Herrick 1 Kaylee Herrick Professor Ostenson English 420 March 5, 2013 To use YA or not to use YA? That is the question. Throughout my time at college, preparing to be an English teacher, I have become more and more convinced that I want to use young adult literature (YA) in my classroom. When I started the major, I assumed, just like my middle and high school years that I would be teaching the classics: Broadening minds with the great works of old and bringing tears to their eyes as they read well written prose. However, the reality, like many English teachers, is that I took all honors and AP English classes and how I felt about the classics was not the general consensus among most of my peers. Many of my fellow classmates wouldn’t be caught dead reading a classic, and if they had too, they would read enough to get by and read the plot summary and find themes on Spark Notes. As I started teaching in the schools, it became clear to me that many of the students hated reading or felt no connection to what they were reading in class at all. No one was looking for beauty in the prose or recognizing the truth of human nature brought out of the text. All most could see was that they didn’t get it, and it had nothing to do with the world they lived in. The more I learned about YA in my teaching studies, the more it seemed to be a perfect solution to connect reluctant readers to books in the English classroom and help students feel like they have more in common with the books we assign. However, when I actually go into the schools to teach, this practice of teaching YA as part of the curriculum is not near as prevalent as I supposed. All the research and data that demonstrates that YA literature is one of the most
Herrick 2 effective ways to get students interested in literature is not happening. Sometimes the disparity between the classroom I am taught in and the classroom I teach in can be very discouraging. Why is YA not being taught in the classroom? If research shows it is so good for us, why aren’t we doing it? As I head out to teach in my own classroom, how can I know what obstacles I might face in my quest to teach YA and how can I know how I can truly make YA Literature in my classroom a reality? This paper will present the possible struggles teachers and schools might face when wanting to use YA literature in the classroom. This paper will also address possible strategies to combat these difficulties in the classroom. But before I dive into the obstacles and possible strategies of implementing YA Literature in the classroom, some of you might still be skeptical that YA can be such a great tool for your teaching instruction. To give you a good idea of what YA might have to offer, here is what some of the experts are saying on the matter.
Why YA Literature? To begin this discussion, Robert Probst, a professor of English education, asks teachers to examine what they want to accomplish with literature in their classroom. Many teachers say that their goal is to create life-long readers and help students find meaning in the text, but then the whole literature unit is based on books students have a hard time relating too. If we truly want readers to become avid readers then Probst recommends we must make room to discuss more than what is in the text, but go beyond and ask how the book connects with our students personal lives. Our job as teachers is to help our students figure out meaning and gain understanding in their own lives and in the world around them through the books we choose. If this is the goal we hope to accomplish, he believes YA Literature is one of the best ways we can
Herrick 3 do that because “it deals with the issues students are likely to be confronting, and so it directly and openly invites the sort of encounter we have been alluding to. It touches their lives, addressing issues that matter, raising questions that are likely to interest them� (Probst 28). Not only do students find YA to be more relatable, but that is what students are buying and reading outside the classroom (Hayn 42). This extension of pulling books kids are already reading and buying outside of class into the classroom can help us as educators with the goal to make life-long readers. Using books students already love will help students see that the books they like are important to us as their teachers and have meaning in a classroom setting. By using YA in the classroom we can help amplify the meaning of books they already enjoy. Reading books kids are already interested in creates a stronger community of readers as well. A lot of times students don’t believe recommendations made by teachers because they think English teachers must like every book because of the nature of our job, while recommendations from their peers are a lot more valuable to them in their opinion. Using these books students are already reading creates a built in conversation into the book before you start discussing it as a class and can help kids make more positive connections to books and get them to read other books their peers are reading in the future. YA is a great way to bridge the gap between school learning and personal learning to help educators in our efforts to make life-long readers. Not only do students really enjoy YA books, many books have been published demonstrating that many YA books are at the same caliber as the classics. Books such as Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the Classics, Interpreting Young Adult Literature: Literary Theory in the Secondary Classroom, and Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges Between Young Adult Literature and the Classics all demonstrate that YA offers many of the same themes
Herrick 4 and literary interpretations as classics. They also offer the same chance to look at the text through different critical lenses and opportunities to study beautiful written prose that classics do. Using YA will not cost any loss in literary merit or discussion in the classroom.
Difficulties in Teaching YA Literature While the research demonstrates many wonderful reasons to teach YA literature, it remains true that there are a lot of difficulties to making that a reality in the classroom.
