College Students Writing For Teens

Taylor Kowalski

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I believe the other books in the list are Water for Elephants, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and some graphic novel called Stitches.


I admit I find Elephants a bit odd, but why is the rest of it strange?

It's just a very wide array. The YA course offered at my university focused almost exclusively on contemporary YA, the likes of John Green and Rainbow Rowell. There weren't any fantasy novels listed in the course curriculum, as I recall. So that struck me as strange--in a good way--to begin with. I'd also be interested to see how the professor chooses to link them all together, beyond the obvious fact that they all have teenage protagonists. ;)
 

Taylor Kowalski

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You're definitely at a higher level than I am. I get to sign my own official documents but I still get called "buddy". What the heck is that?

Ha, that's a bit strange. One day you'll soon be elevated to the lofty status of "sir"!

I'm pretty sure being an "adult" is when you get to the point where giving gifts at Christmas really IS more important than receiving them :p I just reached that point this year.

Oh, that's a good one. That's exactly where I am too. I've spent an uncommon amount of time, money, and energy on gifts for the important people in my life this year. And I'm stupidly excited for them to receive them. :D
 

Imbroglio

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I decided to go back because I realized recently that I don't want to do my stupid day job forever, and I might as well do something to kill time until I'm a famous, multi-published author. Right? :p

Pretty much my motivation for doing anything. Although I'm almost finished with college and it's making me nervous as the dickens.

Ha, that's a bit strange. One day you'll soon be elevated to the lofty status of "sir"!

I guess I have a very boyish look. Plus I'm short. I should start wearing heels, I think that would help in more ways than one.
 

Maramoser

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How do you do, fellow kids? I'm going into my last semester of college so I have to look for real people jobs and stuff :chair As emotionally unprepared as I am for that, I definitely feel like an adult, especially when I'm on campus. I can pick out freshmen within two seconds of talking to them (useless superpower).

ETA: necessary disclaimer--I like freshmen. it's the sophomores I don't like. :D
 
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It's just a very wide array. The YA course offered at my university focused almost exclusively on contemporary YA, the likes of John Green and Rainbow Rowell. There weren't any fantasy novels listed in the course curriculum, as I recall. So that struck me as strange--in a good way--to begin with. I'd also be interested to see how the professor chooses to link them all together, beyond the obvious fact that they all have teenage protagonists. ;)


Hmm. That's interesting. I wonder what the results would be if someone did a reading list survey of various colleges offering some equivalent of YA Lit.
 

Maramoser

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Yay, other people feel my pain! Just kidding, I don't really have any pain yet because I'm in denial and still planning to spend my (extensive) winter break working mostly on writing. I have half of a job interview outfit and most of a resume assembled. That's progress, right?
 

EmilyBrooke

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I'm starting my spring semester next week and here's the list of books I'll need for my upcoming Adolescent Lit. course!

The Book Thief
The Giver
The House on Mango Street
Crank
The Outsiders

I have to say I'm kind of disappointed with the selection. For one thing, The Giver is a book I associate with Middle Grade and seems more fitting for the Children's Lit. class I took last semester, where we studied Harry Potter and bits from The Hobbit and Tuck Everlasting. I also wish the most recent novel wasn't from 2006. I was definitely hoping to see at least one novel from more recent years. I don't know. I'm just kind of meh about this list. Except for The Book Thief and The Giver (which I absolutely love, despite my earlier complaint). I could definitely do without Crank, to be honest.

What novels would you want to see in an adolescent literature class?
 
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I'm starting my spring semester next week and here's the list of books I'll need for my upcoming Adolescent Lit. course!

The Book Thief
The Giver
The House on Mango Street
Crank
The Outsiders

I have to say I'm kind of disappointed with the selection. For one thing, The Giver is a book I associate with Middle Grade and seems more fitting for the Children's Lit. class I took last semester, where we studied Harry Potter and bits from The Hobbit and Tuck Everlasting. I also wish the most recent novel wasn't from 2006. I was definitely hoping to see at least one novel from more recent years. I don't know. I'm just kind of meh about this list. Except for The Book Thief and The Giver (which I absolutely love, despite my earlier complaint). I could definitely do without Crank, to be honest.

