Youth Literature: Theories and Reading Practices Among Children and Young Adults

Catalog description

The goal of this course is to counter misconceptions that our youth are no longer reading. Most importantly, by the end of the course, students will be able to identify specific criteria that help them to gauge which books and/or graphic novels are appropriate for varying aged youth. As such, this course is geared as much towards teacher and parents as it is towards those who love, but also struggle to read. For interestingly, half of Young Adult (“YA”) readers are adults. Drawing on both canonical theoretical texts around psychology of children and young adults (i.e. J.A. Appleyard; J. Campbell; S. Edwards; E. Erikson; M. Montessori; P. Freire; J. Piaget), but also more recent work (i.e. C. Ní Bhroin and P. Kennon; G. Mendes; M. Weiner; C. del Valle Schorske), students shall determine why certain novels attract young adults’ attention and why others do not. We also look at how certain books seem to work for a wide range of young adult readers: how despite outside appearances, they deal quite poignantly with intersectional questions of social class, gender, and race.