Welcome to Queer Coming of Age Narratives
In this course, we will study a selection of young adult books with protagonists that express some sort of LGBTQIA+ identity. We will spend time discussing the formal literary elements of these texts. We will supplement our readings of these books with articles that can be found online. Through both the books and articles we will study the contributions of these texts to: the field of queer studies, the advancement of queer presence in popular culture, and the position of queer literature within the larger young adult category. Moreover, since these books were written primarily for a young adult audience, and since many of the students in this class are considering becoming teachers, we will also spend a great deal of time talking about the message and impact of these texts on teenagers as well as how to teach these texts in a high school English classroom.
