Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Nerida Wayland
By appointment - please email to arrange.
Toby Davidson
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Credit points |
Credit points
4
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
Admission to MChildLit or MCrWrit or GradDipChildLit or GradDipCrWrit or MA in Children's Literature
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
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Unit description |
Unit description
This unit examines a range of literature written for adolescents and young adults. Issues which will be addressed include: the idea of a literature for young people, concepts of adolescence, representations of subjectivity, sexuality, gender, ideology and forms of social organisation. The unit also examines a range of genres, including fantasy, realism, experimental and historical genres.
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
Name | Weighting | Hurdle | Due |
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Participation | 10% | No | Weeks 1-12 |
Early Feedback Critical Review | 40% | No | 24 August, 2018 |
Major Essay | 50% | No | 11 November, 2018 |
Due: Weeks 1-12
Weighting: 10%
A threshold requirement for participation marks is attendance and involvement in all the seminars. Students must prepare for classes by reading and reflecting on the unit readings and contribute meaningfully to the weekly online discussions.
Due: 24 August, 2018
Weighting: 40%
Students must select 2 of the set novels for this unit and write a critical appraisal of these texts. Please see the LIT 848 Unit Handbook for further details.
Due: 11 November, 2018
Weighting: 50%
Please complete an essay on ONE of the topics supplied in the LIT 848 Handbook. Refer to at least two books from the set text list in your answer. You may choose to confine your discussion to books published in one country (for example, Australia, Britain or America) or a particular genre (for example, realism, fantasy, historical realism, etc.).
Weekly Seminars will involve online discussion of the primary and secondary readings. Contribution to all seminars is mandatory (please see ‘Participation’ under the heading Assessment).
Required Reading:
Critical Texts:
Primary Texts:
* There is no set reading for this first week
Literature written specifically for adolescents is a relatively recent cultural development. This session examines various issues in defining adolescent or young adult literature:
· Is there a need for a literature specifically for young people?
· Is young adult literature to be defined by what young people read or are there identifying features constituting ‘YA fiction’ as a genre?
· What kinds of subject matter do books for young people deal with?
· What kinds of narrative and textual strategies and genres are used?
· Are there predominant thematic and ideological concerns?
Jennifer Donnelly, A Gathering Light
Peter Hollindale, ‘The Adolescent Novel of Ideas’, Children’s Literature in Education, 26, 1, 1995
Roberta Seelinger Trites, Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Fiction, Chapter 1
Cat Yampbell, “Judging a Book by Its Cover: Publishing Trends in Young Adult Literature.” The Lion and the Unicorn 29.3 (2005) 348-372
How is adolescence represented in YA literature? What cultural assumptions about adolescence underlie its representation?
M.T. Anderson, Feed
Robyn McCallum, Ideologies of identity in Adolescent Fiction, Chapter 3
Discussion Topic
How is the formation of subjectivity represented in fiction for young people? Examine the effects of narrative techniques and structuring devices on the representation of subjectivity in Feed.
Judith Clarke, The Winds of Heaven
Roberta Seelinger Trites, Disturbing the Universe, Chapter 4
How does this novel represent the experience of growing up female? Compare/contrast the representation of female development and male/female relationships. What impact does genre and narrative technique have on the representation of gender?
John Green, Looking for Alaska
Beverly Pennell, ‘Redeeming Masculinity at the end of the second Millenium: Narrative Reconfigurations of Masculinity in Children’s Fiction’, in (Stephens, editor) Ways of Being Male: Representing Masculinities in Children's Literature.
Romeren, Rolf, and John Stephens, “Representing Masculinity in Norwegian and Australian Young Adult Fiction: A Comparative Study.” Pp. 216-33 in (Stephens, editor) Ways of Being Male: Representing Masculinities in Children's Literature.
Discussion Topic
How does Green represent the experience of growing up male? Compare/contrast the representation of male development and male/female relationships.
Mariko Tamaki, Skim
David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing
Secondary Reading
Beverly Pennell and John Stephens, ‘Queering Heterotopic Spaces: Shyam
Selvadurai’s Funny Boy and Peter Well’s Boy Overboard” in Ways of Being Male.
How do these novels represent the experience of growing up gay? Compare/contrast their representation of sexuality and male/female relationships. What impact does genre and narrative technique have on the representation of gender and sexuality?
Cory Doctorow, Little Brother
Secondary Reading
Roberta Seelinger Trites, Disturbing the Universe, Chapter 2
Robyn McCallum, Ideologies of Identity, Chapter 4
How are relationships between individuals, families and society, and relationships within families, conceived of in young adult fiction? To what extent are individuals depicted as empowered within the family, or society? What are the conditions of empowerment / disempowerment?
Mariko Tamaki, Skim
Jennifer Donnelly, A Gathering Light
Elizabeth Abel, Marianne Hirsch, and Elizabeth Langland, The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development (extract)
Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘The bildungsroman and its significance in the history of realism’ in Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, 1986
Jerome Buckley, Seasons of Youth: The bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding, 1974
How have the generic conventions and ideologies of the bildungsroman shaped the representation of development in young adult novels?
Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
John Stephens, Language and Ideology, Chapter 6
Robyn McCallum, Ideologies of Identity, Chapter 6
To what extent do the generic conventions of young adult fiction ‘rewrite’ history?
Lauren Myracle, ttyl
Secondary Reading
Victoria Flanagan, Technology and Identity in Young Adult Fiction: The Posthuman Subject, Chapter 6.
What effects do the use of innovative techniques and forms have for the representation of adolescence, subjectivity, sexuality and/or social relationships?
Steven Herrick, By the River
Clare Bradford, ‘Editorial comments’, Papers: Explorations in Children’s Literature, 7, 1, 1997
Heather Scutter, Displaced Fictions: Contemporary Australian Books for Teenagers and Young Adults, Chapter 4
To what extent are the so-called ‘real’ themes, such as alienation, dislocation, suicide and so on, associated with so much fiction for young people,
ideologically shaped and driven by social concerns and by the conventions of the genre? In what ways is ‘reality’ distinct from textuality?
Primary Reading
Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go
John Stephens, Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction, Chapter 7
What kinds of fantasy writing for young adults are there? What thematic and ideological functions does it perform?
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