DR. BICKMORE'S YA WEDNESDAY

Tween YA books for Mental Health: Please Advise by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

8/3/2022

Gretchen Rumohr is Chief Curator of YA Wednesday. She serves as a professor of English and department chair at Aquinas College, where she teaches writing and language arts methods. She is also a Co-Director of the UNLV Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature. She lives with her four girls and a five-pound Yorkshire Terrier in west Michigan.

Tween YA books for Mental Health: Please Advise by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

You may have noticed that this summer, YA Wednesday has taken on a less regular schedule (at least for Wednesdays). In typical summertime fashion, there has been time to play, time to read, time to rest. But behind the scenes of this summer, there have been other challenges: children who are also off of school and require care and attention; hospitalizations and follow-ups; disruptions in custody schedules. Throughout these bumps, my goal continues to be an ongoing conversation about the value of YA literature in our, and our students’ lives.

Which brings me to today’s goal. My own summer’s theme has been caring for loved ones who struggle with depression and self-harm. And in looking for support on this theme, I notice that there are plenty of books in the “grade 9 and up” category that address mental health–yet very few books in the “tween” category. This is especially challenging if a tween is a reluctant or struggling reader.

Our tweens–who are on waiting lists at psychiatrists’ offices, can’t find counselors who participate in their insurance, or are struggling quietly, alone, afraid to even tell someone what’s actually on their mind–need to be seen and heard. They need to see themselves represented in accessible, high-interest YA books.

Let’s use this space today to share all of our favorite tween books that address mental health.

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Kamala Khan’s Rising Influence: The Ms. Marvel TV Show vs. the Comics by Dr. Margaret Robbins

7/20/2022

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We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Margaret Robbins back to YA Wednesday this week! Robbins is a Humanities Educator at The Mount Vernon School. She is also a National Writing Project Fellow, avid reader and scholar of diverse comics and YA literature, and creative writer.

Margaret's reflection below is especially valuable because it weds world history, current popular television, and YA graphic novels.

Kamala Khan’s Rising Influence: The Ms. Marvel TV Show vs. the Comics by Dr. Margaret Robbins

In early June, I watched the debut Ms. Marvel TV show on Disney Plus with my five-year-old nephew, who followed it surprisingly well. He asked me questions, but he could appreciate the characters and the imagination. The subsequent episodes might be too scary and serious for him, but I’m glad he watched the first episode with me. He’s Jewish, so I want him to understand the importance of representation, along with imagination.

As some readers know, I am passionate about the new Ms. Marvel comics featuring Kamala Khan, a teenage Pakistani-American girl from Jersey City. I’ve taught them, particularly the first Ms. Marvel: No Normal volume, and I’ve also written about them in academic articles and journals. I met G. Willow Wilson at the ICFA Conference in March 2019 and heard her speak. So at first, I had conflicting feelings about the fact that the TV show is so different from the comics. However, I’ve grown to enjoy the show, even though I see it as a separate entity from the books. The pace of the television show is much faster than that of the comics, which I think makes sense for the transition to television. A couple of friends and students who have read the comics have said they liked the story, but that the pace was slow, so I imagine that one reason behind the faster pace is to have wider audience appeal.

Some incidents in the tv show happen a lot more quickly and in more depth than in the comics. For instance, in Volume 1 of Ms. Marvel No Normal, Kamala attends a cousin’s Mehndi, or engagement party. In the television series, much of one episode is devoted to her brother Amir’s wedding, whereas the comic only mentions that Amir got married. Through the episode, though, the audience is able to learn about Pakistani cultural wedding traditions, which I found interesting.
The character of Red Dagger is introduced much earlier in the series, and Kamala makes a voyage to Karachi, Pakistan, much earlier in the story. We also learn much of Kamala’s family’s history involving the partition of India and Pakistan in the late 1940s earlier and in more depth than in the comics. Overall, the television series introduces us to more action and conflict and also more of Pakistani culture sooner than the comics, which I think invites more audience engagement and also more education about Middle Eastern history and culture.
Interestingly enough, Kamala’s close friend Nakia and her mother Muneeba both have more character development in the television show, and Kamala’s male best friend Bruno has less. I’ve written about Bruno and Kamala’s relationship because it’s fascinating to me not only because of their strong bond based on mutual interests and values, but also because of their racial and cultural differences. However, I know from the audience notes featured on the back of the comics that the romantic turn of their relationship got mixed reactions from readers, so that could be part of why it has been de-emphasized up to this point. Kamala has other potential love interests on the show, but so far, her relationship with Bruno has been purely platonic, even though Bruno seems to have unreciprocated feelings for Kamala.