Tradition and Comfort One difficulty is that the classics are what teachers are used to: “Teachers know the classics often from their own college experience, and, in their classrooms, they believe in the value of all students reading traditional and demonstrably time-tested works of art� (Christenbury 15). The classics feel safer than using YA literature which is still in its infancy as a genre (Salvner 85) because teachers can't evaluate YA by the same standard of how well it has withstood the test of time. By having their students read the classics, they believe that they are helping their students enter into a tradition and conversation in literature that has been going on for hundreds of years and makes up much of our cultural makeup. Exposing them to this conversation, they hope, will prepare their students for college and prepare their students to discuss great topics with their peers in the future. The classics are also safe. The classics are what teachers read in high school, studied in college, and have taught for years; they feel comfortable with the material and know how to teach it. New teachers and seasoned teachers alike struggle with YA Literature because most
Herrick 5 colleges don’t provide a course in YA Literature and so teachers are not sure how to pick and choose or even know what is available for their students to read.
Censorship and Parent Approval Not only does the literature feel safe to teach because it is familiar, but because “In some quarters, teaching the classics is almost a political act and is seen as showing allegiance to traditional values and societal mores” (Christenbury 15). Books that have been taught for decades do not come under attack as much as new books do. Teachers have enough trouble with censorship and parents that many times choosing a well-known classic is the safest way to assure that they won’t get in any trouble (Bull). School districts will usually support teachers who use books that have been on the reading list for years, and parents are less likely to protest books they read in college or grade school even if it has similar content to a YA book. Teachers also struggle with mandated reading lists. Many teachers have required book lists at their schools that they must choose from and have no choice in the matter.
Time Time is another big issue. Anyone who has planned a book unit knows how long it takes to prepare good material for students on top of everything else teachers have on their to do lists. This means that “many overworked English teachers do not continue to read widely beyond their own university education and find in the classics to which they were exposed as students comfort and an intellectual ease” (Christenbury16). Teachers can feel very overwhelmed with the prospect of weaving their way through YA Literature, a genre they feel they know hardly anything about, finding the best book, getting it approved, and planning a unit around that book
Herrick 6 with everything else they have to do. Having no background in this genre, the task of knowing where to look and where to start can be daunting and take even more time for a novice than they have to spend. Along with the time just to read books in a new unfamiliar genre and the time it takes to plan a unit, “Demands for stressing basic skills, along with testing pressures and state mandates, may be increasingly restricting our ability to make professional judgments” and making time to read all that teachers would like” (Salvner 87). Teachers have so much on their plate and so many different sources telling them what to do, it can feel like a better use of their time to focus on how they will be judged as teachers—by test scores.
Money Budget is another major issue when deciding what books to teach. Many schools have classroom sets of books and don’t have enough money for students to take a personal copy home let alone for the school to buy a new set of books that maybe only one other teacher is interested in teaching. Claire Mizukawa, an English Teacher at a junior high, explained when asked about why teachers at her school might be hesitant to teach Young Adult Literature she said, “Mostly just book availability, budgets, money, the usual suspects.” At her school, she felt, money was the main contributor to why YA wasn’t being taught more often. Not only do schools not have the money for books, but usually YA books are more expensive because they are newer. Classics can usually be found a lot cheaper because of how old they are compared to books that kids enjoy that have only come out in the past few years.
Merit
Herrick 7 Beyond all these facts, many teachers simply believe that the classics hold more merit. Chris Crowe, A BYU English Teaching Professor, examines the reasons why people choose the classics over YA Literature. Reason one, teachers feel the classics have stood the test of time for a reason and help students gain insight into Western culture. Reason two, teachers want to expose their students to what they consider to be the best literature and help guide them in their reading. Reason three, teachers want to expose their students to challenging text to help them become better readers (124). Catherine Lyon, a junior high English teacher, mirrored many of Crowe's thoughts on some teacher’s view of the canon. She said that many teachers she meets that are hesitant to use YA in their classroom want students to be exposed to books they are going to read in college, the teachers love and cherish the works in the canon themselves, and teachers feel they are doing their students a disservice by not familiarizing their students with the canon. Teachers are worried that if they don’t expose them to the canon, which is such a big part of western culture, who will? And if that study is neglected, will students pay a price in their education?
Possibilities for YA Literature in the Classroom While this list is not comprehensive, it does give insight into how complicated this issue is. Teachers face many difficulties if they truly want to teach YA literature in their classroom which can leave many teachers feeling without support in this cause and making the actual use of YA in the classroom a lot less likely than one might hope. Below are some practical suggestions teachers can implement to try to combat some of these problems.
