Research Journal Page 10

I just stumbled upon a webinar that I would definitely have been interested in attending, had it not already happened on April 12th.  I was reading through some of the publib postings and found that this webinar looked quite interesting and planned on addressing some questions that I have actually been researching and thinking about.  The webinar was conducted by a well known YA author, Michael Cart, and it was called Teen Literature Update 2011.  I thought that the questions mentioned in the promotion of the webinar were quite interesting-they were as follows:

• What the latest thing in YA literature is?
• Who are the emerging authors, and the ones falling out of favor?
• What are the best resources for evaluating books for YA?
• If graphic novels are just comic books in disguise?
• If reading online is really reading?

I would really be interested in the discussion surrounding the last two questions and would add some questions of my own, such as - even if graphic novels are comic books in disguise-are they not considered reading?  And why not?  I guess with all of the current technology trends, these issues are going to be debated again and again.  I think that it all comes back to the same thoughts that I explored in my literature review, which recognize that we have to redefine what reading is along with our definitions of literacy.  Evolving and adapting is necessary!