Overall, I’m appreciating the Ms. Marvel TV show for its action and audience appeal, even though it diverts from the comics. I hope Kamala’s friendships with both Bruno and Nakia get more developed because I think both are important. However, I do appreciate the show exploring Nakia’s leadership and activism roles in more depth and early on, as her character gets less attention in the comics. Also, I love how the opening conflict with Zoe involves a popular culture convention instead of a more conventional high school party. It shows how important CONS have become to modern day pop culture. I’m enjoying the TV show and think it’s culturally important and relevant because of the representation of a middle easter Muslim teenage girl, along with the empowered female characters.

In terms of classroom study, I think there’s potential to compare and contrast the comics and the TV show in terms of storytelling techniques and the building of conflict, characterization, and visual media. I also think learning more about the1947 partition would be relevant, especially for a world history curriculum. Studying the show from a critical media literacy perspective and examining power dynamics between the characters would also be beneficial, particularly since the comics and the television show both show scenes involving prejudice against Muslim and middle eastern people, along with the struggles Bruno faces based on social class. In both K12 and college classrooms, Kamala Khan is worth studying as a pop culture icon, as she is appearing more and more in other Marvel comics. I believe her influence will be long lasting because of her prominent role as a young middle eastern female Muslim character. As young children watch the show and engage with the comics, hopefully they will be reminded why representation matters.

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Summer Resting by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

7/13/2022

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Summer Resting by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

After a few weeks of work and travel in June, after yardwork and laundry and emptying the dishwasher night and day, I am taking a week or two OFF. Off, I tell you! My girls and I are headed this very moment to Manistee, where we will enjoy lake time, campfires, and hobo pies. And then we will head to Cadillac to see brother (and fellow YA Wednesday contributor) Luke Rumohr for a few days of boating, hot tubbing, and discount store shopping. We will soak in all of the things we love about Michigan summers, staying up late and sleeping late and barbecuing things on the sunny deck. And we will rest. Do you think I have everything I need in my trunk? I sure hope I do, because I don’t have another inch to spare.

Wait! I forgot! There are just three more things I need to add…

The next week or two, I will enjoy my family, enjoy the weather, enjoy Michigan beautiful, and of course READ! This is what is on my list–and why.

I know I’m behind the times because I haven’t yet read In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner. In my defense, I let my father borrow my copy first (which he devoured immediately)--now it’s my turn! As with The Serpent King, I look forward to Zentner’s rich prose, realistic and heartbreaking storytelling, strong sense of place (especially rural place, as Chea Parton’s Literacy in Place has explored).

But yet! I am AHEAD of the times because I have my hands on Twin Cities by Jose Pimienta and it is a gorgeous book. Flipping the pages, I note realistic urban landscapes of Calexico–a border town–and a boy-girl twin dynamic as each twin decides whether to attend school in Mexico or in the U.S.--and contends with changes in their relationship as they grow.

And The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson will be my perfect beach read. After all, it takes place in the summer, celebrates friendship, and keeps us in suspense with its thrilling murder mystery. I’m ready for it!

So–what is on your “resting” reading list? Whatever is in your TBR pile, happy reading!

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Advocating for Their Lifelines by Katie Sluiter

7/6/2022

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We are happy to welcome Katie Sluiter (pronounced “Sly-ter”) back to YA Wednesday. Katie is a wife, a mother, a teacher, a reader, and a writer. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in English education at Western Michigan University and teaches in a Junior High School near Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has presented at both the Michigan Council of Teacher of English (MCTE) annual conference and the National Council of teachers of English (NCTE) conference and is an ALAN Workshop regular, too!

Advocating for their Lifelines by Katie Sluiter

Last month I was fortunate enough to attend and present at the 2022 Summit on the Research and Teaching of YA Literature in person! It was my third summit, but my first time in-person and it was an absolute joy to be back to being face-to-face with fellow English teachers and teacher educators as well as young adult authors.

This year’s theme was “Books, Classrooms, Communities: Young Adult Literature as a Lifeline.” My presentation, “Advocating for their Lifelines: When Students Challenge the Challenges to YA Novels like Speak” was accepted in the spring before my 8th graders started on our full class study of the novel by Laurie Halse Anderson. I told my students about the presentation and how we were going to be spending the end of the school year examining censorship and the silencing of voices.

Our first activity was looking into book banning in the United States since Anderson’s novel has been on the banned and challenged lists since its publication in 1998. I dispersed books from my own classroom library that have been on banned/challenged lists and asked students to research reasons why the texts were challenged, and in some cases banned. I then asked students to look through NCTE’s 2018 position statement, “The Students’ Right to Read.” As they began their internet dives, students quickly made the connection to what “books as lifelines” had to do with silencing voices.

