Scott Westerfield's Novel "So Yesterday". Literary and Didactic Aspects

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,3, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Seminar für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Hauptseminar: Amerikanische Jugendromane, language: English, abstract: "So Yesterday" is a novel by Scott Westerfeld published in 2004. It has won a Victorian Premier's Award and is also an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. "So Yesterday", the author's third publication, is considered his "breakout novel" and has been optioned to be made into a film. The mystery novel with a splash of romance is addressed to young readers and is particularly well suited for the implementation in the English classroom. The novel discusses various themes affecting our everyday life, such as consumerism and marketing, and critically reflects the concept of being “cool”. This paper intends to analyze the novel by setting out literary and didactic aspects according to the text and to invent a teaching project for the EFL. It is divided into three parts. In part one, the author, his aims and the historical background of the novel are presented. Part two is concerned with the analysis of the text itself, the place and setting, the characters and the themes and concept described in the novel. And part three deals with the construction of the teaching project following the “Rahmenlehrplan”.