Joural 3

In this journal I want to talk about my idea for my own young adult story. The story will be inspired by my own life and the way I think now, but for a teenage audience. It will be about a teenage boy searching for something outside the societal norm as a way to live. He has grown up thinking that the only path he has to choose is college, then career, then marriage, then children, all the way to retirement. He has always known that he wanted something different from this norm but never knew what other options he had to choose from. He will be exposed to a vagabonding sort of lifestyle, either by a friend, someone older, or perhaps literature. (How I will expose this to the character I am not sure yet, perhaps it will take a number of these things to really open up the character to these things.) The novel will begin with exploring the characters mundane life and how he yearns for something more, something new. He will have his ow traveling experience that will ensure him that this vagabonding lifestyle is what he wants his life to be. My idea is that a young adult audience will connect with the idea of wanting more out of life then the lifestyle that is laid out for so many of us. Hopefully a reader will realize from this book that there are options and that there are others who have gone off the beaten path and mad their own futures. 

Journal 2

For this Journal I wanted to talk about the book "Liar" that we read for class. The discussion in class was primarily about metaphors and symbols in the text. A class discussion should not be based around the simple question "Did you like the book?", rather that question should be answered outside of class, as in a journal entry. To answer the simple question, no I did not like this book at all. The first section of the book made it into a crime drama set in a high school and rather than following the case or a detective, we followed a student. There were parts that were cliche that have been done before, like the grief of the students and the questions and rumors that arose. The text did not progress very quickly and the reader was not drawn in. Then we got to the second section. In here we find out that the main character is actually a ware wolf, and she has been lieing to the reader the whole time, even though she made it clear she would not. This section was just ridiculous, I almost couldn't keep reading. It was if the author got bored half way through and didn't know where to go for the story, so she just tossed this in. This section was not a believable plot twist. It was too different and too ridiculous for the reader to take seriously. The third section really just exposed the many lies that were told to the reader. Because I was lied to the whole time, it made me question the point of actually reading the first parts of the book. In class many ideas were brought up about what the book may actually be about or what may actually be happening. A reoccurring idea was that she was in a mental hospital and all of this was not real. My problem here is that I did not see enough evidence in the text to make me believe that that was what actually happened. If something that "out of left field" was what the story actually was, then we as readers need more evidence to lead us to that understanding. I'm just being honest in this journal, saying I very much did not like this book. In class discussion is  no place for simple "I liked/disliked this book" statements, so I will save said statements for journals.

Journal 1

Coming into this class I was not sure what to expect. Would we be reading books like Harry Potter and the Hunger Games, or looking at pieces of literature that were for a younger audience? Would it be a discussion based class, or a class about how to teach these books to former students? So far I very much enjoy the discussion aspect of the class. It seems to be mostly discussion based with some comments given and some discussion on how we may approach teaching these books to students. I would not enjoy a class that was primarily based on how to go about teaching these books. Like others in the class I do not plan on going straight into teaching after college and I would much rather have a class where discussion of the books as a whole is the primary objective. I look forward to all the books we will read this semester and look forward to getting insight from the other students. I have enjoyed most of my literature classes while in college as it is a relief to have other students that actually completed the reading. I also look forward to writing the first chapter of my own young adult novel. I have some ideas brewing and after a full semester working on it I think the final outcome will be solid.