This article presents the results of a study carried out to explore the elements of Young Adult Literature (YAL) present in the prescribed texts for Malaysian secondary school English as a second Language (ESL) students (3rd cycle). The three novels studied were; "Captain Nobody" by Dean Pitchford, "Sing to the Dawn" by MinFong…

This paper draws on Bakhtin's (1981) notions of discourse and ideological becoming to investigate how adolescents' experiences with young adult literature and other texts might inform their thinking around issues of social justice. We engaged in a number of activities with the young adolescent participants: thought maps, illustrations of poignant…

This article examines the effect of Jim Kay's illustrations on the experience of reading "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness. The author compares the responses of six Key Stage Three children (11-14 years old), three of whom were given an illustrated version of the text, and three a non-illustrated version. The children with an illustrated…

Drawing on scholarship in critical youth studies (CYS), students in the author's young adult literature (YAL) course for English teacher candidates critically analyze popular culture and YAL texts in ways that make visible dominant and deficit ideas about adolescents/ce and help teacher candidates imagine alternative expectations for their future…

Since 2009, the author has been using an activity that she calls "book tasting" to help teens select books for independent reading assignments. While she is sure she is not the first to do this kind of activity, the term "book tasting" seems to appeal to the teens. Book tasting has been extremely successful in pairing up students with texts that…

The reading students are required to do for school bears little semblance to the reading they do outside of school. Students today are reading the same texts in school that students read a generation ago, but the varieties of text used outside of school are much different. One result is that many students are unmotivated to become readers.…

Chanelle Brown has not found much she can relate to in the classic texts assigned in her English classes at Evanston Township High School. A top student, the junior has toiled through "The Odyssey," "All the King's Men," "The Scarlet Letter," and other standards, she said, while many of her classmates at the suburban Chicago school have given up…

In U.S. schools, African American students are typically fed steady diets of stereotypical and culturally invasive literature and often do not see themselves positively and consistently represented in books. The crisis is fueled, in part, by teachers who (for various reasons) do not include and draw upon counter-narratives in their classrooms.…

Presents the responses of five professional leaders in young-adult literature in response to Edwin Greenlee's problem with recommending books which may contain sexually explicit text. (PRA)

Discusses the absence of adolescent literature in Advanced Placement (AP) English classes. Describes how a class of AP students and their teacher benefited from reading Robert Cormier's "The Chocolate War." (PRA)

Asserts that contemporary women novelists from the Caribbean are writing a new chapter in the literature of adolescence--a study of connections. Discusses the works of Carol Gilligan, and the idea of measuring women's development against a different truth than the male standard. Presents a 10-item annotated reading list. (PRA)

Asserts that assigning adolescent literature to students without first reading a review of the book is risky because the books may contain sexually explicit text. Argues that teachers should not assign books such as "Vision Quest" by Terry Davis, because they contain graphic language. (PRA)

Discusses how myth may be applied in the classroom to the reading of a popular novel, Felice Holman's "Slake's Limbo." (MM)

This article outlines resources for reading in the math classroom including informational trade books, literature, and environmental print.

In this article, the author describes how he introduced a history project that blended a book discussion activity and the use of blogs to his eighth-grade class. Over four weeks, his class participated in a lively collective journal centered on an assigned piece of reading: "Guerrilla Season" by Pat Hughes. The historical novel, set…