During one class’s dialogue, a student asked, “If your life was a book, would it be banned? Mine would because I am Black and people want to think I don’t experience racism.” Other students brought up that there were many books by and/or about those in the LBGTQ+ community that appeared on the lists. One scholar pointed out that by continually blocking access to books “from our community, they are saying we don’t exist. They are trying to erase us.”

Student Recommended:

Asking For It by Louise O’Neill -- Two different students wrote about how this novel made them feel seen as victims of both assault and bullying.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky -- One student said he picked it up because he heard there was a movie about it. He had no idea there was sexual abuse. As a guy, he didn’t think there were books out there about his experience.

The Heartstopper series by Alice Oseman -- These books have been impossible to keep on my shelf because my LGBTQ+ students (and their allies) are absolutely hungry for this representation. Plus Netflix just released it as a live action series.

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo -- “Pretty sure this book was wrote [sic] about my own life. Whew!”

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sànchez -- Again, multiple students mentioned the accuracy of how Sànchez writes about what it’s like to be a “Mexican daughter” with parental expectations that don’t necessarily match your own goals or personality.

New Lifelines to My Classroom Library:

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

The Temperature of Me And You by Brian Zepka

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An Inclusive Curriculum with Ari and Dante by Travis Reyes

6/29/2022

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Travis Reyes is a public-school teacher in Arlington with 22 years of experience. His students are amazing human spirits in 6th-12th grade at HB Woodlawn Secondary Program. He is certified in Spanish, ESOL, and Administration and Supervision; Travis uses all his skills to support learners in and out of the classroom. Part of teaching involves working with a group of students in a program known as a Teacher Advisor or TA. His students in the program have gone on to win Posse scholarships for college. He is currently a trustee at his Quaker meeting and serves on several educational and scholarship committees for Friends schools and the Baltimore Yearly Meeting. This summer, Travis will be presenting an LGBTQ book talk to young people at the Kennedy Center under the auspices of Fred Eychaner, a gay American businessman, and a prominent philanthropist. Travis is married to his husband Reggie, and they have three chihuahuas, Maní, Adobo, and Lumpia.

An Inclusive Curriculum with Ari and Dante by Travis Reyes

“The world according to Ari and Dante. Dante and me walked through a world, a world nobody had ever seen, mapping out all the rivers and valleys and creating paths so that the journeys of all of those who came after us through the wilderness wouldn't be scary. No one who came after us would ever get lost because of the maps we'd made.”

― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

A close look at the quote asserts that these pioneering gay characters are not so much crossing actual physical mountains and wide rivers but social barriers and hardships. Both Ari and Dante come out of the other side of complicated adolescence in the 1980s doing rather well for two gay boys at the time. These two characters have vibrant and full lives as young gay people and they experience positive friendships, find self-acceptance, and wider community support during a trying and very challenging time in American history. The 1980s were not a time not known for open support of LGBTQ people and one almost needs to pinch themselves to read all about Ari and Dante just being themselves and true to themselves with all the support they received. Much of what Ari and Dante achieved links to the work of sociologists and psychologists (Cass, 1979; Colemann 1981; Lipkin, 1999; Troiden, 1989). These theorists explored what it means to be LGBTQ as a young person and how there is a need to grow up authentically normal, even when society is homophobic and hostile. Their theories are a calling to instill within regular and mainstream society more structural support for those who identify as LGBTQ people in the hope that fewer will struggle and find more resources. LGBTQ books in the classroom are one such approach and structural adjustment for the betterment of the experiences and lives of young LGBTQ people.

The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), an important organization recognized for supporting LGB rights for young people, shares that the experiences of LGBT youth are far from supportive. GLSEN shares that because of the lack of support, many LGBTQ youths tend to want to avoid school and skip school. In their climate survey, GLSEN mentions that “98% of LGBTQ students heard ‘gay’ in a negative way and that LGBTQ youth were nearly three times more likely than straight students to have missed school in the past month (44.1% vs. 16.4%).” While the data is revolutionary in describing the lives of LGBTQ youth and their experiences, the survey arguably can also be a case for inclusion and responsive instruction. This is because GLSEN also writes about how LGBTQ content is included within the schools and that this is potentially why LGBTQ youth struggle. GLSEN writes “…only 9.4% of LGB students are taught positive representations of LGB people, history, or events in their schools, and 17% had been taught negative content” (p. 8).

What this means is that teachers need to consider focusing more on the damaging impacts of including only negative information and content on their learners who are LGBTQ. What this also means is that teachers can work on adding positive expressions of LGBTQ life and diverse ranges of experiences into the curriculum.

GLSEN states that an inclusive curriculum takes down negative and anti-LGBTQ language and students are more inclined to feel safe. In fact, “[LGB youth] were less likely to hear ‘gay’ used in a negative way… (59.2% vs. 79.8%), they were less likely to hear homophobic remarks such as “fag” or “dyke” and, they were less likely to feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation (44.4% vs. 62.7%).

