Teaching Young Adult Literature
- Editors: Mike Cadden, Karen Coats, Roberta Seelinger Trites
- Pages: 360
- Published: 2020
- ISBN: 9781603294553 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 9781603294584 (Hardcover)
“The strategies and practices employed by the essayists, as well as their bibliographies, are sources of inspiration for educators intending to teach YAL courses or include YAL in general literature courses.”
—International Research in Children’s Literature
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.
Introduction (1)
Part I: Theories, Themes, and Issues
The Effect of Affect: Young Adult Literature, Literary Theory, and Emotionalism (27)
Contemplating Childhood and Adolescence in Elie Wiesel’s Night (36)
Youth, Transnationalism, Identity: Young Adult Literature and World Literature (45)
Say Their Names: Complicating the Single-Story Narrative of City Kids (55)
Embracing Discomfort and Difference in the Teaching of Young Adult Literature: Notes toward an Unfinished Project (62)
Teaching Texas Borderlands Young Adult Literature (72)
Language, Identity, and Social Reality in Twenty-First-Century American Indian Young Adult Fiction (82)
A Girls’ Studies Approach to Young Adult Literature (91)
“Re-Presenting” Gender in Multicultural Young Adult Literature (99)
Subverting Normative Paradigms: Teaching Representations of Gender and Queerness in Young Adult Literature (109)
Teaching Transgressive Texts (120)
But I Can’t Use This in a Classroom! Teaching Risky/Risqué Young Adult Literature (129)
Addressing School Censorship in the Young Adult Literature Course (139)
The Case for Teaching Young Adult Literature Everywhere (150)
Surveying Fiction: Teaching Young Adult Literature across the Curriculum (157)
Literary Education That Crosses Borders: Adolescent Fiction in the Upper Grades of Secondary Schools (163)
The Pleasures and Impasses of Teaching Young Adult Literature to Polish Graduates in English Studies (172)
Part II: Genres and Forms
Teaching Young Adult Science Fiction (181)
Representations of Youth, Schooling, and Education in Dystopian Young Adult Novels (191)
Teaching Genre: Fairy Tales and Their Retellings in Young Adult Literature (200)
The Story behind the Story: A Cross-Textual, New Historicist Approach to Historical Fiction (210)
Taking a Second Look at First-Person Narration in Young Adult Realistic Fiction (222)
Peritext and Pedagogy: Supporting Critical Thinking through Young Adult Nonfiction (231)
Teaching the Young Adult Verse Narrative (241)
Integrating Comics into an Undergraduate Young Adult Literature Course (251)
Teaching Adolescent Film: A Cultural-Historical Activity-Theory Approach (261)
Part III: Assignments
Theorized Storytelling: A Tool for Practicing Reader-Response Criticism (273)
Team-Based Learning and Young Adult Literature (280)
On Curating Online Anthologies: Not the Traditional Term Paper (287)
The Young Adult Critical Edition Project (294)
Sound Tracks of Our Lives: Mix Tapes and Playlists in the Young Adult Literature Classroom (300)
The Politics of Realism: Interdisciplinary Explorations of Adolescent “Storm and Stress” (305)
Teaching Young Adult Girls’ Books: Why Bother? (312)
Part IV: Resources
Resources (319)
Notes on Contributors (343)
“Although I’ve been teaching young adult literature for over twenty years, I have found in this volume many new and useful suggestions that I would love to incorporate in my classes.”
—Alice L. Trupe, Bridgewater College
“I am eager to use this volume. It works well not only as a teaching guide but also as a book about the field and its broader pedagogical and cultural dimensions.”
—Kenneth Kidd, University of Florida
