This article describes the author's experience co-facilitating a project for which seventh-grade students designed and created original video games based on Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time". The author provides an overview of recent literature on video game implementation in the classroom and explains how the project was designed and…

The search for literature that is of high quality and interest, is written at age-appropriate levels for adolescent readers, addresses social studies topics, and presents multicultural perspectives can be daunting. "Legend of the St Ann's Flood" is a fiction trade book that meets all of these criteria. Its setting in Trinidad and Tobago…

Claims that capturing an adolescent novel in shaped, found, or structured poetry gives students ways to tell others what the novel meant to them. Discusses five poetic forms (riddle poem, found poem, character poem, poem for two voices, and repeat poster poem) and presents student poems. (RS)

A popular author of young-adult fiction offers suggestions for teachers and students who want to write to authors and receive replies. Discusses how to organize letters from entire classes and student motivations for writing, and includes humorous examples of student correspondence. (LRW)

Explains how the reading of young adult fiction can help young adults to write better. Presents exercises in writing good first lines; using detail; using simile and metaphor; and sharing significant insights. Provides excerpts from young adult fiction. (TB)

An instructor of an adolescent literature course wanted to give the students an opportunity to study some novels not specifically written for an adolescent audience. Examples of such novels were: Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye," and Jamaica Kincaid's "Annie John." Including…

Describes the use of character journals (a written diary kept by the reader who assumes the role of the main character) with a group of eighth-grade students. Shows how students think more about what they are reading and come away with a better sense of their own identity. (SR)

Describes seven different written response formats (which all use reading response strategies) used with seventh graders. Discusses how the formats improve the quality of thinking put forth in students' responses to their self-selected adolescent novels. Discusses which response formats illicit more higher-level thinking. (SR)

Presents a pull-out section that includes four brief articles and accompanying learning activities. The articles include an architectural examination of the move from medieval fort to Renaissance palace, interdisciplinary biographical writing assignments, a look at the portrayal of people with disabilities in juvenile literature, and material on…