Growing up I cannot think of even one book that helped me learn more about finding friends who supported LGBTQ people, let alone any responsive teaching or approach that helped all of us to feel comfortable with ourselves as young LGBTQ people. Quite possibly, teachers at the time did not even know that there were LGBTQ experiences out there in society that could speak to my needs as a young learner. Today, fortunately, there is critical research by GLSEN to help teachers understand more about the importance of being inclusive, responsive, and working to build positive experiences in the curriculum in a responsive way. Within this conceptualization and emergent understanding of LGBTQ inclusive curriculum comes an important place for LGBTQ books like Ari and Dante and a call to action. Keep in mind that GLSEN’s survey was from all 50 states' student experiences. What this means is that an inclusive curriculum is neither a northern or southern issue, east coast, or west coast issue, but an American educational issue. Growing up is difficult and an inclusive curriculum grounded in books that have empowered characters can play a role to transform education and how students see themselves within the world. It is of paramount importance that future research and discussion in education focus on these topics for our students.

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What the book? Challenging literature and the role of school boards in responding to attacks on curriculum by Dr. Susan Cridland-Hughes and Dr. Jung Kim

6/22/2022

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Susan Cridland-Hughes, Ph.D., is the Associate Professor of English Education in the College of Education at Clemson University. Her research focuses on the intersections of social justice, critical literacy, and orality in out of school educational spaces, particularly debate and debate education. Her work has been featured in the Journal of Language and Literacy Education, Journal of Adolescent Literacy, and English Teaching: Practice and Critique.

Jung Kim is Professor of Literacy in the Department of Education at Lewis University and, when not working, can be found either running or reading. A former English teacher and literacy coach, she is interested in critical literacy, issues of equity, and coffee. She writes about teaching with graphic novels, children's and young adult literature, and Asian American education. Her most recent book is on the racialization of Asian American teachers.

What the book? Challenging literature and the role of school boards in responding to attacks on curriculum by Dr. Susan Cridland-Hughes and Dr. Jung Kim

The last two years have demonstrated a tidal shift in the ways parents and schools interact, particularly tied to the books available for students to read. While much of this is related to the so-called “anti-Critical Race Theory” movement and backlash against the 1619 project, it has expanded to include attacks against authors of color and authors who include conversations about LGBTQIA+ identity, attacks against books that seek to expand the representation of youth in texts. The goal of this YA Wednesday post is focusing on how book challenges are affecting schools and districts in one particular state as well as the range of how school boards are responding to the increasing attacks on curriculum and teacher autonomy.

South Carolina’s Expanding Landscape of Book Challenges:
We start this post with a snapshot of what is happening in South Carolina. Susan’s children attend schools in the Greenville County School District, the largest school district in the state and 44th largest in the country. Greenville County Schools has a book challenge policy whereby parents can challenge books used in the classroom by filing a form, the “Request for reconsideration of instructional materials.” The policy provides for the composition of a book challenge committee for each of the instructional levels: elementary, middle, and secondary. The policy also provides for the composition of the book challenge committee; notably, all book challenge committees provide for the inclusion of a member of clergy, and, for secondary schools, there is a provision for the inclusion of two student voting members. The policy indicates that the committee will review and issue a decision, but that the decision can be appealed to the Superintendent and the appeal will be reviewed by the full school board.

Two particular book challenges emerged last year in this district. At the high school level, a parent challenged four texts from a provided list of an AP Language course: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, Dark Money by Jane Mayer, Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, and Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. The committee reviewed the texts based on the criteria established in the policy: “the age of the students using them, the purpose of the materials, any mandatory use of the materials, their educational value, the basis for the complaint, and relevant community standards.” Because the texts were supplemental texts from a larger list, the committee unanimously found that the materials were not mandatory and there was no reason to remove them from the instructional materials. The parent appealed to the Superintendent and the appeal was heard by the full board— while the board voted again to reject the challenge, two board members voted to uphold the challenge.

At the elementary level, a parent challenged the book George by Alex Gino (now retitled Melissa as of October 2021). Again, the elementary committee reviewed the text based on the criteria established in the policy, found that the book “was appropriate for the intended audience, ages ten and above” and should not be removed from the library. The parent once again appealed to the board: this time, the board voted to remove the book from elementary libraries, keep it under restrictions in middle school libraries, and leave it unrestricted in high schools. Board member Derek Lewis described this as essentially a compromise between leaving the book fully available and fully removed:
I am hesitant to remove texts from shelves, recognizing that school libraries- like traditional public libraries- provide opportunity for self- selected reading… I also recognize that it would be incredibly difficult to have a book in an elementary school library that is limited to 5th graders and for the District to guarantee that younger students would not have access to the book.

