This conceptual article explores early adolescent students' responses to an experimental Gothic reading unit (including popular culture and traditional texts). The Gothic genre was selected due to both its prevalence in youth culture and lack of representation in reading classrooms. This hybrid curriculum increased academic reading engagement in…

In this article, the author encourages educators and researchers to foreground the voices and experiences of youth and youth culture in discussions about power and privilege in canonical and contemporary texts. The article lists components that are critical as the discussion ensues about whether secondary teachers should or should not be allowed…

This article examines two comic book adaptations of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" produced for teenage readers and used in school classrooms. It seeks to understand the ways in which particular kinds of literacy are being implied and constructed through the textual practice of multimodal adaptation. It presents a close reading of sections of…

Advocates have long argued that an increased role for young adult literature in the classroom would help students' reading development. At first glance, the widely adopted Common Core State Standards might seem in opposition to an increased role for such literature. A closer examination of the common core documents suggests, however, that young…

"Learning with Literature in the EFL Classroom" provides a comprehensive, in-depth and state-of-the-art introduction to literature learning in EFL contexts. Paying attention to both theoretical and practical concerns, the study focuses on a wide range of literary genres, different age and ability groups and new topics for literature…

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 paper takes the grotesque as a model of subjectivity that offers compelling inroads to understanding adolescence. Bakhtin notes that the grotesque "seeks to grasp in its imagery the very act of becoming and growth, the eternal, incomplete, unfinished nature of being". I argue that Carson McCullers' novel, "The Member of the…

English teachers have those favorite characters in the literature they choose to study with their students, from the classics of Lennie and George in "Of Mice and Men" to more contemporary characters such as Arnold in "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" who was "born with water on the brain" (Alexie 1). The author loves allowing…

Teach "The Little Prince" to senior English students? Senior Advanced Placement English students? What could these people who had analyzed "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," wrestled with "The Sound and the Fury," dissected "Heart of Darkness," and deconstructed "East of Eden" possibly find of value in a "children's book"? The tendency to…

When readers of contemporary adolescent literature are encouraged to participate in conversations about what is considered canonical literature, the literary value of adolescent reading expands past narrowly defined borders. Several recent adolescent novels provide access to the classics and may generate interest among middle school students in…

Middle school students are socially conditioned through an inundation of messages conveyed by various mediums, and language arts teachers are capable of teaching them how to deconstruct messages through exercises in critical literacy. Many language arts teachers are not aware of critical theory and, if they are aware, rely solely on classic…

Mixed-heritage people are one of the fastest-growing groups in the United States, yet culturally they have been largely invisible, especially in young adult literature. "Mixed Heritage in Young Adult Literature" is a critical exploration of how mixed-heritage characters (those of mixed race, ethnicity, religion, and/or adoption) and real-life…

This article reports the findings of a study that investigated the role of graphic novels in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) to International Baccalaureate students (aged 15-16) in TED Ankara College Foundation Private High School. Two intact 10th grade classes were randomly assigned to the control and experimental groups who studied…

The author is an enthusiastic supporter of using young adult literature in the classroom with gifted learners--so much, that he has been accused of being "against" the classics. Not so, but he does ask about and challenges teachers to tell him if their classroom use of the classics is appropriate. Do the classics provide the kind of interaction…

How can teachers build students' interest and engagement in reading texts in the high school English curriculum while still providing access to challenging texts from the canon? Teachers typically expect their secondary students to read texts from the English canon because these texts offer opportunities for meaningful reflections on essential…