What novels would you want to see in an adolescent literature class?


Only five books? And only one of them is really current... Weird.
 

EmilyBrooke

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So today was my first day of classes and my instructor explained that he's a slow reader and wants to read the books with us, as well as give us some extra weeks to work on creative writing or focus on books we might have read outside of the required list. The class looks promising so far (although, something more recent or a couple more books to study as a class would be awesome). He's also an agented author so that's pretty sweet.
 

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I've never read a current, recently published book for a class :( always 80s-90s era books. And the children's lit course I took once was sooooo lame. Barely any grasp of what YA even is. The "YA" novel we read was about an eleven-year-old in the 1930s befriending an old man, and it was like 150 pages long. We read a lot of picture books, too, that were obviously self-pubbed POD books. It was kind of bizarre, actually.
 

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Even in high school the required reading for lit was never more recent than the 80's. As a freshman, last semester was Greek poems/plays and now we're moving onto stuff like Dante and Beowulf. Guess my school feels like lit is supposed to tell us something about how people thought and felt in a different time period, and we don't necessarily need to read modern stuff to figure that kind of thing out about our own times.
 

inkspatters

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I'm surprised that so many of your classes are focused on 80s-90s books. I've studied a whole slew of books published in the 2000s at University (they don't outnumber the not-so-current books, but there have still been plenty of them in my courses). I've always felt as if the canon's out of vogue in academia.

My high school was super focused on teaching the canon, though.

Liosse, 12-22 strikes me as about right for academic discussions of "YA Lit".
 

TheDancingWriter

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I'm a senior in college. I'm doing online courses now, but when I went to my brick-and-mortar uni, I was supposed to take a class on YA fiction when I originally wanted to be a high school teacher, and the professor was very open to what books could be taught in her class. The Hunger Games was among them.

I took a class in children's literature, too, from this same professor, and it was actually really interesting, pointing out old children's literature to some of the newest stuff today. I loved that class.
 

rmkrisby

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I'm a senior in college. I'm doing online courses now, but when I went to my brick-and-mortar uni, I was supposed to take a class on YA fiction when I originally wanted to be a high school teacher, and the professor was very open to what books could be taught in her class. The Hunger Games was among them.

I took a class in children's literature, too, from this same professor, and it was actually really interesting, pointing out old children's literature to some of the newest stuff today. I loved that class.

45135547.jpg


Seriously. Boo! :/
 
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Becca C.

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Hi guys :) soooooo my application to go back into school (online) has been sent in, application fees paid. The only thing awaiting me and acceptance is the university getting my transcript in the mail and applying previously earned credits to my new program. Eek! I'm going to be a student again! Hopefully this time it will be better. Well, just by virtue of not having to drive an hour to a school I hated to be with people I hated will make it better.

I'm going to take pretty much every available language course they have :p Unfortunately they don't have advanced French classes available (I'm already fluent so beginners courses are a no go), but they do have German, Spanish, and Greek. Yay!
 

Maramoser

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I'm a biology major, so I have nothing to contribute to this conversation about what I'm reading in class. haha. My current academic concern is that this semester I'm teaching review sessions for a lower-level genetics class and that (even though I've done this before lol) the prof is gonna finally realize that I have no idea what I'm doing. plus this is my last semester so taking on anything that involves extra effort/not having senioritis on my part was probably ill-advised.

Becca, what are you studying? Besides All the Languages? (Greek sounds hard..but fun!)
 
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Hi guys :) soooooo my application to go back into school (online) has been sent in, application fees paid. The only thing awaiting me and acceptance is the university getting my transcript in the mail and applying previously earned credits to my new program. Eek! I'm going to be a student again! Hopefully this time it will be better. Well, just by virtue of not having to drive an hour to a school I hated to be with people I hated will make it better.

I'm going to take pretty much every available language course they have :p Unfortunately they don't have advanced French classes available (I'm already fluent so beginners courses are a no go), but they do have German, Spanish, and Greek. Yay!



That's awesome! :partyguy:



I often wish I was back in school, but currently circumstances prevent it.

Hope you enjoy it obnoxious-people free.
 