In this case, the board chose to restrict instead of remove; the result, however, is that a child will be unable to seek out this text independently until the age of 14, far beyond the age recommended by the book committee.
While there is a challenge process that was ostensibly followed in both contexts, there have also been stories about books being removed from libraries without a formal and official challenge from parents. GCS writes in its policy that books will not be removed until the challenge has been adjudicated. However, the book Genderqueer by Maia Kobabe was removed based on a letter from South Carolina governor Henry McMaster where he referred to the book as “meeting the statutory definition of obscenity” (McMaster 2021) and referred the matter to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. School libraries do not appear to have the protection that classroom instructional materials are afforded; either that, or the Governor can unilaterally remove any text that he sees as problematic. Most concerningly, it appears South Carolina has a policy that includes a carve-out for anything considered prurient or pornographic, and books with LGBTQIA+ representation are at greatest risk of removal.

School Board Processes in a More Progressive Community:
Jung is in Illinois and the president of her local elementary school district, which hosts almost 6000 students amongst eight pK-5 buildings and two middle schools. The Illinois Association of School Boards has a set policy on “Teaching about Controversial Issues” which requires that the Superintendent ensure all school-sponsored presentations and discussions be age-appropriate, consistent with the curriculum and be education, informative and balanced, respectful of the rights of others, and is not tolerant of profanity or slander. The community within which she lives borders Chicago and is considered a very progressive community and highly engaged in discussions of race and equity. During her tenure on the school board (3 years), there have not been any book challenges that have come before the board. In fact, the district adopted an anti-racist curriculum policy two years ago that included the young adult version of Stamped by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds and Tiffany Jewell’s This Book Is Antiracist (both books that have been challenged elsewhere). While the board has received a few letters critiquing the antiracist curriculum, most community members and parents have been in support of the curriculum.

Because of the nature of mass media today, though, the board has also received complaints from individuals outside of the district about various policies and procedures that are seen as pushing a liberal agenda–whether it’s about books or about masking. Last year, one local family took to national conservative media to argue against the antiracist curriculum– that talking about race and inequity perpetuates racism and inequity. A different online conservative media source also criticized the “critical race theory curriculum” being pushed in the district and made sure to publish Jung’s photo (she is Asian American) and the board vice president’s photo (she is African American) alongside the article. Neither of them was referenced or cited in the article but their pictures were used. One cannot help but wonder if they weren’t women of color if the news source would have printed their pictures. In this vein, local issues have become national ones.

While the district does offer a process for challenging a book for being “offensive or controversial,” such challenges generally do not come to the board and the board does not vote on novels used in classrooms. This is what happened when seven parents challenged the use of Walter Dean Myers’ Monster in the middle school. A committee reviewed the book and decided it was appropriate for seventh grade. The decision was presented to the board but not as one on which their vote was expected. This is, in fact, what the Illinois Association of School Boards advocates–the “balcony view.” School board members should make high level decisions, as if from a balcony, and not get in the weeds with the daily goings ons in the district. While Jung is a former teacher and current teacher educator, most school board members are not highly trained experts in schools and education. Regardless of expertise, the board’s place should not be dictating curriculum and making decisions about what should or should not get taught in schools. It has been frustrating and appalling to see school board members across the country work to silence the voices and stories of those that have most often been pushed to the margins. Schools should encourage a diversity of voices that humanizes all.

Some resources for advocating for authors and readers
While this post is predominantly about the situation in South Carolina, South Carolina is by no means the only state where the freedom to read is under attack. NCTE just published a statement denouncing the challenge in Virginia (again to Genderqueer), that could endanger sales of the book throughout the state.
We wanted to leave you with some resources for advocating for freedom to read when it comes to literature in schools.

NCTE Intellectual Freedom Center: https://ncte.org/resources/ncte-intellectual-freedom-center/news-and-updates/
ALA Challenge Support Center: Note, this is primarily for public libraries, but it has some best practices for responding to challenges.

https://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport

American Associate for School Librarians:

https://www.ala.org/aasl/about/challenges

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund:

http://cbldf.org/
If nothing else, you can track the challenges filed in your local district and reach out to your elected school board official to formally request that they support the freedom to read. Authors, teachers, and students need informed members of the community to push back against censorship.

References:
McMaster, H. (November 10, 2021). Letter to State Superintendent Molly Spearman.

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To Teach or Not To Teach? by Dr. Erinn Bentley and Sam Bridges

6/15/2022

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(Sam)antha Bridges has spent the last three years teaching ELA in Georgia. She earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Auburn University in English/Creative Writing. As a current student in Columbus State University’s Ed.S program, Sam aspires to become a master teacher through marrying her love for YA Literature with her passion for teaching students how to hone their skills as effective readers and writers in a media-driven society. Sam resides with her husband and daughter in Opelika, Alabama and will begin teaching at the city’s high school in the Fall.

