Book Talk of a Young Adult Text

Book Talk of a Young Adult Text

Engl 493

Each student is required to choose a young adult text and prepare a short talk to introduce the text to the class. As a teacher of adolescents, you will want to familiarize yourself with as much literature as possible that speaks to a younger reading audience. These book talks will assist you in becoming familiar with the text that you choose, as well as the variety of texts that your classmates choose. Each student will be asked to provide a handout detailing the text for his/her classmates. The book talk of a young adult text is worth 10% of the final grade for the course.

What to include in your presentation and handout:

1.      Please include a detailed description of the text. Take into consideration that your colleagues might not be familiar with the text that you have chosen. A detailed description will include everything necessary for your classmates to gain an understanding of the text without reading it. Your job is to introduce the text in a complete way so that it is possible for others to decide when, where, and how this text might be appropriate.

2.      Please explain why you chose this text. What was your rationale? For whom is this text appropriate? Please consider age, ability, and any other factor you find important. Why is it appropriate for this group of students?

3.      Please include some teaching ideas. How do you envision this text being used in a secondary classroom? Provide at least 3 specific ideas for what is possible with this text.

4.      Please consider some obstacles to using this text. What are the potential issues that may arise from using this text? Predict an administrator’s response to the use of this text. Predict parents’ responses. Predict students’ responses.

5.      Anything else you think is important for us to know and understand about this text and its use with students.

Book talks will be about 10 minutes each with an additional few minutes for questions and brief discussion about your text. When you have decided on a text, please email me (sagriss@ewu.edu) with your selection. This way we can avoid overlap of texts. One of the goals of this assignment is to increase your potential library of texts, so it is important that we each choose something different. I will OK texts based on the order in which I receive emails. If you choose a text that someone else has already chosen, I will ask you to choose a different text.

Book Talk of Young Adult Text

Evaluation Rubric

____ / 10 Detailed outline of text

____ / 10 Rationale for choosing the text

____ / 10 Teaching ideas

____ / 10 Obstacles

____ / 5 Handout

____ / 5 Presentation