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GREENSHEET
Course Description
Materials for adolescents and pre-adolescents and methods for incorporating
these materials into library programs. Collection development, needs
assessment, and programming will be featured. Information services for
young adults in a variety of settings will also be addressed.
Prerequisites: none
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:
• Demonstrate a familiarity with a variety of young adult literature and
information books as well as various media for this age group.
• Evaluate selection tools, and use appropriate resources to develop a
young adult collection including all appropriate formats.
• Demonstrate knowledge and appreciation of literature for young adults,
including both the historical perspective and current trends in the
field.
• Use young adult books and other materials for library programming.
• Apply information on adolescent psychology and development, sociology,
and popular culture to plan appropriate services and collections for
teens.
• Develop a young adult collection policy for a school or public library.
The
course supports the following SLIS objectives:
• One or more specialized aspects of information management
• Information management, including the selection, organization, storage,
retrieval, dissemination and utilization of information resources
• Evaluating and utilizing relevant research studies from a variety of
disciplines
Course Format
This is primarily web-based course, with 2 in-person meetings and 2
chats.
•
The two in-person meetings will be Sunday, June 1 and Saturday, July
26, 10 am-5 pm, in San Jose.
•
The two chats will be Monday, June 30 and Sunday, July 13, 6-8 pm.
All of our online interaction will take place on the SLIS Blackboard
site. The course schedule, communication part of this course, class assignments,
course materials, and other documents will be available/conducted on
the Blackboard site.
Textbooks
Required:
Aronson, Marc. Exploding the Myths: The Truth About Teenagers and
Reading. (Scarecrow Press, 2001)
Jones, Patrick. Connecting Young Adults and Libraries, 2nd. ed. (Neal-Schuman
Publishers, 1998)
*it’s not published yet, but I would highly recommend you purchase
this book if you are going to be in the field, or currently work with
teens: Jones, Patrick; Taylor, Patricia; and Edwards, Kirsten. A
Core Collection for Young Adults. (Neal-Schuman, 2003)
Recommended (borrow, don’t buy, unless you are in this field;
I will point out certain times during the course when they might be helpful):
Cart, Michael. From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and
Change in Young Adult Literature. (HarperCollins, 1996)
Carter, Betty. Best Books for Young Adults, 2nd. ed. (ALA, 2000)
Donelson, Kenneth L. and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Literature for Today's
Young Adults, 6th ed. (Longman, 2000)
Dresang, Eliza. Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age. (H.W.
Wilson Co.,
1999)
Jones, Patrick. New Directions for Library Service to Young Adults. (ALA, 2002)
Not all of these titles are in print anymore, so you will have to check
your libraries for a copy.
Grading
Assignment 1: Personal Introduction 5%
• Due June 8, 11:59 pm
•
Post to your "Homepage" on the Blackboard site under “Tools”
This information should be professional background information about
current or past jobs, or plans for future library work. It’s
the kind of information you would share with colleagues in a new job.
You
may include as much additional information about your interests and
hobbies as you wish. Everyone is strongly urged to post a picture,
because that
will facilitate interaction in this web-based course.
Assignment 2: Evaluation of review sources & selection guides 15%
• Due June 25, 11:59 pm
• Post to the Drop Box
Read, review, and examine at least 6 print and nonprint review sources
or selection guides. Evaluate them on currency, scope, and reliability.
Were the reviews helpful in selecting books? Did they give enough information?
Did you agree with the reviewers’ judgments? Does any one selection
tool stand out as being more or less useful than others? Write an analysis
and evaluation of each source. You must include the print editions
of Voice of Youth Advocates, Booklist, and School Library
Journal,
and the
online amazon.com (teens) site. The other 2 sources are your choice,
and you may include more, if you choose.
Assignment 3: Library Program 15%
• Due July 12, 11:59 pm
• Post to the Drop Box
Using a Dewey classification (this means non-fiction – and state
it in your paper), develop a library program, including ideas for a display
or bookmark, booktalks or book discussions. Write a 2-3 page outline
including goals/outcomes for the program, as well as specific ideas and
examples of activities that could be included, i.e. tie-dye, resume writing,
swing dancing, environmental program, film showing. Give a clear description
of how this program can be organized, publicized, conducted, and evaluated.
Include cost estimates, or note if some items/costs will be donated.
The programming idea should focus on a teen’s developmental needs
(we’ll discuss in class), but not necessarily seem like homework.
Suggest at least 5 other books that the program participants might
also enjoy (include fiction titles, too!), giving full bibliographic
information
and a one or two-sentence description of each of the books.
