whip up a quick outline of my chapter to hold up my end of the bargain with my group and pass it out along with copies of the as-yet-unwritten commentary.