I encourage you to collaborate with another student on the adolescent literature project, but this is not required. My experience permits me to say that these classes are perhaps the most interesting sessions that the class has to offer. As you are selecting and planning a presentation:

1. Pick a theme or genre of adolescent literature that interests you or interacts with something that interests you. Be sure that you pick books by male and female authors and by authors from a range of cultures. Write up a proposal for this project, form below. Due date on deadline sheet.

2. Learn about your subject from library research and by reading adolescent literature.

3. Involve yourself in some informal (or formal if you desire) primary research about this topic.

4. In the 15 minute presentation, involve the class in the material in a meaningful way. If appropriate, give them handouts.

5. Show the implications that your research has for your future teaching in the secondary classroom.

6. Develop an annotated bibliography, which cites references and adolescent literatureand and then describes briefly how the source (be it a person, reference, or book) contributed to what you learned. Make enough copies of this for your classmates. If you get this to the instructor two days before class, it can be copied for class.

7. Make sure to conference with the instructor at least two weeks before the presentation date.

Suggested Projects

Watch the following video made in connection with an Adolescent Literature Project Presentation. If this was your project, you would still need to talk to the class about the implications the topic has for teaching.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/mwright2/iroots/

You may find good book suggestions at the following cite, though it focuses on younger adolescents:

http://www.nancykeane.com/rl/default.htm#Specialty

Explore the teaching of film along with adolescent literature (see Real Conversations: Reading Films with Young Adults, Alan Teasly and Ann Wilder, Heinemann, 1996)

Thematic adolescent literature- Review the literature that deals with a certain theme and make sense of its teaching. Thematic presentations are found in a new genre of young adult literature which is called the "young adult problem novel." Remember your project should explore the representation of the theme in literature and how it should be taught; it is not about the theme itself.

Divorce
Death and Dying
Diet Problems
The Handicapped
Self-Acceptance
Alcoholism and Drugs
Oppression
Stereotyping

Ethnic adolescent literature- explore the literature appropriate to young adults which centers around a certain race or ethnicity.

Gender issues or biases in reading or literature

Certian Genres:

-utopian/fantasy literature

-poetry

-holocaust literature

-literature in translation, reflections of reality

-horror fiction

-science fiction

-sports fiction

-mythology

Most Important - Pick a topic in which you have interest. Think of ways that you can find out about the issues connected with your topic. Do your own research (interview, questionnaire, observation) as well as doing library research.

Project Proposal

Part I- to be completed early in the term

1. Project Title:

2. Collaborator (if you will be cooperating with another class member on part of the project):

3. Adolescent Literature to Be Read:

4. Primary Research Planned:

5. Secondary Research Planned:

Part II- update what is above, and add what follows:

6. Format for Presentation:

When you present, what will you do, in what order?  Out of the material that you have researched and the books you have read, what will be important to prospective teachers?  What should they know about having adolescents work with your topic?  Create a presentation outline.

7. Set Induction Description:

This is the same as "Anticipatory Set."  What will you do to get the attention of those to whom you are presenting?  How will you connect your topic to what your audience already knows?  How can you engage them in a way to keep them interested?

8. Implications for Teaching

What do you have to say to prospective teachers about using this topic?  What teaching ideas, warnings, advice do you have for teachers?