Assignment 4: Collection Development Plan & Policy 20%
• Due July 29, 11:59 pm
• Post to the Drop Box
Develop a plan for starting the collection in a YA section in a library.
You will be given a budget and asked to develop the policies for
the collection. You can work with an actual library and talk with librarians
to help you decide how you’ll plan, if you want. Links to other
libraries’ policies will be made available in the class. This paper
is as long as it needs to be, although I’d expect it to be about
5 pages in length.
Assignment 5: Database/media file of books read 25%
• Due August 8, 11:59 pm
• Post to the Drop Box
Read a minimum of 50 books, keeping a database or some other media file
of them. You can use any format you like, but you must include the
following information: complete bibliographic information, summary, evaluation,
readers’ 1-2 sentence annotation, usefulness, genre or subject,
and why you chose it. You may also want to include booktalk ideas,
similar titles, or other information to help you remember the book
for class
discussion and for the future.
Include one review of a young adult title that might be published in
a journal. Put this at the “top” of your database and post
it to amazon.com. This is an evaluative review, not just plot description.
Read and analyze already-published reviews in the various selection journals
to learn how to write your review, if you are unfamiliar with this.
Twenty titles (10 classic and 10 recent) from the list below are required.
We will discuss them in class an don the Discussion Board. Ten titles/items
must be in a nonprint format, including but not limited to videos, DVDs,
CDs, computer games, ebooks, audio tapes, etc.
For other titles, please check your texts, the awards lists posted in
the YALSA area of the ALA Web site (http://www.ala.org/yalsa/), and any
of the lists we’ll discuss in class. You may also want to include
magazines aimed at teens, as well as series paperbacks and non-fiction.
The selection is up to you, but I strongly suggest you do not waste time
reading books that are not recommended somewhere.
You will be expected to discuss appropriate titles during the class
sessions that focus on literature. It’s smart to have available
the notes you have made about these titles, so that you will be able
to comment on their quality and usefulness in various situations.
If you begin reading before the semester starts, make sure you take
lots of notes on each of the titles you read, so you can quickly and
easily remember them in some detail when you actually start working on
your database and discussing them in class. More is better, in this case.
Required Titles
Classic Titles:
The Chocolate War, I Am the Cheese, Robert Cormier
The Moves Make the Man, Bruce Brooks
The Giver, Lois Lowry
Annie on My Mind, Nancy Garden
The Outsiders, Tex, S.E. Hinton
Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers
Beauty, Robin McKinley
Deathwatch, Robb White
House of Stairs, William Sleator
Hatchet, Gary Paulsen
Make Lemonade, Virginia Euer Wolff
Chinese Handcuffs, Running Loose, Chris Crutcher
Weetzie Bat, Francesca Lia Block
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman (ed.)
The Pigman, Paul Zindel
Recent Titles:
Out of the Dust, Witness, Karen Hesse
Tangerine, Edward Bloor
Holes, Louis Sachar
Monster, Walter Dean Myers
Rats Saw God, Rob Thomas
Whale Talk, Chris Crutcher
Breathing Underwater, Alex Flinn
Dreamland, Sarah Dessen
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
Smack, Marvin Burgess
True Believer, Virginia Euer Wolff
Sabriel, Shade’s Children, Garth Nix
Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson
Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia
Nicolson,
Louise Rennison
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli
Assignment 6: Class Attendance/Internet discussion 20%
•
From May 27 – August 9
• Post to Discussion Board, attend class meetings, participate in chats
Read texts as assigned and discuss interesting points with the group
via the Discussion Board. Questions and brief assignments will be posted
periodically to address particular issues or materials. Journal articles
and web links to items of interest will be posted for discussion as well.
Contribute at least twice weekly, posting a comment of substance related
to the thread, or posing a question to the class. You are welcome to
begin new threads, so long as they are related to the class topic. Be
specific: mention titles and examples to illustrate your opinions and
general statements.
Note: Any student who has information or announcements related to our
subject to share with the entire class should feel free to post it to
the “FYI” forum of the Blackboard site Discussion Board.
Office Hours
Because the class is primarily taught online, it is expected that the
majority of communication will be conducted virtually. Students may e-mail
questions to mleconge@wahoo.sjsu.edu. Please do not expect an immediate
answer! I may have to think, ponder, and even research the answer to
your question. I will do my best to respond in a timely manner. In the
event of an urgent matter, you may contact me by phone at my office,
707-746-4340 (Pacific Time Zone).
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