CFP for 2018 MLA 4H: History, Hamilton, & Hip hop in High School

Here's the paper call for the session I'm chairing at MLA in 2018.

CFP for 2018 MLA

4H:History, Hamilton, & Hip hop in High School

2018 MLA Conference, New York City, January 4-7, 2018

Session sponsored by MLA’s Children & Young Adult Literature Forum

This session will examine the range of innovative informational texts and historical fictions that introduce young adult readers to significant events and figures in American history and culture in innovative formats. The session will consider creative texts that move beyond the traditional, and sometimes dull textbook approach, to reimagine American history and attempt to reach young adult readers/viewers in nontraditional ways. Possible texts might include, but are not limited to, the cast recording of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton; John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell’s March trilogy; Kate Schatz’s Rad American Women A-Z; Don Brown’s Drowned City; Carole Boston Weatherford’s Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer; Derek Waters’s Drunk History; and John and Hank Green’s Crash Course YouTube Channel. The session will appraise the multiple methods that contemporary writers and illustrators are using to present and represent American history and culture in inventive, but accurate, ways that will resonate with contemporary young adults.

Send 250-word abstract by March 10, 2017 to Jan Susina (jcsusina@ilstu.edu) . In order to participate in this session, you need to be a member of MLA by April 7, 2017.

Jan Susina

Professor of English

English Department

Illinois State University

MLA panel on Children's Literature & the Common Core

The MLA Division of Children’s Literature will be sponsoring the session “Children’s Literature and the Common Core” on Thursday, January 9, 2014, from 3:30-4:45 p.m. in the Belmont Room (4th floor) of the Chicago Marriott Hotel during the 129th annual Modern Language Association Conference. This panel is open to the public.

The New York Times has called the controversial Common Core State Standards, “the most important educational reform in the country.” Defending the Common Core, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state school superintendents that he found it  “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core has come from “white suburban moms who—all of a sudden—their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”  

Using a roundtable format, five speakers will examine the effects of the English Language Arts Standards of the Common Core State Standards on the teaching of college courses in Children’s and Young Adult Literature.  The featured speakers for the session are Sarah Minslow, University of North Carolina, Charlotte; Kristin McIlhagga, Michigan State University; Michelle Holley Martin, University of South Carolina, Columbia; Joe Sutliff Sanders, Kansas State University; and Daniel D. Hade, Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

While each speaker will present prepared remarks for 5-7 minutes, the session is intended to be an active dialogue and discussion between the speakers and the members of the audience.  Speakers will consider if the Common Core State Standards effectively prepares students for college-level academic work and literacy for the workplace. The political and social implications behind the stated education goals of the Common Core will be examined. 

Since the Common Core recommends that 70% of the texts used by the twelfth grade should be informational texts, how will this effect of the teaching of fiction, poetry, and drama?   Can the Common Core address issues of cultural diversity given the increasing gap between students of color and their predominately white K-12 teachers? 

The session has been selected as part of the conference’s Presidential Theme of “Vulnerable Times” and is chaired by Jan Susina, Illinois State University.

Dickens' quotation books

The students in the Dickens course this semester made very creative quotation books.  The assignment was to keep track of interesting quotations in the Dickens books we were reading.  At the end of the semester, they were to hand in the quotation book.  It had to have quotations from each book and to have illustrations as well.  Lots of cool ideas: from quotes in a box, handmade books, re-imagined Moleskins, computerized layouts.  A fun assignment for me to grade.  Here's a photo of some of the quotation book results

Is reading dangerous?

Could reading fiction, especially stories with violence and death, be dangerous?  Mark West, my friend who is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, addressed this question on a recent segment of the television show "America Now." Here's the link to 'How reading habits affect personality.'

Mark says if a person habitually reads fiction, its likely a way for them to flee their own reality. It takes you out of your world and puts you into a more exciting world, it's a sense of escape essentially."

One of the appeals of reading is that escape from a typical day into a different world.  Readers learn about how the protagonists solve problems, fight demons, slay dragons.  We all don't have dragons to slay, anymore.  But reading fiction often helps get our wheels turning to think about how we can solve problems -- not with swords and guns -- but intelligently and smartly.

By the way, Mark's office, which is lined with books and objects related to contemporary culture, looks very cool. 

While re-reading Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend for the Dickens seminar this week, I am reminded how the novel often parallels contemporary life.  We are still concerned about dust, dirt and recycling, about the rich and the poor, about choosing the right person to marry. Reading Dickens, we can see how the characters approached their problems, and perhaps how we can avoid some of those mistakes, or perhaps not.

Fall 2012: Dickens novels course

The syllabi for ENG 329, Dickens novels course, is now available on my website, in .pdf format.  Click here.  This should be a great course.  It's timed to coincide with Dickens' 200th birthday and related celebrations.  Looking forward to a great semester.

For those in the course, be sure to read John Forester's Life of Charles Dickens, Book 1, chapter 2 (pages 11-19) about the author's early life.  Here's a link to that section in the book.