Description
Book SynopsisTeaching Young Adult Literature Today introduces the reader to what is current and relevant in the plethora of good books available for adolescents. More importantly, literary experts illustrate how teachers everywhere can help their students become lifelong readers by simply introducing them to great readssmart, insightful, and engaging books that are specifically written for adolescents. Hayn, Kaplan, and their contributors address a wide range of topics: how to avoid common obstacles to using YAL; selecting quality YAL for classrooms while balancing these with curriculum requirements; engaging disenfranchised readers; pairing YAL with technology as an innovative way to teach curriculum standards across all content areas. Contributors also discuss more theoretical subjects, such as the absence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young adult literature in secondary classrooms; and contemporary YAL that responds to the changing expectations of digital generat
Trade ReviewRecent research on the effects of time spent pleasure reading in youth demonstrate that it explains cognitive progress over time, educational attainment and social mobility. This makes pleasure reading a civil rights issue. And what better to hook students on reading then the books that were written specifically for them? In this volume, the top researchers and thinkers about YA literature explore where YAL has been, where it is and where it’s going, with rich models for how to use YAL to engage our students with the power of reading and all the benefits that then accrue to them. In this book, the top researchers and thinkers in the field of YAL show us how to engage readers with this literature, and how to do so in a project of social action that promotes ethical imagination and the productive struggle for greater understanding, raised consciousness and for civil rights. This book is a must-read for librarians, teachers and anyone at all who cares about adolescents, reading, and promoting social understanding and justice. -- Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Distinguished Professor of English Education at Boise State University; Author of “Reading Unbound: Why Kids Need to Read What They Want, and Why We Should Let Them”
This is a very useful text for both classroom teachers and teacher educators. Teachers will enjoy its practical aspects; whereas, professors will find relevance in the research data. More research is definitely needed to prove the merits of using adolescent literature in today’s schools, and this textbook definitely will help the cause. -- Joan F. Kaywell, professor of English education, University of South Florida; senior executive director, Florida Council of Teachers of English, 2010-2011; membership secretary, Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English; and author of Dear Author: Letters…
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Section I: Where Has YAL Been? 1.Young Adult Literature: Updating the Role of Research Judith A. Hayn and Jay Cobern 2.Young Adult Literature Today: The Many Faces, Changes, and Challenges for Teachers and Researchers in the 21st Century Jeffrey S. Kaplan and Elsie Olan 3.Literacy Teacher Education Today and the Teaching of Young Adult Literature: Perspectives on Research and Implications for Practice Susan E. Elliott-Johns Section II: Where is YAL Now? 4.Young Adult Literature as the Sustaining Force: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching Environmentalism Kelly Byrne Bull and Jill Dupuis 5.Avid Readers in High School: Are They Reading for Pleasure? Nance S. Wilson and Michelle J. Kelley 6.Is Poverty the Result of Poor Decisions? What Young Adult Literature Contributes to the Conversation Crag Hill and Janine Darragh 7.Crossing Boundaries: Exploring the Fluidity of Sexuality and Gender in Young Adult Literature Laura J. Renzi, Mark Letcher, and Kristin Miraglia 8.The Literary Community’s Definition: Balancing Creating and Updating Young Adult Literature Reading Lists While Retaining Quality Titles Lisa A. Hazlett and William J. Sweeney 9.Civil Rights and Social Justice: Then and Now-How Much Progress Have We Made? Barbara A. Ward, Deanna Day, and Terrell A. Young 10.Music and the Young Adult Novel: Assessing How Adolescents “Read” the Music of Their Lives Steven T. Bickmore and Isaac Bickmore 11.Activism, Service-Learning, Social Awareness, and Young Adult Literature Lois T. Stover, Jacqueline Back, and CJ Carver 12.Fat Female Protagonists in YAL and in Classrooms: Exploring the Impact of Anti-fat Bias on Identity Linda T. Parsons 13.YAL and English Learners: Activating Funds of Knowledge Karina R. Clemmons 14.Celebrating All Voices: Assuring Diversity in Young Adult Literature James Blasingame and Wendy Williams Section III: Where is YAL Going? 15.Exploding the Page: Digital, Multimodal, and Transmedia Young Adult Literature Melanie Hundley and Teri Holbrook 16.Pushing the Edge of Possibility: A New Look at Integrating Technologies with Young Adult Literature Across Content Areas Colleen Sheehy Mulholland 17.The Influence of the Internet and Social Media on Teens’ Engagement with Young Adult Literature Melanie D. Koss
