Teaching Young Adult Literature


Book Description

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.




Thematic Guide to Young Adult Literature


Book Description

Contemporary young adult literature is a relatively new genre. This guide provides an overview of the burgeoning field, focusing primarily on fiction. Each of the 32 chapters is devoted to a theme of special significance to young adults, and provides brief critical discussions of several related literary works. Chapters close with lists of fiction for further reading. An appendix groups works according to additional themes, and a selected bibliography cites relevant critical studies.




Inclusive Young Adult Fiction


Book Description

This book examines ‘diversity’, or the lack thereof, in young adult fiction (YA) publishing. It focuses on cultural hegemony in the United Kingdom and explores how literary culture aimed at young adults reproduces and perpetuates ‘racial’ and ethnic cultural hierarchies. Diversity is described by the We Need Diverse Books project as ‘all diverse experiences, including (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, Native, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities’. This study focuses on people of colour. While previous studies have looked at the representation of ethnic minorities in books for children and young adults, this book examines the experiences of ‘own voice’ cultural producers that create a counter-narrative. Specifically, this book will investigate the output and experiences of British young adult fiction authors of colour (BAME authors) published in the UK during the period 2006-2016, drawing upon semi-structured interviews with a sample of authors.




Young Adult Literature and Adolescent Identity Across Cultures and Classrooms


Book Description

Taking a critical, research-oriented perspective, this book explores the theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical connections between reading and teaching young adult literature in middle and secondary classrooms and adolescent identity development.




Young Adult Literature


Book Description

Helps YA librarians who want to freshen up their readers advisory skills, teachers who use novels in the classroom, and adult services librarians who increasingly find themselves addressing the queries of teen patrons.




Literature for Young Adults


Book Description

Now in its second edition, this book explores a great variety of genres and formats of young adult literature while placing special emphasis on contemporary works with nontraditional themes, protagonists, and literary conventions that are well suited to young adult readers. It looks at the ways in which contemporary readers can access literature and share the works they're reading, and it shows teachers the resources that are available, especially online, for choosing and using good literature in the classroom and for recommending books for their students’ personal reading. In addition to traditional genre chapters, this book includes chapters on literary nonfiction; poetry, short stories, and drama; and film. Graphic novels, diversity issues, and uses of technology are also included throughout the text. The book's discussion of literary language—including traditional elements as well as metafictive terms—enables readers to share in a literary conversation with their peers (and others) when communicating about books. This book is an essential resource for preservice educators to help young adults understand and appreciate the excellent literature that is available to them. New to the second edition: New popular authors, books, and movies with a greater focus on diversity of literature Updated coverage of new trends, such as metafiction, a renewed focus on nonfiction, and retellings of canonical works Increased attention to graphic novels and multimodal texts throughout the book eResources with downloadable materials, including book lists, awards lists, and Focus Questions







Adaptation in Young Adult Novels


Book Description

Adaptation in Young Adult Novels argues that adapting classic and canonical literature and historical places engages young adult readers with their cultural past and encourages them to see how that past can be rewritten. The textual afterlives of classic texts raise questions for new readers: What can be changed? What benefits from change? How can you, too, be agents of change? The contributors to this volume draw on a wide range of contemporary novels – from Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series and Megan Shepherd's Madman's Daughter trilogy to Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones – adapted from mythology, fairy tales, historical places, and the literary classics of Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others. Unpacking the new perspectives and critiques of gender, sexuality, and the cultural values of adolescents inherent to each adaptation, the essays in this volume make the case that literary adaptations are just as valuable as original works and demonstrate how the texts studied empower young readers to become more culturally, historically, and socially aware through the lens of literary diversity.




How Young Adult Literature Gets Taught


Book Description

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 Today


Book Description

Teaching 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 reads--smart, 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 generation readers who want to blur the boundaries between page and screen.