Week 2 - Pop Culture & Awards

   

Pop Culture & Awards
So What is Pop Culture?

For a narrative about this topic read this article:  So what is pop culture? (2013) Mr. Pop Culture/Mr. Timeline. Retrieved from http://www.mrpopculture.com/what-is-pop-culture.

Find out how pop culture has influenced the young adult books that secondary readers are choosing -- and reacting to.
Think about how pop culture has changed in the past few years.  Once FACEBOOK was everyone's go to social media app.  Now twitter (Is it declining in popularity?), instagram, snapchat, and tiktoc, and other applications are making inroads in popularity.  
As you explore pop culture, copyright dates for the information is extremely important as pop culture 5 years ago is not the same pop culture that is in place today.  Using in-person interviews can provide up-to-date information regarding young adults and the culture they embrace.  Critical elements regarding information sources include age of  respondent (are they young adults), and timeliness of the information (is the information current?).
Check the APA style guide at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/  for correct format and citations.

Using Graphics in Your Media Productions

Copyright

When thinking about incorporating an author's or illustrator's work within a project / curriculum materials you or your students create you must remember that in general teachers (and their students) have latitude regarding use of copyrighted material IN THE CLASSROOM, under the fair use stipulation. Fair use does NOT cover republication to a wider audience such as YouTube or open websites.
An informative chart developed is available at https://bit.ly/fairuse-copyright.   In general if you use any copyrighted material in a project or printed curriculum/publication you must obtain written permission.  Generally it is acceptable to use a book jacket cover if one is reviewing a book, but interior illustrations require permission.  Note that an author/illustrator is generally not able to provide permission for use since, even though they own the copyright, the publisher in most cases has the right to control the copyright and the materials use.

During the 2020 pandemic many publishers granted temporary blanket permissions for educators to use their materials for online readings and so forth, but those permissions came with various conditions.  These conditions generally included limits on the duration the projects/readings could be displayed /shared publicly.  Because of this it is not permissible to incorporate these readings into graduate course projects or developed curriculum.  But the shared resources will be a help to those who have, because of the closure of libraries, limited access to the actual titles needed.
The School Library Journal has published a compilation of publisher permissions.
SLJ Staff. (2020 May 18). Publishers adapt policies to help educators.  School Library Journal.  Retrieved from https://bit.ly/SLJ-publisherpolicies.

Educators must model legal practices in regards to using image (and of course all other material).  This makes project building with images problematic as one can not legally just grab an image off the Internet and republish it.  Use strictly within the classroom can be justified in some instances as educational use, but then the project can not be displayed on You Tube, for example.  However Creative Commons has just posted a search engine that provides access to literally millions of images that can be used in non-commercial projects as they are in the public domain.  Check out the search engine here:  https://search.creativecommons.org/   One must still correctly cite all images on a credit page (whether printed or a media production).

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Award Titles - Newbery

Each year the American Library Association names award titles - the Newbery and Printz Awards are among the most prestigious for young adult books, but there are others as well.  Investigate the background of the awards and check out recent winners.  When will the next awards be announced?  Check the American Library Association's website at www.ala.org for the titles from past years and further information.                         ~~~

Newbery Winners 2021 (all published in 2020)
John Newbery Medal is given annually for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature: 

Award Winner-

When You Trap a Tiger  by Tae Keller (Random House Children’s Books)

Honor Books-

All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat and (Candlewick Press)

BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Michele Wood (Candlewick Press) 

Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (Dial Books for Young Readers)

We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly, illustrated by Erin Entrada Kelly and Celia Krampien (Greenwillow Books)

A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat (Candlewick Press)

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Printz Award

The Printz Award is given under the auspices of the YALSA division of the ALA. YALSA has instituted a searchable web database that will provide the names and such for award winners and honor books. Visit the site at: http://booklists.yalsa.net/

Annotations here are shared from the ALA official release page - http://www.ala.org/yalsa/printz

Printz Award 2021

Everything Sad Is Untrue (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri (Arthur A. Levine) -- In an autobiographical novel, middle-schooler Daniel, formerly Khosrou, tells his unimpressed and at times cruel classmates about his experience as an Iranian refugee.

2021 Printz Honor Awards

• Apple (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth (Arthur A. Levine) --Gansworth—an enrolled member of the Onandaga Nation—revisits his childhood and teen years spent on a Tuscarora reservation in this ambitious and searing memoir. Told in verse and accompanied by original art, Gansworth’s compelling coming of age story is a moving, illuminating exploration of otherness, intergenerational trauma, and resilience.   
• Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang, color by Lark Pien (First Second Books) -- Gene Luen Yang never would have guessed that he would be working on a graphic novel about a basketball team, but he found inspiration in the men’s varsity team at Bishop O’Dowd High School. The games are only a small portion of the story, though, as readers learn about the history of basketball as well as Yang’s personal journey.   
• Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh (Dutton Books for Young Readers) -- In this novel in verse, Ada recounts her freshman year as a first generation student attending a Historically Black College, while simultaneously taking the reader through her younger life. Ada feels the pressure to make money from her major, but she ultimately realizes that dance is what connects, energizes, and sustains her.  
• We Are Not Free by Traci Chee (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) -- Just months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued the Civilian Exclusion Order, forcing the tight knit community of Japantown teens and their families to incarceration camps.  Author Traci Chee deftly manages fourteen narratives all with a unique voice and experience. The lives of these teens may have been forever changed, but as Chee writes, “We are not free. But we are not alone."

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Alex Award

The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing. The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998 and became an official ALA award in 2002. Locate one title from the current year's ALEX award list. Research reviews and information about the title you select and share a comment on that title. A starting place would be at http://www.ala.org/yalsa/alex-awards - the American Library Association's site. There will be links to the current year winners and honor titles and past winners/honor titles as well.

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 New Adult Literature 

 St. Martin's Press first coined the term in 2009, when they held a special call for "...fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an 'older YA' or 'new adult'." This article will provide some insight ... Wetta, M. (n.d.) So what is "new adult" fiction, anyway? EBSCO. Retrieved from https://www.ebscohost.com/novelist/novelist-special/what-is-new-adult-fiction-anyway . The article originally appeared in the September 2013 issue of RA News. Our text Young Adult Literature and Multimedia discusses this new genre in Chapter 53: Adult Books and the Teenage Reader. The Horn Book has an article that will add more information to this discussion. 
Brookover, Sophie, Elizabeth Burns, and Kelly Jensen. (17 December 2013) "Borderlands: What's New About New Adult?" Horn Book. Retrieved from http://www.hbook.com/2013/12/choosing-books/horn-book-magazine/whats-new-about-new-adult/. Interested in your reaction and comments.

And for another perspective on the NEW ADULT books, you might read this article:  Poelle, Barbara. (2018 Sept 25). Funny You Should Ask; What Is New Adult Fiction?  Writer's Digest.  https://www.writersdigest.com/publishing-insights/funny-you-should-ask-what-is-new-adult-fiction

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If you are not familiar with these award titles or the awards themselves -- START READING.
End of Week 2 Newsletter.


End of Newsletter - Week 2