Erinn Bentley is a professor of English education at Columbus State University in Georgia. Her biggest joys come from mentoring educators and spending time with her husband, two teenage sons, and puppy.

To Teach or Not To Teach? by Dr. Erinn Bentley and Sam Bridges

Hmmm…I’m not sure if I can teach this text.

We all have probably pondered this phrase at least once. Perhaps our doubts stem from a fear of “getting caught.” By a parent, by an administrator, or by a school board member. Recently, our state passed House Bill 1084, which bans the teaching of nine so-called “divisive concepts.”. Of course, our state is not alone. Researcher Jeffrey Sachs, from PEN America, reports that since January 2021, “...35 states have introduced 137 bills limiting what schools can teach with regard to race, American history, politics, sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Organizations, such as the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), encourage us to engage in anti-racist teaching, and affirm gender diversity through ELA curriculum and pedagogy. We are told to find texts that serve as “mirrors” for our students, representing their diverse backgrounds, learning styles, and interests. And we do. Or, at least we try our best to reach every student as we work within or outside of our limitations.

Sometimes, though, our limitations come from within. We may wonder, Will this novel ‘trigger’ my students? Am I really knowledgeable enough about this topic to teach it? Will this issue offend someone? Will this text be relatable and relevant to my students?

Today’s post is a teacher's heart-to-heart. We will discuss two beautiful and powerful novels as well as questions and feelings we have in terms of teaching them.

Regarding a bit of context, both novels were required texts in a graduate-level YA literature course, taught this summer by Erinn. Sam, a high-school English teacher, was one of the class members. Our discussion in this post reflects our individual responses and topics raised in our class discussions.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Brief Summary:
Wintergirls follows Lia, an affluent, white teen who has teetered on recovery from her eating disorder for the last few years. The novel opens up with Lia’s step-mother breaking the news of her childhood best friend’s death. This news plunges Lia back into the throes of her obsessive thoughts as she tries to process her best friend’s death and figure out how she died. Lia’s grief, eating disorder, and overall mental health take the reader on a tumultuous ride as Lia navigates her ultimate choice: living.

Sam’s Thoughts:
The first time I read Wintergirls I was a Freshman in high school, and though I do not suffer from an eating disorder or come from the same affluence as Lia, I still found myself in her self-hatred and burden of grief. Now, as a teacher, reading Wintergirls a solid thirteen years later, I have serious hesitations about teaching it to my tenth graders. While part of this hesitation stems from representation (I teach at an inner city school where the majority of my students are African American), I am more concerned with how to proactively teach mental health and under its umbrella – eating disorders, self-harm, and grief.

Approaching such sensitive subjects with students and not knowing their personal experience could trigger their past traumas and ruin their whole day, week, or semester. Even though I incorporate free-writes into my classroom and try to allow room for guided classroom discussions, the challenge still remains because not every student is willing to share personal details from their lives.

However, I think I would find the most success in teaching this novel to students if it were a creative writing course. Focusing the discussion of the novel on Anderson’s craft as she paints grief and self-hatred into concrete, beautiful detail would allow more critical conversations to bloom and remove students at least slightly from the brutal reality of Lia’s mind. Instead of in a traditional Literature classroom, where the focus would be more on plot, in a creative writing classroom the discussion would be geared towards how Anderson used language to convey Lia’s mental illness.

Teaching the novel would be a fun and rewarding endeavor in either classroom setting, but I think the decision would need to be based on the amount of time allocated to supplement the novel with well-rounded discussions and additional material on mental health, as well as who makes up the classroom – will your students see themselves in this book? For me, it’s a no, but one day, in the right circumstances, I’ll teach Wintergirls and celebrate Anderson’s impeccable storytelling.

Erinn’s Thoughts:
As a white woman, who grew up in a middle-class, suburban family, and as someone who had an eating disorder when I was Lia’s age, I could relate to this character. While my disorder was not severe enough for me to be hospitalized, Anorexia negatively impacted my growth, my physical health, and my mental health.

I have always admired Anderson as a writer, and Wintergirls is masterfully structured. We see Lia’s interactions with family and friends in real-time, we hear her inner thoughts, and we escape with her into an alternate world her mind has constructed. These narratives truly show readers just how fractured and fragile Lia is. Honestly, some passages were painful for me to read because they transported me back to my own fragile time. This one, in particular:
“I’m hungry. I need to eat.
I hate eating.
I need to eat.
I hate eating.
I need to eat.
I love not-eating” (Anderson 145).

Lia’s internal dialogue perfectly portrays how I felt.