Using Classics and YA Literature
Herrick 8 While looking at some possible solutions, it is important to keep in mind the concerns that people have about teaching YA literature and also to see their point of using classics in the classroom. Classics do offer students an access point into views and thoughts from the past; being well read in the classics can connect you in a worldwide conversation with others who have also read the same books. Classics are well written and do have a lot to offer for students. Classics do not need to be completely done away with for YA Literature to have a presence in the classroom. Many teachers who love the classics and want to teach the classics in the classroom advocate not just teaching one or another, but using them together to amplify meaning in both books (Christenbury 17). Leila Christenbury, a professor of English education at VCU, remarks that this practice of comparing texts to each other to illuminate meaning has been used in the classroom for ages, so why not with YA Literature? She says that “obviously, just putting a young adult text and a classic text together is not sufficient; there needs to be a real and vibrant link between the two� (Christenbury 20). To help in this process, she offers some steps to bring this vibrant link between classics and YA texts. She recommends that first make sure that you pick a YA book of quality: books that you feel go beyond relevant topics or connections, but books that will truly intrigue them as piece of writing as well. If a mediocre YA book is used it will weaken the link between the texts you want to use. Second, she advises using more than one YA book to bridge the link between texts. This use of multiple choices allows students to pick the books they feel the most connected too and makes it more likely that they will make personal connections between the texts. Giving students more choice has been proven to help students get more interested in the things they are doing in school. Helping them have choice in the books they read can help bridge the gap in their motivation to interact with the texts you are reading in
Herrick 9 your class. Third, she recommends picking the classic text that you want to use in tandem with your other YA literature texts (20). By choosing the YA literature first, you are taking into consideration the student’s lives and experiences and using those experiences to help connect them to the classical text instead of making the YA literature conform to whatever classical book you choose. Christenbury talks about how she implements this idea into her own classroom. She said she would get the books she chose for the unit and let her students pick which of the texts they want to read. Then she would create literature circles around those texts. When the texts are finished or while they are reading the YA books, the students will read the classical text as a class. Another example of this strategy is George A. Marshall, in a study he conducted about how Young Adult Literature could be used more effectively in the classroom, observed an 8th grade class that used this strategy of literature circles to incorporate YA literature into the classroom. The teacher of this classroom decided to try literature circles to complement her 8th grader’s reading of a Death of a Salesman. To complement this book, she decided to focus on the theme of family relationships, which her students had found the most interesting, in her literature circles and picked each book based on this theme and assigned each student a role during their time in these groups. Marshall noted that the students seemed more engaged and making more personal connection to the text through the use of literature circle. The teacher found literature circles to be so successful in her class, she decided the next year to partner with the history teacher to read YA literature according to the historical topics the history teacher was going to discuss. She found that her students were more engaged in both classes and using YA in literature circles helped them bridge gaps in their learning and understanding of the specific time periods they were learning about in the history class. Marshall found students to be much more
Herrick 10 engaged with the classical text they were studying as a class when they were in smaller groups discussing personal connections with YA literature. He also found that this method was one of the most effective methods he observed for incorporating YA literature into the classroom successfully (78-79). This strategy of using literature circles works well for those who are low on budget as well because you can use a couple copies of each YA text for your literature circles according to what your library already has in stock so you don’t have to buy new classroom sets, but you can still use YA literature in your classroom. This can also help if your school has a required reading list because you can teach the required text, but still use YA literature in connection with the text you are required to read in the classroom. If time is the concern, keep in mind that students usually find YA novels to be faster reads than the classics, they are easier to comprehend, and students usually find them more engaging. The YA novel might help teacher’s not have to do so much front loading and activities to engage students into the classic if the YA novel is already introducing and engaging them in the topics that the classics are going to be addressing (Salvner 94). When using YA literature to complement texts, one thing teachers need to be careful of is to not give the impression that YA literature is only to be used to access the classics. This approach can make students feel like YA literature is only used “as exercises we undertake to prepare for the real thing” (Probst 28) .That the only value YA has is to help them understand ‘real literature’. If we want our students to become life-long readers then we need to show them that we believe YA literature has merit in its own right. If YA is taught only to help students prepare for other pieces of literature we are reading in class, “then we steal from it is potential
Herrick 11 for students� (29). Students need to see that what they are reading for enjoyment has value in our classroom, not just to help our students learn the classics.
Using YA Literature to Teach More Than Just Literature If schools are very adamant that you teach the classics and you worry about how to use literature circles in your classroom, YA literature can be used in other ways. YA can be incorporated into other areas of teaching as well. YA can be used as models for specific types of writing genres or when you are teaching about style and sentence structure in the classroom. Talking about the way real authors write sentences in books the students in your class already love can help them feel relevance in the concepts you are teaching them and help motivate them to try some of the writer’s strategies in their own writing. YA literature could also be used in front loading other books you are reading or specific topics you are talking about in class. Students could read excerpts from Witness by Karen Hesse before reading or learning about the civil rights movement to help students gain a different perspective of why some people might fall into prejudice. If your students are discussing the Holocaust or having a discussion on genocides, you could discuss or read parts of The Book Thief. Even with a lack of time or ability to teach a full unit using a specific book, using YA literature in other areas you are teaching such as grammar and writing or using YA literature to help front load a book or an idea, can help students become more interested in reading these books or at least feel that the books being discussed in class have more relevance or immediacy in their lives.
