Teaching Young Adult Literature Today

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.

No matter the location, schools are guided by standards, including Common Core State Standards. This collection of contributions by some of the country’s leading literacy experts offers practical suggestions for implementing young adult literature to meet the demand that standards mandate for focusing on nonfiction in teaching literacy.

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.

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

In this book, Rodríguez uses theories of critical literacy and culturally responsive teaching to argue that our schools, and our culture, need sustaining and inclusive young adult (YA) literature/s to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse readers and all students. This book provides an outline for the study of literature through cultural and literary criticism, via essays that analyze selected YA literature (drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry) in four areas: scribal identities and the self-affirmation of adolescents; gender and sexualities; schooling and education of young adult characters; and teachers’ roles and influences in characters’ coming of age. Applying critical literacy theories and a youth studies lens, this book shines a light on the need for culturally sustaining and inclusive pedagogies to read adolescent worlds. Complementing these essays are critical conversations with seven key contemporary YA literature writers, adding biographical perspectives to further expand the critical scholarship and merits of YA literature.

Teaching Young Adult Literature Today introduces the reader to what is current and relevant in the plethora of good books available for adolescents. This smart collection by literary experts illustrates how teachers can help their students become lifelong readers by simply introducing them to smart, insightful, and engaging books.