• Batman: Dark Knight, Batman Begins, and/or other Batman movies on DVD
• Harry Potter I, II, III and IV on DVD and V and VI to be released Summer 09
• Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on DVD and/or Sisterhood 2
• Juno
• American Teen
• Iron Man
• Hancock
• The Mummy 3
• Wall-E
• Indiana Jones 4
• The Incredible Hulk
• High School Musical (several versions now on DVD and on TV)
• The Golden Compass
• Great Debaters
• Mongul
• The Golden Globe Award winner for 2008 or the Academy Award Winner for 2008: Atonmement

• Crash
• Freedom Writers (and its book)
• Lars and the Real Girl
• Napoleon Dynamite
• Whale Rider
• Thirteen (for those with strong stomachs)
• Lord of the Rings trilogy
• Matrix trilogy
• Star Wars Episonde III and I, II, IV, V, VI on DVD
• Spiderman I, II, III
• Pirates of the Caribbean I, II, III
• Fantastic Four
• Transformers
• The Simpsons Movie

• The 2008 Newbery Winner: Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village; also, runner up: Wednsday Wars
• The 2001 Newbery Winner A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
• The 1998 Newbery Winner Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
• Read one title specifically published for the tween market.

Topic Four: The Juvenile Novel

Topic Five: Pop Culture

Read or experience one of each: For Fall 2008, do ten items below of your choice. However, choose the ones that you are least familiar with so that you can build a wider repertoir of genres.

Read on book from the "On the Edge" section of the textbook.

Read one book from the Contemporary Realistic Fiction list of the textbook.

• Osit, Michael. Generation Text: Raising Well-Adjusted Kids in dthe Age of Instant Everything . 2008.
• Covey, Stephen R. The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiriing Greatness, One Child at a Time. 2008.
• Strauch, Barbara. The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain Tell Us About Our Kids. 2003
• Horn, Wade F. and Carol Keough. New Teen Book: An Z to Z Guide for Parents of 9- to 16-Year Olds. (Merideth Corp. 1999).
• Pollack, William. Real Boys. Owl Books, 1998.
• Mary Pipher. Reviving Ophelia. (book or audiotape); or
• Dave Pelzer A Child Called "It" (Health Communications Inc., 1995) or any of the "It" books; or
• Geoffrey Canada's Reaching Up for Manhood (Becon Presss, 1998)
• Dr. Laura Schlesinger. Parenthood by Proxy : Don't Have Them If You Won't Raise Them (book or audiotape) (2000)
• Hersch, Patricia. A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence. Balantine Books, 1999.
• Panzarine, Susan. A Parent's Guide to the Teen Years: Raising Your 11- to 14-Year-Old in the Age of Chat Rooms and Navel Rings. Facts on File, 2000.
• Drowns, Robert W. and Karen M. Hess. Juvenile Justice. 3rd ed. Wadsworth, 2000.

Read several issues of magazines aimed at teens

Topic Seven: Give Me Real History (but I might want it fictionalized)

Read and view one of the following movie/book tie-ins:

• Charlie Wilson's War (book and movie) plus the movie: Kite Runner
• Cold Mountain. Book by Charles Frazier. Movie on DVD (Civil War - older teens)
• Seabiscuit. Book by Laura Hillenbrand. Movie on DVD. (Depression Years - older teens)
• Pearl Harbor or 13 Days with accompanying screen version in the book stores or a book about the events (movies released 2001).
• October Sky: A Memoir by Homer H. Hickam Jr. (Bantam, 1999) (also titled Rocket Boys: A memoir) and the movie October Sky. Hickam has also issued a second volume covering about the same time period titled The Coalwood Way, or, A Sky of Stone: A Memoire.
• Schindler's List (the movie) then read one book about the Holocaust such as: Opdyke, Irene Gut. In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer. (Knopf, 1999), or Wareen, Andrea. Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps (Harper Collins, 20001); or tour the Holocaust Museum web site or the actual museum (a visit to Washington D.C. would be nice)
• Or a historical movie w/ no particular book attached, such as Troy, Alexander. or King Arther. the movie Mongul and a biography of Gengus Khan is a possibility.
• Killer Angels by Michael Shaara and the movie Gettysburg.

Read a nonfiction history title from the list in the textbook.

Read a historical fiction book from the list in the textbook.

Topic Eight: Give Me Real People

Topic Nine: I Wish I Were a Scientist...

(the world of science and technology from research scientists to medicine to auto mechanics)

• March of the Penguins (movie narrated by Morgan Freeman); or, watch two hours of the planet earth films now on DVD - they also play regularly on PBS.

Topic Ten/Topic Eleven: ...But I'll Take Science Fiction or Fantasy

Read one science fiction book from the textbook.

Topic Twelve: Culture is a Matter of Taste..

(film, theater, dance, art, music, classic literature, poetry)

Read, view, or listen to:

• any classic literature and it's recent adaptation to film such as Pride and Prejudice, The Importance of Being Ernest, Gosford Park, Sense and Sensibility or Emma or The Crucible; or, Shakespeare in Love (movie), or any recent Shakespeare film/play such as the movie The Merchant of Venice (2005), Hamlet (2000) or "O" (Othello released Aug. 01)
• any multimedia item of the art world such as an Internet site of an art collection; or, a book about an artist poular with teens such as: Greenberg, Jan and Sandra Jordan. Andy Warhol, Prince of Pop (204)
• any play / film adaptation of a play teens should know, such as The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
• any book of poetry aimed at teens or a poet that teens have adopted.
• any concert or video concert of a group teens know or should know
• Top Ten on radio or most popular on MTV (listen to one hour)

Topic Thirteen: ...In a Multicultural World

• Read the Multicultural issue pages in the textbook.
• Read Ask Me No Questions by Marina Budhos

• Read Witness by Karen Hesse
• See either Freedom Writers or Great Debaters

• Read Jeanne Wakastsuki Houston and James D. Houston. Farewell to Manzanar. (younger readers); or: David Guterson: Snow Falling on Cedars (older readers) (movie on DVD); or, Wolff, Virginia Euwer. Bat 6: A Novel. (Scholastic, 1999) (for grades 5-7); or, Gold, Alison Leslie. A Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara: Hero of the Holocaust. (Scholastic, 2000); or Nye, Namomi Shihab. 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East. (2002)

• See the movie Crash

Topic Fourteen: Move Over, Adults, We're Interested in Your Stuff Too...

(Best sellers, Expose', Westerns, Romance, Mysteries, Espionage, Horror, Crime, Public Figures and Celebrities)

Read:

• any Alex Awards fiction title (from the Alex Awards done by YALSA)
• A blockbuster film of the semester made for adults but teens are attending.

Topic Fifteen: ...But We're Not Sure We Like the World We've Inherited.

(War, Environment, Politics, Post modernism, Cultural Conflict, Values or Lack Thereof, Deconstructionism)

Read:

• any Alex Awards nonfiction title (from the Alex Awards done by YALSA) 
• However, let's cancel the above since it is the presidential ellection. Interview teens about their feelings about the presidential candidates and the issues this country faces and try to find out from them what information they are receiving that they trust.

Topic Sixteen: It's an Information Blitz: Becoming a Reference World Junkie in the World of Teens

Read:

• Peruse and prepare to discuss any title of a significant reference work of use to teens. there are fascinating reference works that teens would actually find interesting beyond being useful. Find one.
• Peruse at least one Internet reference site or reference title that teens would use for reference.