Book orders for the spring semester are due in a week, and I'm teaching Representing Adolescence again. Because I like to mix it up, and because it feels a little shocking to me to teach the same syllabus twice in a row (like cheating, somehow), I'm going to do a mostly new booklist.
BUT WHICH BOOKS????
So far, the only title I have settled on for sure is Justine Larbalestier's LIAR.
But what else would be good? I haven't organized a theme or anything yet, I just know that I need to teach Liar. I'm contemplating Courtney Summers' Cracked Up to Be and/or Peter Cameron's Someday this pain will be useful to you, because they are books I like a lot, but I'm not quite sure that I really know what to do with them.
I'd like to stick to mainly realist fiction, novels or films. I may do some TV again - some Glee, perhaps, maybe some bowing to the inevitable and some Freaks & Geeks.
But the books are the essential, and I'm just not sure which to choose. The course, after all, is about representing adolescence, so the books need to lend themselves to thinking about the ways in which adolescence is represented, regulated, etc.
Any suggestions? I'm vaguely tempted to do some of the books I have real problems with: Twilight, 13 Reasons Why, Like the Red Panda because I think they'd provide good discussion. At the same time, do I really want to read any of those books again?
Suggestions?
Ideas?
Advice?
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2 comments:
When I taught identity for my developmental psychology class, I often used the lyrics to "Numb" by Linkin Park and clips from the movie The Incredibles.
I recommend song lyrics (perhaps you can find something more current) because many of them depict adolescent emotions very concisely. You can read the song/poem together in the class and discuss it immediately. You can then ask your students to find another example and either write about it or present it in class.
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