Too often, adults recommend books that they value to adolescents, but which teens do not appreciate. In this course, we will look at the books teens have enjoyed in the past and still enjoy, as well as more modern books: Little Women, Blood & Chocolate, the “Clique” books, Monster, etc. We will also critically analyze and discuss these, the place these books have in the classroom and in teens' pleasure reading and the themes dominant in the literature.
Anne Devereaux Jordan is the author of eleven books, and founder of the Children’s Literature Association |
This course will focus on the explosion of African American creativity that took place at the beginning of the last century during the largest internal migration in modern history: the movement of millions of African Americans from the rural south to the industrial north. This course will begin with the premise that at the core of African American culture, from gospel and blues to jazz, from folk tales and sermons to novels is poetry. We will read the major figures such as McKay, Hughes and Hurston but also poets like Anne Spencer, Georgia Douglas Johnson and Alice Dunbar.