LIBR 262-11
Resources for Young Adults
Summer 2005 (May 31-August 12)

Instructor: Monique le Conge
E-mail

 

Greensheet

SLIS Blackboard Home

SLIS Blackboard Tutorials


 

 

GREENSHEET

Textbooks | Course Requirements | Assignments | Grading

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

Top of Page

Textbooks

Required Texts
You may certainly look for copies you can check out, if you do not wish to purchase:

  • Aronson, Marc. Exploding the Myths: The Truth About Teenagers and Reading. (Scarecrow Press, 2001)
  • Jones, Patrick. Connecting Young Adults and Libraries, 3rd. ed. (Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2004)
  • *An excellent addition to buy if you are intending to enter this area, and to use for assignment 5 (but not “required” for the class – borrow it):
    • Jones, Patrick; Taylor, Patricia; and Edwards, Kirsten. A Core Collection for Young Adults. (Neal-Schuman, 2003)

Recommended Texts
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)
  • 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)
  • Nichols, Mary Anne. Merchandising Library Materials to Young Adults. (Libraries Unlimited, 2002)

Not all of these titles are in print anymore, so you will have to check your libraries for a copy.

Top of Page

Course Requirements

Course Format
This is an entirely Web-based course, with no scheduled on-line chats. As a class, we may decide that a chat is needed, but for now, none are planned.

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.

Office Hours
Because the class is taught online, it is expected that communication will be conducted virtually. Students may e-mail questions to me. 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, 510-620-6554 (Pacific Time Zone).

Academic Integrity
Read the SJSU Academic Integrity Policy
http://www2.sjsu.edu/senate/S04-12.pdf

Reasonable Accommodation of Disabilities
Students who need accommodation due to a disability must register with SJSU's Disability Resource Center (DRC) during the first three weeks of the semester. The Center will work with the students to determine the disability, document it, and determine the services and accommodations necessary for student success. Then, the DRC will contact the faculty member to determine the types of consideration necessary.

Students attending the Fullerton campus should first contact the Disability Resource Center in San José since they are SJSU students. The DRC will then direct the students to supporting resources on the Fullerton campus.

The DRC Web site: http://www.drc.sjsu.edu/

Top of Page

Assignments

Assignment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Each assignment is worth 100 points, maximum. The percentages after each assignment indicate how they are weighted.

Assignment 1: Personal Introduction (5%)

  • Due June 10, 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 19, 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 1, 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 17, 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 3-5 pages in length.

Assignment 5: Database/media file of books read (25%)

  • Due August 9, 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 (how you might use this with students, or who might benefit from reading/viewing the item), 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. Do this before the end of the semester, as it takes around a week for a posting to appear on amazon. 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 and on 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 the remaining twenty 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 chats 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, S.E. Hinton
  • Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers
  • Beauty, Robin McKinley
  • Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida, Victor Martinez
  • 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
  • Touching Spirit Bear, Ben Mikaelsen
  • True Believer, Virginia Euer Wolff
  • Sabriel, 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 31-August 12
  • Post to Discussion Board

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. Also, change the subject line to more accurately reflect your comments. This will make it easier on everyone in the class!

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.

Top of Page

Grading

Late assignments and/or non-participation will be lowered a grade.

All work is graded on the following criteria:

  • Were all required items of the assignment covered? That is, did the student include the basic requirements as noted in each assignment description or information on Blackboard? Items that are missing reduce the grade anywhere from 2-20 points.
  • Did the student completely explain the issues or otherwise state solutions to the problem that indicate an understanding of the problem? Again, can reduce the grade 2-20 points if not complete.
  • Were conventional uses of spelling, grammar, and format observed? Can reduce the grade 2-10 points.
  • Did the student provide “extras” that further expanded on the topic or illustrated their points in a way that reinforces, but does not replace, the specified requirements? If so, this may add anywhere from 2-10 points.

Top of Page