(Re)Inventing Young Adult Literature for Preservice Teachers Literary Theory Meets Pedagogy Tammy L. Mielke and Leslie S. Rush University of Wyoming

Before we taught YA Lit together…. … we taught it independently, and differently.

Dr. Leslie S. Rush Reader response theoretical approach Pedagogy

Dr. Leslie S. Rush Pedagogical PracticesLiterature

Leslie’s class texts

Dr. Tammy L. Mielke Reading and applying literary theory Understanding cultural context and the social constructions presented in the text.

Tammy’s class texts

Dr. Tammy L. Mielke Literature Literary Theory

Thinking about theory and pedagogy Goals and texts First day of class Typical class structure Non-Fiction Project Final project Co-teaching YA Lit….

Drs Mielke and Rush Literature Pedagogical Practices Literary Theory

General Goals To obtain a solid grounding with the body of literature available for young adults; To demonstrate an understanding of critical theoretical lenses through which young adult literature can be analyzed and studied, and to apply at least one of those lenses to an analysis of several young adult works; To become familiar with appropriate pedagogical moves and tools that may be used in the reading and classroom use of young adult literature.

Non-Fiction Text Project An overview of the book's content, a discussion of the author’s style, a discussion of potential difficulties and stresses for students, and an overview of the CCSS that would apply to students’ reading of this book. Question the authorship and discuss possible issues with the storytelling aspects of the non-fiction text. What is the fiction to the non-fiction element? A discussion of how a teacher might plan instruction for teaching this book using each part of the 3E model.

Leslie’s notes concerning storytelling aspects of non-fiction: – lack of depth and sophistication, in regard to the issues of authorship, presence of narrative within non-fiction text, and the reliability of the storyteller

Final Project: Novel Set Students will identify three novels for which a theoretical argument can be made that connects them. Students will write a paper that includes – a) an argument for the theoretical connection and – b) a plan for how one might teach this theoretical perspective using these novels. + + =

What we learned 1. About co-teaching and issues with discussion-focused class as opposed to pedagogy-focused class…

Co-teaching and discussion Learning our strengths and weaknesses

Tammy’s notes concerning teaching – “Our teaching tonight I thought was good. I hate talking about New Criticism because it so go against everything I believe in as a critic. However, tonight worked – basically because Leslie did an awesome job in tying everything together in terms of theory and pedagogy/practice.”

Leslies’ notes concerning teaching – “A couple of things that stood out to me about tonight's work. First, the Socratic Seminar was the perfect blending of theory and pedagogy, because they were using the pedagogy to discuss the theory and the text. That, in a nutshell, is what we want the whole class to be.”

The difference? LiteraturePedagogical Practices Literary Theory Tammy’s quote was from the second week of class. Leslie’s quote was from the thirteenth week of class.

What we learned 2. Students really don’t know how to think deeply about literature analysis, or how to write a literary analysis…

“A somewhat unlikely combination of texts, I’m choosing Daniel Half Human and the Good Nazi, Tunes for Bears to Dance to, and Nothing. I’d also like to look at them through the Structuralism lens…The underlying structure is that all of the kids in the novel break society’s morals (or almost do), but the kids (for the most part) seem to show some remorse…as a future educator, I would seriously worry about the future about the kids in Nothing if I had any of them as students in my classroom. I think that these books would be great tools to teach Structuralism because the underlying structures within the books are relatively easy to find…After showing my students how Structuralism worked, I would ask them to write me a small paragraph explaining in their own words what Structuralism was. To wrap up the unit on Structuralism, I would ask students to pick 3 novels (not part of a series), and write a short paper tying those novels together using Structuralism theory.” Problems with literary analysis and pedagogy

“Although at first glance it may not seem like the books The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart, Tunes for Bears to Dance to by Robert Cormier, and Nothing by Janne Teller could be connected in any way, all of these novels treat power and morality in a manner that muddles their meanings. And even though the styles and content of each of these novels is starkly different, students in high school could be taught to find these muddy areas using the same theoretical lens. Using Deconstructionism, I hope to show that each novel portrays good and evil in a way that completely undermines its meaning by the book’s end and how to instruct students to find this moral reversal in each book.” Clear understanding of literary theory and pedagogy

What we learned 3. Reworking the approach to teaching pedagogy…

What we’ll do differently this spring Readings and modeling of pedagogy Preparation for literary analysis Continue to monitor and analyze our own teaching behaviors

Drs Mielke and Rush Literature Pedagogical Practices Literary Theory Learning Theories