Scythe (fantasy/dystopia series)

Counting by 7s (realistic fiction)

The Book Thief (historical fiction)

Percy Jackson (mythology series)

Michael Vey (action/sci fi/fantasy)

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (mystery)

-Give students something to listen/look/read for

-Intentionally name behaviors and skills that are positive, so that students know what they're doing well and keep doing it

-Build in space for students to dislike/disagree and say WHY

-Don't "find" your reading identity--create it. Who is the reader you want to me? How can you emphasize the process of finding your "reader self" versus the outcome? Is there an outcome, anyway? GROWTH MINDSET!

-Give students support language and tools for telling you who they are as a reader

-"What I'm Reading" section on white board

-Book images to stack above student names/photos for when books are completed (rating on book spine)

-Class or school-wide book reading competition with treats for all

• Questions to ask

  • Are the stereotypes in this YAL being perpetuated? Or are they being complicated to encourage deeper thinking?

  • To what extent do portrayals of adolescence/ts in the story align with common understandings about adolescents’ needs, desires, and abilities? To what extent do the portrayals of adolescence/ts raise questions about what is “normal” in adolescence?

  • In what ways do young people’s intersectional identities inform the progression of the story? How do these intersectional identities complicate common understandings about how youths fit into society?

  • What situations, actions, or pieces of dialogue does the author use to mark a character as being an adolescent? How is adolescence as a social construct leveraged in these textual elements?

  • In what ways does the narrative voice evoke ideas of adolescence/ts? How is this voice in conversation with various beliefs about the place of youths in society? 

  • In what ways does this book focus on (or fail to focus on) significant issues that adolescents are likely to see as relevant?

  • To what extent is the narrator or protagonist someone with whom adolescents might connect, even if, in our classes, he or she may differ from them in significant ways (e.g., race, class, gender, background)?

  • Is this a book that you imagine adolescents would choose to read? Why or why not?

  • Is this a book that you imagine adolescents would want to talk about with one another? Why or why not? 

  • Unlike other texts often read at the secondary level, YAL explicitly designates the audience for whom this writing is intended. As a body of literature marketed and marked for a specific reading audience, young adults, how do such texts represent young people? What assumptions about readers— their preoccupations, capabilities, and limits—come packaged within this collection of texts now increasingly taught in schools?

  • Are such portrayals complex, contradictory, and multiple, as are renderings of adults and other characters in books without the YA designation? How is adolescence depicted in the text? How is the depiction of adolescence inflected by race, gender, or sexuality? In other words, who is an adolescent in YA books, and with what significance? 

• Young Adult Texts That Complicate Views of Youths Questions (pg 227) 

  • Not marketed as YA yet featuring a teen protagonist, this book begs the question “What is YA literature?” When adolescence surfaces, what does it signify? 

  • Who is an “adolescent” in this text? If not an age-determined designation, then what is it? 

  • How does the novel interrogate contemporary masculinity? How does the novel represent femininity? 

  • How does the text’s use of fairy-tale conventions both allow for and limit the representation of adolescence? 

  • Is there an adolescence in this text? How might Leonora and Merlin’s references to each other speak to the shaping of adolescence through race? 

• Critical Questions (interrogating power) for Readers

  • How does the author’s identity shape this story and its representation of characters?

  • What are essential socio-historical contexts I need to understand around this story?

  • What stereotypes are present?

  • Who benefits from this story? Who does it help/hurt?

  • What systems are exposed in this text, and what do we think about them?

  • What do we not know enough about yet in this story? Where could I turn next?

  • Whose voice is missing here?