Rationales For Teaching Young Adult Literature

Twenty-five educators recommend proven novels, nonfiction works, and short story collections that adolescents enjoy.

Twenty-five educators recommend proven novels, nonfiction works, and short story collections that adolescents enjoy.

This book introduces the reader to what is current and relevant in the plethora of good books available for adolescents. Literary experts illustrate how teachers everywhere can help their students become lifelong readers by simply introducing them to great reads—smart, insightful, and engaging books that are specifically written for adolescents.

Thanks to the success of franchises such as The Hunger Games and Twilight, young adult literature has reached a new level of prominence and popularity. Teens and adults alike are drawn to the genre's coming-of-age themes, fast pacing, and vivid emotional portrayals. The essays in this volume suggest ways high school and college instructors can incorporate YA texts into courses in literature, education, library science, and general education. The first group of essays explores key issues in YA literature, situates works in cultural contexts, and addresses questions of text selection and censorship. The second section discusses a range of genres within YA literature, including both realistic and speculative fiction as well as verse narratives, comics, and film. The final section offers ideas for assignments, including interdisciplinary and digital projects, in a variety of courses.

This text is intended to give educators a resource to aid them in creating a literacy curriculum. The included chapters written by experts from different universities across the country offer a variety of methods for using YAL to meet the standards while connecting with students. Following a framework first chapter introducing the importance of YAL and discussing its relevance, other authors tackle various ways to teach it. Each chapter may suggest different strategies and rationales for utilizing YAL, but each shares a common purpose with the others: to promote the efficacy of YAL to engage students while at the same time meeting the rigorous standards set forth by the Common Core.

A manual for teaching Young Adult Literature, this textbook presents perspectives and methods on how to organize and teach literature in engaging and inclusive ways that meet specific educational and programmatic goals. Each chapter is written by an expert and offers a rich and nuanced approach to teaching YA Literature through a distinct lens. The effective and creative ways to construct a course explored in this book include multimodal, historical, social justice, place-based approaches, and more. The broad spectrum of topics covered in the text gives pre-service teachers and students a toolbox to select and apply methods of their choosing that support effective reading and writing instruction in their own contexts, motivate students, and foster meaningful conversations in the classroom. Chapters feature consistent sections for theory and practice, course structure, suggestions for activities and assessments, and takeaways for further discussion to facilitate easy implementation in the classroom. This book is an essential text for pre-service teachers of English as well as professors and scholars of Young Adult Literature.

Teaching Young Adult Literature: Developing Students As World Citizens (by Thomas W. Bean, Judith Dunkerly-Bean, and Helen Harper) is a middle and secondary school methods text that introduces pre-service teachers in teacher credential programs and in-service teachers pursuing a Masters degree in Education to the field of young adult literature for use in contemporary contexts. The text introduces teachers to current research on adolescent life and literacy; the new and expanding genres of young adult literature; teaching approaches and practical strategies for using young adult literature in English and Language Arts secondary classrooms and in Content Area Subjects (e.g. History); and ongoing social, political and pedagogical issues of English and Language Arts classrooms in relation to contemporary young adult literature.