The instruments for assessment in ENG350 will be a number of writing assignments, ranging from informal through in-class essays (which you may think of as open-book tests), and one formal paper with some research.  Your grade will be based on class participation (20%), in-class writing (40%) and an out-of-class paper incorporating some research (40%) (as adjusted after discussion in class).  In-class writing will be on assigned topics based on one or more of the assigned readings.

Note: Since this requirement has been deleted in favor of a class participation grade and more weight in the out-of-class paper grade, you may want to use the following suggestions for journal entries as guidelines for what you pay attention to while reading.

Your reading journal will help you with your in-class writing, since it will help you "fix" details of your reading and aid your memory.  It will also add to the range of work to be graded, distributing your grade across out-of-class informal writing, out-of-class formal research writing, and in-class writing.

I'd like you to keep an entry on each book, identifying the author (and paying attention to his or her gender so that you can write about the author in an informed way), the main characters (with any information that seems important to understanding them), the point of view used, any important elements of plotting or genre, any recurring patterns that point to themes and symbolism, and important questions or issues that arise in your reading.  You can use these journal entries to aid you in class discussion and in-class essay writing, and you can add notes to them during class discussion.  I'll check them at least once a week, to help you stay on top of this assignment (so you aren't doing it all at the end of the session when you need to be focusing on your research paper).

Many people do not take literature written for young adults seriously.  They believe that it is "light reading," or they believe all young adult literature is inferior in literary achievement to literature written for adults.  I hope that by the end of this course, you will not be one of those people!

Select one of the books that we are reading in this session, or revisit a book for young adults that you read in the past.  (You'll be surprised how much more you find in that book now, if you read it in grade 6 or 7 or 8!)  Your paper will be a critical paper looking at some significant aspect of that book.  You may analyze plot structure or character development or a theme or symbolism, using a "formalist" approach; or you may discuss the book from a particular critical perspective (e.g., ecocriticism, feminist criticism, postcolonial criticism, reader response theory, deconstructionist theory, cultural criticism).

You should do some research to support your own thinking about the book.  I encourage you to use the Literature Resource Center (online at the library's Website) and online interviews and book reviews.  You may use biographical information, if you think it helps make your point.  You may also use a little information about your theoretical approach, if you think it will be valuable to the reader.

I will not specify the number of resources you should use, because the number of useful sources available varies widely, depending on the author that you choose.  I will show you a paper written about Monster several years ago that was published in the Philomathean, BC's journal of top-quality student writing; the paper makes excellent use of fairly limited sources. Instead of numbers of quotations or sources, though, what I am most interested in is a well-developed literary argument that makes good use of what you have found and that is thoroughly documented with specific references from the book you are writing about.  I'll be happy to help you develop your topic and plan your paper, and I'll be glad to talk through any writing issues that arise.

Your paper on any book we’re reading in class should run about 6-8 double-spaced pages and should use some research to support your arguments.  Use MLA format in incorporating your research and formatting the paper.  The paper will be due the last day of class.

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