This article argues that two significant recent influential historical novels about the Holocaust, "Hitler's Daughter" (1999) and "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" (2006), reprise the genre traits of the "Bildungsroman" or novel of development and can be regarded as remarkably effective in engaging an active reader.…

In this practitioner article, we detail how American English language arts and social studies teachers can select and teach young adult literature using LaGarrett King's Black historical consciousness framework. We provide supplemental, related research along with teaching suggestions and titles for each of the Black historical consciousness…

Research suggests that students need authenticity by welcoming their stories, even causing tension and discomfort with complex topics, encouraging discussion, and questioning. Our study explores undergraduates' open-ended reflections on using young adult literature to challenge dominant, deficit perspectives about themselves and others, which is…

This case study explores the strategies used to redistribute materials among available shelves in a curriculum materials center after deaccessioning and relocation projects. The librarian estimated imposed fill ratios based on collection segments which were then mapped onto a floor plan to efficiently shift materials. The estimated imposed fill…

Based in anthropology (Cole & Knowles, 2001), life history inquiry into literature emphasizes deep understandings of literary characters that are expressed through dramatic performance. For teachers or teacher-educators, life histories offer a powerful teaching strategy. Life histories support locating readers in a particular pattern or…

This paper examines analyses of adolescent romance fiction, highlighting key themes and debates over time. I will argue that contemporary social conditions underline the need to reconsider the value of this genre in the secondary English classroom. However, working effectively with genre literature (including romance) requires educators to…

From the authors of the popular blog and resource for teachers, The Classroom Bookshelf, this book offers a framework and teaching ideas for using recently released children's and young adult literature to build a culture of inquiry and engagement from a text-first approach. "Reading With Purpose" is designed to help K-8 teachers tap…

Drawing on feminist and critical theories of politics and emotions, this paper attends to the hegemony of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) for multiply-marginalized students and explores what exemplary Young Adult (YA) novels can teach scholars, educators, and students about the productive use of anger in the face of injustice. Two acclaimed young…

In this discussion, we argue for those who are literacy educators to reframe gossip as a dialogic, feminist act in their teaching and interpretation of gossip as framed in the literature they teach in secondary English language arts (ELA) classrooms. Reframing gossip as a feminist act invites meaning-makers to view those conversations and…

This paper focuses on the ways in which multiple constructions of childhood are produced, consumed and exchanged as child characters negotiate the adult world in "Homecoming" (1981), the first of Cynthia Voigt's Tillerman novels. Drawing on Peter Hollindale's ideas about interactions and exchanges between children and adults, the paper…

Learn how to disrupt the reproduction of White supremacy in curriculum and instruction. This volume directly confronts persistent iterations of whiteness in English education through advancing antiracist dispositions and practices. Readers will find a variety of practical implementations of teaching and learning in English Language Arts, English…

Issues surrounding gender and sexuality are fundamental determinants of either a liberated or restricted human experience, and comprehensive sex education has been recognized as an essential mechanism to help youth process their gender and sexuality in a standardized, open, safe, and healthy atmosphere. In the absence of such education, Y novels…

As Catholic schools serve an increasingly racially diverse population of students, they must grapple with the critical requirement to address these students' unique needs while heeding the call from modern Catholic Church leaders to engage in explicit antiracist action. Using the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework (HRL), this article…

This paper explores critical cosmopolitan literacies as a framework to engage teacher preparation program candidates in re-conceptualizing about their work as active thinkers, ethical decision makers, and agentive global actors. The purpose of the study is to elucidate how preservice teachers, in a secondary literacy teacher education program,…

This article examines the "Track Series", a compilation of four works of contemporary realistic young adult fiction that reflect the diverse experiences of four middle school, African-American elite track runners whose names correspond with the title of each novel: "Ghost" (Reynolds, 2016), "Patina" (Reynolds, 2018a),…