At times, reading LIa’s thoughts was triggering. Her words took me to a place I would rather never visit again. Other times, her words were oddly confirming or reassuring - a reminder that I really did suffer from a condition beyond my control. A reminder that I survived.

I believe this novel was appropriate to read within the context of our graduate-level class. As adults, we possessed the maturity to discuss the novel and this very sensitive topic. Some of us commented that there were many times we simply had to “walk away” from Lia for a while. Creating spaces to process and emotionally-distance oneself from a text is not easy to do, particularly for our adolescent readers and particularly for readers who may have a mental illness. For those reasons, I would not teach this novel in a high school classroom. One of my students suggested this could be a really important text for teachers, parents, administrators, and counselors. I agree. Wintergirls lets us inside the mind of a troubled and traumatized teen so that we can, hopefully, help the actual Lias in our lives.

Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard

Brief Summary:
Girl Mans Up features Pen, a teenage girl who struggles to accept herself and find acceptance among her family and peers due to her gender identity. According to those around her, she does not fit their expectations. As Pen aptly says, “Everyone wants something different from me. It’s like one second, I should be a better dude…Then, it’s the opposite: I’m too much of a guy, and it’s not right. I should be a girl…The thing is, I’m not a boy, but I don’t want to be that girl either” (Girard 42). Pen’s parents, who immigrated from Portugal, exacerbate her identity struggles due to their traditional values and worldviews. As Pen grapples with her family relationships, she simultaneously experiences conflicts among “old” friends and encounters with “new” friends that test her loyalty to others and herself. In the end, Pen finds the person she is meant to be through the love and support of those who truly see her.

Sam’s Thoughts:

I personally loved this novel because of how real our narrator, Pen, felt. If Girard has mastered anything in her storytelling, it’s definitely creating likable characters with distinct voices. While Wintergirls presents hesitations in teaching related to mental health, Girl Mans Up presents them in teaching a LGBTQ character.

Girl Mans Up presents a much broader range of representation to students, as Pen embodies topics of queerness, gender identity, and living as a first generation immigrant. While I still might not choose to teach this book to my population of students currently, I think it would be much easier to find an “in” for more of my students than Wintergirls.

Even though Pen’s sexuality is a topic of conversation for many characters in this book, I don’t see it as the driving force of the plot. This book is really all about identity. How we find it, what leads us to it, and how those we surround ourselves with influence it. While Pen’s identity may be more complicated than the average teenager, most average teenagers are struggling with some form of a crisis when it comes to figure out who they are and where they belong.

If I were to teach this book, the theme of identity would be the cornerstone of my lessons, as I think it would allow students to see themselves in Pen and reflect on how they present themselves to the world. Not to mention the richness of Gerard’s character allows students a variety of people, values, and actions to generate meaning in the story and in their own lives. Girl Mans Up is another book I will consider teaching in the future, as the lessons Pen gives us transcends identity and land on what it means to be a brave and good human.

Erinn’s Thoughts:
I first encountered this novel when doing research for a previous YA Wednesday post. As I was creating the reading list for my current YA literature class, I wanted to include one with LGBTQ representation. Girl Mans Up immediately came to mind due to how relatable Pen is as a character and how raw her situation is. Often, LGBTQ characters are cast as the “gay, best firend/sidekick” or, if they are a protagonist, they are warmly accepted by their family and friends. Pen is neither a sidekick nor accepted. She is front and center in this gripping novel.

During our class discussions, it was interesting to hear the many ways we each related to Pen. Regardless of our age, race, or gender, we each saw something of ourselves in her: Challenging family dynamics, complicated (and sometimes hurtful) friendships, the expectations of others and society in general, and questions regarding one’s identity. As Sam mentioned, this novel focuses on Pen’s journey to figure out who she truly is. While her journey centers mostly on her gender identity and presentation, her journey is so much more than that. It is the same journey we all traveled in some capacity as adolescents.

As many of us in the class agreed, this novel could be a great read for high school students, depending on the make-up of one’s class and how the sensitive topics are addressed. Pen experiences verbal abuse, survives a sexual assault, and comforts a friend who has an abortion. M-E Girard’s descriptions are viceral at times, which could be triggering. It is the honesty, though, in her storytelling that makes the characters so believable and relatable. Reading through the tough scenes makes the quiet, pensive moments that much more poignant. For instance, this moment when Pen thinks, “People should just be allowed to look in the mirror and see all kinds of possibilities. Everyone should be able to feel nice when they look in the mirror” (Girard 301). I couldn't agree more.

