Homework:  Yes!  Required reading and writing at home.  Please plan for 2 hours/week at least!  This class is 75% reading and 25% writing.

Welcome all inquiring minds to a brand new course I am excited to teach at Huck! As the name suggests, this is indeed a book club. However, the thesis of this class is different from a common book club. Most discussion in a class like this focuses on plot (what happens in a story) and perhaps, with close reading skills, deeper symbolic or thematic elements that can be learned from the text. Those are important conversations to have. Yet, this class will unpack the connective tissue all novels––from Dante’s Inferno to Nancy Drew to East of Eden––share.

Each trimester, students will read two books. The first will be a classic work of Children’s

Literature. This novel will hold the traditional values and elements of craft curriculums seek in

order to aid a young mind’s growth. However, less traditional genre-based works (children’s

novels I’ve deemed Fan Favorites) also maintain these important fundamentals. It is in

recognizing similarities where students will grow the most. Bear in mind, we will always start

with the classic, and any selection from a series will always be the first of the series.

Lectures are intended to produce group discourse around those skills writers use in the drafting room that make it to bookstore shelves. We will talk about character development, subtext, the two modes of description, interiority, the four layers of conflict, the functions of dialogue, and the distinctions between POV and perspective. Weekly reading between the two works will develop a sense of awareness toward a writer’s idiosyncrasies––a series of patterns or habits––that culminate into the writer’s authorial voice. Students will also learn the components of the Three-Act structure and how to identify those markers within each text: Introductions of Characters, Obstacles, and Desires (C.O.D.), the Inciting Incident, the conflict-resolution of Rising Action, the narrative Climax, and the plot’s deceleration though Falling Action (the final question), Resolution (the answer), Conversion (the Character’s moral arc) and Conclusion.

Notice while each story has its own merit, whether in the classroom, the literary canon, or the

market place, all novels share these elements, these traits, and by drawing student attention to the commonalities, young minds can bustle with excitement, clarity, and attention to detail!