home

=John Green Author Study=

**10th Grade Unit**
Students will read John Green's work, including //The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska,// and //Will Grayson, Will Grayson// in order to interpret how Green's narratives provide insight on the complexities of adolescence and growing up. Students will look at how ** character development is shaped??? ** (** characters can be shaped or characters can be developed) ** in Green's narratives. As a class, we will critically examine how Green is constructing adolescents in novel. We will discover what he is, as an author, saying to and about adolescents through his narratives and** why he is saying what's he saying. (??? work on careful editing of your own writing.) ** By reading three of Green's five novels, students are able to closely examine a popular author's style ** critically.?? (placement of adv. in sentence?) ** This will also allow students to access Green's other works and use those works for comparison ** with this idea.?? **
 * Rationale:**
 * Why is it relevant and/or important (worthy?) to read Green with kids??? Other YA authors also provide "insight." **

How does one author shift narrative voice from novel to novel? In what ways does an author create the narrative voice of adolescents in these novels? How does the role of oft experienced challenges allow readers to relate to narrative voice? How are the author's characters constructed in ** their?? (author is singular) ** novels? In what way does the author ** reinstate?? (reinforce?) ** or ** eliminate??? ** (** challenge? **) socially constructed norms for adolescents?
 * Essential Questions:**

Students will be able to analyze narrative voice. Students will be able to identify how narrative voice functions within the novels. Students will be able to examine character development. Students will be able to extrapolate the dominant discourses that have shaped an author's writing and construction of characters.
 * Established Goals:**

Rest of UBD Template??

 * Text Sets: Nice text set Megan **

1. //The Fault in Our Stars// by John Green

2. //Looking for Alaska// by John Green

3. //Will Grayson, Will Grayson// by John Green and David Leviathan

4. "On Narrative Voice" by Victor Lavalle and Amy Minton (found [|here], this article offers an easy to read discussion of narrative voice in texts)

5. "Landscapes of City and Self: Place and Identity in Urban Young Adult Literature" by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. (found [|here], portions of this article will be used to focus on the urban settings described in //The Fault in Our Stars// [Amsterdam and Indianapolis] and //Will Grayson, Will Grayson// [New York City])

6. "'Star'-Crossed: When Teens With Cancer Fall In Love". [|NPR radio interview] with John Green

7. "'The Fault in Our Stars': Love In A Time Of Cancer" by Rachel Syme, [|NPR book review].

8. //Looking for Alaska// [|book review] by Alexis Burling.

9. "The Fault in Our Stars" - John Green's YouTube [|video] about the novel

10. "Wrong but Right: Thoughts from Places Amsterdam" John Green's YouTube [|video] about places seen in the novel //The Fault in Our Stars//

11. //Will Grayson, Will Grayson// Booklist [|review] by John Peters.

12. "I Am Not A Pornographer" John Green's YouTube [|video] about the content of //Looking for Alaska//.

13. "Developing students' critical literacy: Exploring identity construction in young adult literature." by Thomas W. Bean and Karen Moni (article found in PDF form [|here])

14. "Vernacular in Young Adult Fiction" by Steven Salvatore Shaw. (This article discusses how teen voices and slang are constructed in YA literature and can be found [|here])

15. "Young Adult Literature in the 21st Century: Moving Beyond Traditional Constraints and Conventions" by Jeffrey S. Kaplan. (This article discusses the genre of YA, how science fiction is influencing authors of YA lit, and how identity is constructed in YA lit and can be found [|here])

16. "How To Make A Girl: Female Sexuality in Young Adult Literature" by Ann Elizabeth Younger. (This is a dissertation that covers a wide variety of how female sexuality is portrayed in various YA sub-genres and can be found [|here])

17. "The Approximate Cost of Loving Caroline" by John Green in //Twice Told: Original Stories Inspired Original Art//.

18. "Freak the Geek" by John Green in //Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd.//

19. "The Great American Morp" by John Green in //21 Proms.//

20. YouTube video made my John Green about //Will Grayson, Will Grayson// (found [|here])


 * Calendar**

Lesson One - Narrative Voice Lesson Two - Character Development Lesson Three - Feminist Theory
 * Lesson Plans:**

For their final assessment students will create an author study of their own based on the authors they read in their Lit Circles. The students will focus on one author from the six they read and write an expository piece of writing that discusses how the author is constructing adolescents, adults, school, sex and sexuality, and characterization of gender stereotypes.** (I assume students are focusing on a single topic.) ** The students will also focus on what the author is saying about and to adolescents through their novels and the constructions previously mentioned. Students will use their understanding of what the author is saying and come to a conclusion about the author says this. More specifically, they will be begin to critically examine what discourses have shaped the author's representation of young adults in their novels. ** So all of this is going to be accomplished in a single essay?? **
 * Final Assessment:**