Herrick 12 What Should I Do to Start? Other areas of concern might be that teachers want to teach YA literature have never even read a YA book and how to find out what is good and how can they teach it. Jennifer Buehler, a professor of English education at LSU, says that “rarely do students and teachers see themselves as people who have the authority to talk back to the gatekeepers; instead, they are on the receiving end of a conversation begun by others” (26). She suggests that teachers stop looking at the criteria, or the gates, others mandate for them and start making their own classes the gateway for what they teach. This is where to begin. Decide what the students are interested and start your research there. Research the books and the topics that interest your students and that will help narrow down your search of where to start. Buehler goes on to suggest that once you find out what your students are interested in, build knowledge of the authors of those books or topics that students are interested in. Buehler recommends website like Jennifer Hubert Swan’s site (http://www.readingrants.org), Richie Partington (http://www.riciespicks.com) and The Goddess of YA literature (http://professornana.livejournal.com) to help you get an idea of what books are available in these categories and what other critics and professionals think of specific titles to get you started (). Websites like Don Gallos (http://www.authors4teens.com) can also help you find background research on authors and gain context for the books they have written (26). Websites like good reads can also help you and your students join a world-wide conversation on books so you don’t have to be the only one with knowledge on the topic and say into the books your reading. It helps students learn to hear and critically analyze others point of view and make their own judgments, while releasing the pressure of yourself to know everything and be the voice of the novel in your classroom. These types of conversations can help students become their own gatekeeper to what
Herrick 13 books they think are valuable as well as help you assess what books you want to incorporate into the classroom. Conclusion While these are just a few possibilities of how you can incorporate YA literature into your classroom despite the obstacles, I know that knowing so many different options of how YA can be used whether it be in grammar study, writing study, or literature study, students will benefit to having at least some contact with the books they enjoy in their English classroom. While I am only about to embark in a real classroom setting, the strategies many of the experts have recommended is a great way that all of us as teachers can make YA literature a reality in our classroom despite the challenges we might face at any school we might end up.
Herrick 14 Works Cited Adolescent Literature: As a Complement to the Classics. Ed. Joan F. Kaywell. Norwood: Christopher-Gordon, 1993. Print. Bull, Kelly Byrne. “Identifying Obstacles and Garnering Support: Young Adult Literature in the English Language Arts Classroom.” Teaching Young Adult Literature today: insights, considerations, and perspectives for the classroom teacher. 2. Ed. Virginia R. Monseau. and Gary M. Salvner. Portsmouth: 2000. Print. Buehler, Jennifer. “Ways to Join the Living Conversation about Young Adult Literature.” English Journal. 98.3 (2009): 26-32. Print. Crow, Chris. “Young Adult Literature: AP and YA?” The English Journal 91.1 (2001): 123-128. Print. Christenbury , Leila. “Natural, Necessary, and Workable: the connection of Young Adult Novels to the Classics.” Teaching Young Adult Literature today: insights, considerations, and perspectives for the classroom teacher. 2. Ed. Virginia R. Monseau. and Gary M. Salvner. Portsmouth: 2000. Print. Hayn, Judith A. and Amanda L. Nolen “Teaching YOund Adlut Literature: Defining the Role of Research.” Teaching Young Adult Literature today: insights, considerations, and perspectives for the classroom teacher. 2. Ed. Virginia R. Monseau. and Gary M. Salvner. Portsmouth: 2000. Print. Lyon, Catherine. Interview by Kaylee Herrick. 11 March 2013. Email.
Herrick 15 Marshall, George A. “What’s the Big Idea? Integrating Young Adult Literature in the Middle School.” English Journal 90.3 (2001): 74-81. Print. Mizukawa, Claire. Interview by Kaylee Herrick. 11 March 2013. Email. Moore, John Noell. Interpreting Young Adult Literature: Literary Theory in the Secondary Classroom. Portsmouth:Cook, 1997. Print. Probst, Robert E. “Adolescent Literature and the English Curriculum.” English Journal 76.3 (1987): 26-30.Print. Salvner, Gary M. “Time and Tradition: Transforming the Secondary English Class with Young Adult Novels.” Teaching Young Adult Literature today: insights, considerations, and perspectives for the classroom teacher. 2. Ed. Virginia R. Monseau. and Gary M. Salvner. Portsmouth: 2000. Print.