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“Young adult literature won’t give students everything they need as readers, but it does offer exciting and important learning opportunities for all of us who teach in secondary English classrooms. What matters is what we do with these books” (Buehler, 2016. p. 4).

“Motivated readers will choose more challenging texts if they have a personal investment in reading them” (7).

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Educators must disrupt the binary that exists between YA literature and more canonical texts. Often, YA books are what students choose themselves for pleasureful, fun, independent reading with no-strings-attached and then teachers select more classic works for analytical study. Rather, YA literature should be approached with the same rigor as any other text and teachers should carefully choose class novels that are just as relevant and enjoyable for students. These modes can and should overlap.

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For IRBs:
Lit circles
Book Talks
One-on-one conferences
Personal written responses to completed books
Mini lessons
Workshops

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“…to see the intelligence of teen literature, we first have to believe in the intelligence of teens” (26).

“…complexity can be found within a text, but it can also be made based on how we teach the text in our classrooms” (29).

“When we teach students to make nuanced judgements about complexity, we help them to better understand what different books can give them.  By providing them with a framework for thinking about complexity, we empower them as readers” (49).

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Complexity exists in both style and substance. Complexity can be found in a text if the quality of the author's writing and thinking are of high caliber, but teachers can also make complexity by what we bring to and do with texts. For example, a children's book can be rigorous if we analyze it based on issues of gender or race.

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Reader-response lens/theory
Analysis of style complexity: language, structure, stylistic elements
Analysis of substance complexity: character, setting, literary devices, topics/themes, how the book is put together
Close reading

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“Classroom community is an essential component of YA pedagogy because it shapes the way students approach the books and make sense of what their reading is for.  Classroom community is what determines whether our teaching of YA lit is complex or superficial, memorable or forgetful” (53).

“…students need more than simply a space in which to read.  They need more than the company of their friends as fellow readers.  In addition to these things, they need for their reading to be guided by a knowledgeable expert, someone who sees and values them as teenagers and who is prepared to provide direction, both in their individual reading lives and along the larger arc of English class” (71).

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In order to balance the fun and rigor when teaching YA texts, teachers must cultivate a classroom environment that is both comfortable and challenging for students.

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Belief that work is important

Discussions that blend personal response and literary analysis

A sense among students that they are known and valued

Collective investment in a shared experience

Choice in class novel—discussions about it

Reading that doesn’t feel “schoolish”

Read aloud to students

Discuss literary features of good books

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“If we as teachers truly want to support teens as readers, we must develop broad, deep, personalized book knowledge” (73).

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Teachers need to be book "matchmakers" for individual students' needs and in terms of matching books to the curriculum.

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We need to know…

·      Today’s favorites

·      YA classics from the past

·      YA titles that fly under the radar

To become YA lit matchmakers, we should…

·      Develop personalized book knowledge

·      Read widely

·      Read with a partner

·      Listen to students

·      Make strategic decisions about where to place books

How to choose what YA lit to read…

·      Book awards and book lists

·      Professional review journals

·      YALSA-BK listserv

·      Social media resources

·      Workshops and conferences

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“Through YA pedagogy, we recast traditional classroom tasks so that students’ work with YA literature becomes relevant in real-world contexts” (108).

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Teachers should reinvent traditional classroom tasks to blend personal response with with analysis. If classroom activities are relevant to students, they will promote agency and autonomy.

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Literary analysis

Book reviews and mock award committees

Reader response

Reader-response lens to examine how publishers package    and sell books

Self-analysis of their “brand” as a reader

Book preview designed to appeal to a particular audience

Thematic units

Study of how different authors take up similar themes or story lines

Lit circles or book bins organized by theme

Informational pamphlets

Genre study

Study of YA books in a single genre to distinguish innovators from imitators

Study of the origins and evolution of new YA genres

Genre-based reading lists or book reviews

Study of literary periods and literary history

History of and trends of YA lit

Conversations and debated in YA lit

Critical look at canons and how they’re created

Students engage in a current YA lit debate

Students construct their own version of personal and literary canons

Writing process/writing craft

Research the story behind a YA novel (how it was written/the process the author used to write it)

Write “process portraits” of various authors, followed by commentary on what we learn about writing from studying their various approaches

Students use what they learn about an author’s process to talk about their own process

Reading is relevant in personal, social, and/or analytical ways—link each mode to a guiding question:

·      “What did I look for and find in this text?”

·      What are other people saying about this text, and how does that change the way I think about it or what I see in it?”

·      “How might I shape the ways others view this text by writing and speaking about its style, substance, features, and themes?”

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“Reading is personal.  Assessment, too, should be personal” (113).

“Teen readers want to feel a sense of connection to books, authors, and characters.  They want to share their reading with others… Why don’t we take advantage of the space that assessment provides and use it to find out what the teen readers in our lives are capable of?” (130).

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Assessments should also be both personal and analytical, so students engage in continued learning and meaning making and are empowered to show us more of what they can do as readers in creative ways.

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Allow students to do personal, social, flexible, and analytical work on assessments.

Themed reading lists: students focus their reading on a self-selected topic, theme, or idea
Brown Bag Exam: students, working alone or together, pull artifacts that the teacher strategically selected out of the bag and connect them to moments and passage from a book as a springboard for writing about the book's themes.
Meeting of Minds performances: students put characters, authors, YA experts, and teen readers in dialogue around a significant theme of idea

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“Teaching YA lit is never going to be easy.  We know that bringing these books into the classroom requires more effort than sticking with the status quo.  Not only do we have to build personal knowledge of a new field of literature, but we also have to develop a plan for teaching it and an argument for its value in our local context.  We have to throw ourselves into reading new books, imagining new ways of teaching, and speaking bravely about the choices we’ve made” (150).

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Teachers should be proactive when it comes to educating stakeholders about their book choices, especially against these five common criticisms of YA lit: "they can read this stuff at home," "the books are too dark," "the books are not complex," "these are books nobody's heard of," and "reading YA lit in schools sets kids up to have a bad attitude about the classics." Teachers can say: "students need to read YA lit in school in order to experience the social dimensions of reading and benefit from our expertise as teachers," "look at the issues we can explore with young people when we invite them to read YA lit," "when we think differently about text complexity, we find many forms of complexity in YA lit," "outside of school, many people are reading YA literature," and "reading YA lit in school sets kids up to have a good attitude about reading. It sets us up to talk with kids about what reading is for, and it gives us the change to point out how often YA authors invoke the classic sin their novels."

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Be proactive with outreach before receiving criticism.

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Buehler, J. (2016). Teaching Reading with YA Literature. National Council of Teachers of English.