All assignments are graded holistically according to the terms of my grading rubric.

Papers:
You will write two short papers (3-4 pages each for undergrads, 5-6 for grads), focusing on two of the three elements described below (that is, form, context, subtext). You may do these papers in any order that you wish. I ask only that you include which paper you are doing in the heading. For instance:

Karen Coats
Context

"Perky Title"

The due dates are as follows: 2/5  and 3/5. You should incorporate outside research in at least one of the papers.

Form Paper: 
            For this paper, you are to choose a text where form matters in the conveyance of the text. In a traditionally presented novel, you might focus on an unreliable narrator, multiple narrators, or an unusual storytelling style. Alternately, you might choose a visual text, or a multimedia presentation, or a film or TV series. Make sure that your text is primarily written for and marketed to a young adult audience. Focus your paper on how the particular form works to communicate to the audience in a particular way. It would be a very good idea to consult secondary sources here.     

Context Paper:
      Choose one of the following prompts and write an elegant, thoughtful essay. Graduate students may choose one of the prompts or may devise one of their own, bearing in mind that one of the purposes of the assignment is to compare two or more texts in meaningful ways.
      1) In many books for teens, relationships between guys and girls have been either the focus or running as a background theme. Choose three significant relationships from at least two different texts (that is, you may choose no more than two couples from any one book, or you can choose a different couple from each of three books) and analyze the contours of their relationship. What do the relationships say, separately and together, about the ideology of teen romance? Pay attention to things like race and class, as well as other contexts in the book that influence the relationship.
      2) What picture of masculinity emerges if you compare several of the books we have read so far in class? How do guys function as individuals, and in groups? What are their values, their frustrations, their desires? What changes do they undergo on their road to adulthood? Be sure to examine characters from at least two different texts.
      3) What race or class narratives are at play in the books we have read so far? How is class portrayed in texts primarily about upper middle class characters, and how is that portrayal challenged, interrogated, and critiqued in texts primarily about nonwhite characters? Compare the emotional quality, plot patterns, and values of the texts--what patterns do you see?
       4) Choose a set of books that seem to focus on similar social or cultural issues and compare and contrast their portrayals of those issues.
    

Content/Subtext Paper:
     Throughout the semester, we will be discussing the various subtexts that seem to dominate adolescent literature. For this paper, you are to choose a book that attends to a particular subtext through the use of a significant metaphor or allusion. Analyze how that metaphor or allusion illuminates the subtext, and in what ways that subtext is relevant to adolescent experience and current social and cultural contexts.

Personal Project:
       For this project, I would like you to choose something of personal or professional interest to you concerning adolescent literature or culture. For instance, you may be very into music. Start there. Think of a project. You might generate an annotated bibliography on books that take music as their central topic, such as K.L.Going's Fat Boy Rules the World, Gordon Korman's Born to Rock,  Leander Watts' Beautiful City of the Dead, Hidier's Born Confused, Levithan and Cohn's Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, etc. You could divide them according to musical style, and develop playlists that you think go with the books (noting that there are some books that actually come with playlists of their own). Or you might be into a topic, like psychologies of pain, and you could put together a list of books about issues like cutting or anorexia, and compare their portrayals with what actually happens in real cases. Or you might investigate clique books--very hot topic these days--and interview friends about how realistic the clique wars really are or were in their high school experience. You could look into a broader sociological topic, like the influence of technology on teens, or how the media portrays teenagers. You could look at a trend in culture and lifestyle, like the Gothic in teen culture, or a trend in literature, like graphic novels or steampunk, or Shakespearean remakes (10 Things I Hate about You= The Taming of the Shrew, O=Othello, She's the Man=Twelfth Night, to give but a few examples), or other literary remakes, like Clueless (Emma), Enthusiasm, Bride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones' Diary (Pride and Prejudice). Find some topic related to teen life and literature and become an expert. You may work alone, with a partner, or with a small group of people interested in the same topic. Develop a project (website, annotated bibliography, reader's notebook, research paper, zine, blog, poster, annotated playlist with accompanying CD, multimodal essay, etc.) that showcases what you have learned.

     Of special interest to English Education majors: Turn your topic or one of your papers into a unit plan. For instance, maybe you wrote one of your papers on masculinity (see #2 under Context above). Now take the research and ideas you developed for that paper and turn it into a two-three week unit for a high school class. Incorporate a range of activities and readings for your students to explore the topic with you.

      If you are of a creative turn of mind, you might choose to write a YA novella or short story. For your presentation, you would then give a short short short plot summary, and then talk about why the book or story works within the YA genre based on the discussions we have had in class.

To prevent disasters, I want a project proposal fairly early in the semester. During the last week of class, you will give very short presentations on your projects in class, and sharing your findings electronically so that everyone can benefit from your expertise. (I'll make a class email list to facilitate that part of the process.)

Daybook Portfolio:
        You will keep a daybook throughout the semester. It is my fondest wish that it will become your closest companion, and that you will take it with you everywhere, but you must bring it to class each day, with a glue stick. Anything can go in it--random thoughts, more developed musings, things you want to remember, poems, pictures, mementos, etc., as well as assignments we do in class. On April 9, you will turn in a portfolio which includes the following: