Welcome to our class blog on Teaching Adolescent Literature. This blog will serve as a space for our constant engagement and dialogue around two central questions:
What is adolescent literature?
Why teach it?
To get us started, let me offer my perspectives on these two questions. First, adolescent literature is literature written for and by young adults. That means it takes into account the complex nature of what it means to be an "adolescent"--no longer a child but not yet an adult--and deals with the myriad issues that adolescents today face. I know that being an adolescent today is very different than when I was an adolescent. So, I often question how adults can author texts that appeal to young people. How in touch are we with what it means to grow up in the 21st century?
Why teach it? In order to maximize the literacy learning and engagement of all students, it is of utmost importance that we, as teachers, draw on texts that are relevant to them. This often means that we must expand our definitions of what counts as literature. It also means that in some instances we are privileging the literacy practices and textual choices of students that occur outside of school, beyond our watch and out of our control.
So, we have a lot to talk about this semester as we read various adolescent literature texts along with scholarly and practical texts on how to teach this genre. I'm looking forward to what you have to say.
Oh, and check out this video about what it means to be an adolescent reader growing up online in the text-saturated world of the 21st century: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/view/main.html
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