Learn YA Lit with Me (Ch.4)

The one where Ms. Shattuck learns the difference between "Genres and Formats."

I'm taking a class on Young Adult literature this semester at SHSU and am required to blog about each chapter that I read, so I thought I'd create a series to share with my blog friends. Welcome to Chapter 4.

Did you know that Dystopian isn't a genre? Neither is Chick Lit, or Mystery (*gasp*). That's right! They're subjects or categories (the word is interchangeable) that fall under specific genres, but they themselves are not a genre. When I read that, my initial response was "rude," but then I realized it made sense.

The two main genres are Fiction and Non-Fiction (Fake and Not-Fake according to my 8th graders) which are then broken down into smaller sub-genres that do not include the aforementioned "subjects/categories."

For time/space reasons, I will not go into the extreme details of each genre and sub-genre, but here is an example of the breakdown

of Fiction:

I think I will use a bubble cloud like this to show my students the difference between genre and category (not to mention to clarify anything my school's chosen curriculum misconstrues).

What's your favorite "category/subject"--since I can't call dystopian genre anymore...?