Audiobooks have been growing in popularity over the last decade. Although researchers have increasingly recognised the value of audiobooks as rich multimodal texts that support literacy engagement in classrooms, there have been few detailed pictures of classroom practice related to audiobooks. In this practitioner narrative, a secondary English…

This qualitative study implemented a Critical Discourse Analysis using the "PRDE English Program Gender Equity Manual" (2015). In addition, this study compared the narrative literature from PRDE's English 9th textbook--"Inside: Language, Literacy and Content by National Geographic and Cengage Learning" (2014) (NG Texts) , and…

The project addressed the debate over supplemental literature: young adult or classic selections to better support teaching ninth graders Tennessee's English I curriculum standards. Research supported both classical and contemporary literature for teaching ninth graders, making it difficult to determine which type of literature might produce the…

This lesson plan is based on "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. Characters in "The Hunger Games" form alliances both inside and outside the arena. Katniss and Gale form alliances within District 12. Katniss, Peeta, and the other tributes form alliances for a variety of reasons during the Games. An alliance means that "someone's got your back"…

In this article the authors illustrate an instructional unit based on a Common Core grades 9-10 illustrative text--Amy Tan's "Two Kinds" from "The Joy Luck Club." They demonstrate how teachers can meet the new standards "and" respond to students' 21st-century needs by using this modern classic along with other traditional and new media resources.…

Functional literacy is important in both English/language arts and geography. Using the "found poetry" strategy, students will summarize a piece of text, identify main ideas and find geographic connections. While using young adult literature is a great way to incorporate geography into English/language arts classroom, understanding of geography…

In a thematic study she calls The Hero's Journey, the author introduces the classical archetype of the hero and the journey of the hero with Homer's "The Odyssey." After all, the wily tactician dreams up the idea for the wooden horse trick, thereby winning the war for the Greeks. He visits hell and, against all odds, makes it back. He defeats the…

This lesson plan is based on Suzanne Collins's book, "The Hunger Games." Katniss and Gale know about District 12 and the surrounding woods. Additionally, from television coverage, they know that there are twelve districts and the Capitol. District 13 used to exist until the rebellion. But where are these districts now that the geography…

In 2006, a secondary English and feminist studies teacher created a course and designed a study around a reading exchange for eighth-grade girls from two vastly different communities. Girls from a school in a northeastern state read young adult novels and wrote about their reading and related topics with girls from Washington, DC on a wikispace…

This article presents annotations of 30 trade books on the 2008 list of Young Adults' Choices that are the result of voting by students in five different regions of the United States. Trade books (books other than textbooks) published in 2006 were submitted by more than 50 publishers. Each book had to have at least two positive reviews from…

"Speak," by Laurie Halse Anderson, is one of the most powerful young adult novels to come along in the past decade. It has won numerous awards, including the "School Library Journal" award for "Best Book of the Year," and was a National Book Award Finalist. Despite this acclaim, many English teachers are uncomfortable teaching "Speak" in their…

In this article, Elizabeth Birr Moje, Melanie Overby, Nicole Tysvaer, and Karen Morris challenge some of the prevailing myths about adolescents and their choices related to reading. The reading practices of youth from one urban community are examined using mixed methods in an effort to define what, how often, and why adolescents choose to read. By…

This article describes how a mathematics teacher uses literature and creative writing in her ninth-grade classes to motivate, instruct, and assess her students. (Contains 4 figures.)

Although young adult literature is often recommended as a reading bridge to the classics, Stallworth insists that the genre deserves a prominent place in the middle school canon in its own right. She describes several examples from middle school classrooms of how young adult novels can enhance tweens' "life literacy" by both helping them develop…