Directions for submission:  email your instructor (lmillerc@d.umn.edu), one email per book with the notecard attached.  In the subject blank of the email write:  author's last name; two words of title; your last name (Hinton; Outsiders; your last name).

Procedure: This procedure will allow you to show that you have read from different genres of adolescent literature, that you know for whom it is appropriate and how it might be used, and that you know how to ask questions that will encourage response from adolescent readers. The entries will be a support to users of this UMD site for assisting their students in independent reading.

Be sure to read at least one book from three of the following genres or clusters of genres. You may cover several of these genres with the required reading:

• fantasy or science fiction
• historical fiction or non-fiction
• non-fiction or poetry
• problem novel/ new realism
• biography, auto-biography, or memoir
• adventure, humor, or mystery

For each of the books that you have read develop entries in Microsoft WORD including the following material in 10 point font:

Citation: author. title. place of publication: publisher, date.(summary and questions created by ___________)
Summary: four sentences maximum.
Appropriate: (for whom the book is appropriate, age/level)
Teach it or circulate it? Brief explanation of why.
Two or three shaded or dense questions:
List several poems and/or short stories that might add to the understanding of this piece of literature.

Samples:

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Signet New York, 1963, 1986. (summary and questions by David Frankenfeld)

Summary: On the eve of the king’s wedding, Hermia attempts to escape from a deadline of being married to Demterius, instead of Lysander, who she loves. The two forsaken lovers leave into the woods, headed towards Lysander’s relative’s house. Demterius and Helena follow, only to fall into the mixed up mischief of the fairies who inhabit the woods. After a bizarre night of switched up love interests, they wake the next morning to find all is well. Demetrius loves Helena, after all, so Lysander is free to marry Hermia, as it should be.

Appropriate for 8th-12th grades-

Teach or circulate:  This is a good one to teach to the whole class because it’s a play it and it works well to have it read out loud. Visualizing the action is important with this play because there are so many characters who enter in and out in a relatively short span of text.

Dense Questions: In the final scene, why does Puck apologize for his mischief and ask the audience to consider the play as a dream?  In Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare seems to really mix relationships up and put them out of order. Yet, somehow, they all seem to come back together for the best of everyone involved. Who gets mixed up through Puck’s trickery and why? Following this plotline-- in which an order is disrupted, than later restored in a funny way--is one basis for the genre of comedy. Try following this plot line through one of your own experiences. Think about it: Why is it funny when Titania wakes up in love with Bottom the donkey? Try writing your own comedy.

Thematically related literature:

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Markandaya, Kamala. Nectar in the Sieve. New York: Signet, 1954. (summary and questions created by Linda Miller Cleary)

Summary: Rukmani, a woman from India, reflects back on her life, from her marriage at twelve until the death of her husband. Her story tells of the poverty of an Indian village and its swing between verdure with its sufficiency and drought with its wrenching starvation and desperation. Markandaya enables the reader to have a view of village struggles with industrialization. A previous agrarian life which allowed self-respect of the peasant is lost.

For Whom Appropriate? 11th or 12th grade students

Teach it or circulate it? This book has small print, and it is not driven by a fast moving plot. It also takes sophisticated knowledge of India, its problems, the problems of industrialization, and the nature of unindustrialized peoples. For these reasons the book should be taught with teacher involvement.

Shaded and Dense questions: How is Rukmani's situation different or similar to that of some American woman you might know? Has industrialization affected any of your forbearers as it did Rukmani's family? Compare opression that is in the United States today with that which Rukmani dealt.

Thematically related Literature (to be filled in as the quarter progresses): Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck; The Jungle-Upton Sinclair