Becca C.

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I'm a biology major, so I have nothing to contribute to this conversation about what I'm reading in class. haha. My current academic concern is that this semester I'm teaching review sessions for a lower-level genetics class and that (even though I've done this before lol) the prof is gonna finally realize that I have no idea what I'm doing. plus this is my last semester so taking on anything that involves extra effort/not having senioritis on my part was probably ill-advised.

Becca, what are you studying? Besides All the Languages? (Greek sounds hard..but fun!)

Three-four years ago I was in a Creative Writing program for three terms, so I'm just transferring those credits into a bachelor's degree program for English. I have no idea what I want to do long-term, but that's a good start considering where my interests lie.

I sort of have an eye toward the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in children's writing. The program is just fabulous. Expensive, but hey, you shouldn't really hold yourself back because of money when it comes to education. That's what student loans are for.
 

Maramoser

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@Becca: yeah, English degrees are pretty flexible! Which is perfect for keeping long-term options open. Of course, you don't want your options to be so open that you have no idea what you're going to do when you graduate even when graduation is imminent...*points at self*

I say go for the fabulous-est program you can get. Maybe I'm looking at their website wrong, but it doesn't even look that expensive, for an American school. Which is kind of sad, lol. I've never done any kind of formal writing class, even at the undergraduate level. I almost signed up for the intro to fiction writing at my school, but I got the inside scoop from a girl who was in it at the time...and to say her classmates were all the weirdest of the weird writing the weirdest things ever is an understatement. Like, the creepy people I actively avoid, who were writing very disturbing and out-of-place pornographic things with creepy undertones, not just eccentrics. (this is what I get for going to a school that's all eccentrics)
 

Becca C.

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@Becca: yeah, English degrees are pretty flexible! Which is perfect for keeping long-term options open. Of course, you don't want your options to be so open that you have no idea what you're going to do when you graduate even when graduation is imminent...*points at self*

I say go for the fabulous-est program you can get. Maybe I'm looking at their website wrong, but it doesn't even look that expensive, for an American school. Which is kind of sad, lol. I've never done any kind of formal writing class, even at the undergraduate level. I almost signed up for the intro to fiction writing at my school, but I got the inside scoop from a girl who was in it at the time...and to say her classmates were all the weirdest of the weird writing the weirdest things ever is an understatement. Like, the creepy people I actively avoid, who were writing very disturbing and out-of-place pornographic things with creepy undertones, not just eccentrics. (this is what I get for going to a school that's all eccentrics)

Oh no XD yeah, there were a couple of those in the writing classes I've taken. And a lot of Friendzone Freds writing stories about girls with amazing male best friends and "why won't they just hook up with them already, I mean they're practically already dating so they might as well give up the sex" type stories that were obviously inspired by their real lives. And people who wrote poems with just a few random words thrown together and then the teacher would go on and on about how brilliant they are.

Vermont College's program appeals to me because a) it focuses on writing for teens and children, not pretentious poetry stuff, and b) it focuses on commercial writing. They want you to write stuff you can sell in the current market and make a living from, not stuff that's going to confine you to a dusty attic studio, eating Ramen noodles forever.

So yeah. As far as creative writing programs go, Vermont is a very practical choice indeed! It seems expensive to me because I've only ever gone to fairly cheap Canadian universities (~$1000 per semester, depending on how many courses), lived at home and have to pay for it all myself :p But yeah, there are much more expensive schools. And because it's post-grad education, it's easier to get bigger loans for it.
 

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I have a really difficult time with writing about people younger than me, so I don't write teen fiction anymore. The 19 to 20 transition was painful for me last year. I suddenly didn't belong in the age group I most identified with.
 

Becca C.

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I have a really difficult time with writing about people younger than me, so I don't write teen fiction anymore. The 19 to 20 transition was painful for me last year. I suddenly didn't belong in the age group I most identified with.

That's sad, Xanthe :(

I can't really write about anyone older than 18, 19. When I was young, I pretty much wrote protagonists that were the same age as me, but when I turned 18 I never went any higher. Honestly, I can't see myself ever writing anything for an audience over low-age NA.