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Book Club Joy by Dr. Cindi Koudelka

6/7/2022

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Dr. Cindi Koudelka (koudelka21@gmail.com; @cmkoudelka) is a Curriculum Specialist with National Board Certification in Adolescent Young Adulthood/English Language Arts at Fieldcrest School District in Illinois and an Adjunct faculty member at Aurora University. Being a bibliophile and school nerd, she holds multiple certifications from PreK - 12, and is an active member in several literacy and research organizations. Her research interests reflect her passion as a youth advocate by focusing her work on critical adolescent literacies, young adult literature, positioning, and youth participatory action research.

Book Club Joy by Dr. Cindi Koudelka

It is that glorious time of year — no, not because the school year is ending, but because while we are wrapping up this year, we are simultaneously looking ahead to next year. Specifically, we are thinking about what books to add to our curriculum for book clubs. I get to work with the amazing ELA teachers in my district to select books that our students need in their hands. Those lists need to be inclusive, relevant, and fresh which means it needs to change often. This doesn’t mean all of the books on the lists have to be the newest books out there, but they need to be purposefully curated for the lessons, the unit themes, current events, and most importantly, the students in our classrooms. The other important factor in selecting book sets is how they will build upon each other to create a scaffolded understanding as students move through units and along grade levels.

For English I, it isn’t that I have anything against Romeo and Juliet, but it is THE ninth grade text, and that hasn’t changed since I was in school (which was a really, really long time ago). Rather than reading it in isolation, we will pair it with book clubs related to star-crossed lovers and examine questions beyond the typical, “Do we determine our own destinies?” to other questions such as, “How do societal power structures impact decision-making and access to opportunities?” This pairing of book clubs with the canonical work freshens up the conversations and allows students to think about the role of intersectionality and how that is represented across various texts. It affords them greater opportunity to critically examine the essential questions and how the author’s circumstances impact the text’s message. As we create the lists, it is important to select texts that include a range of representation, so we have selected novels that reach across groups and time. The novels include Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez, The Weight of Feathers by Anna Marie McLemore, Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan, Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo.

After gaining insight into power structures, we wanted our students to dig deeper in the English II “Outsiders and Outcasts” unit where the essential question is, “How do societies position and treat people as insiders or outsiders?” These texts help students examine peoples’ interactive roles based on group affiliations, the ways some groups are marginalized, and how stereotypes are perpetuated because of societal power structures. More importantly, they provide authentic representation and opportunities for students to critically examine inequities and develop empathy. The books we chose included: My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson, American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang , Don't Ask Me Where I'm From by Jennifer De Leon, Mexican WhiteBoy by Matt De La Pena, Love, Hate, and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed, and Black Flamingo by Dean Atta.

As students get closer to voting age, it is important for them to reflect on their personal belief systems and the questions “What does it mean to be an American?” and “In what ways has the struggle for freedom been more than just about legal rights throughout history?” They will engage with American Literature and book clubs that help them explore both nonfiction and fiction with books that include: Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee, The Good Braider by Terry Farish, American Street by Ibi Zoboi, We are Not Free by Traci Chee, Apple (Skin to the core) by Eric Gansworth, Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, Stamped From The Beginning by Ibram Kendi, and Lifting as We Climb: Black Women's Battle for the Ballot Box by Evette Dion. In the unit, the groups will examine various groups represented in the novels to analyze their experiences across time and culture and then collaborate to synthesize and "stitch" the stories together to answer the essential questions.

I remember a few years ago as I sat in a rather contentious English department meeting, there was an intense discussion over what books each grade was supposed to teach. It was territorial and focused on what books those particular teachers “always” taught. I am proud to say that those conversations have shifted as we remember that we don’t “teach” books; we use books to teach children. When we opened the conversation even further to consider how we can leverage book clubs to offer greater choice, we shifted our role from gatekeepers to tour guides—providing inclusive access for all of our students and sharing the glorious joy of these books.

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Gae Polisner on Dr. Bickmore's Youtube Channel and Register for the Summit!

6/2/2022

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We have a new interview on the YA Wednesday Youtube Channel!

Gae Polisner is a featured author at the Summit and talks to us about her new book, co-authored with Nora Raleigh Baskin, Consider the Octopus.

Watch the interview and REGISTER FOR THE SUMMIT!

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Disabilities Studies with YAL in the English Classroom by Rachel R. Wolney and Ashley S. Boyd

5/25/2022

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Rachael R. Wolney is a second year Ph.D. student in the Department of English at Washington State University. Her research interests include Disability Studies, Young Adult Literature, and Education. She teaches using disability studies pedagogy in a range of literature and writing courses, but specifically enjoys working with preservice teachers and practicing teachers in learning about disability.

Ashley S. Boyd is Associate Professor of English Education at Washington State University where she teaches courses on English Methods and Young Adult Literature and researches practicing teachers’ social justice pedagogies as well as avenues for cultivating students’ critical literacies. She is author of Social Justice Literacies in the English Classroom and co-author of Reading for Action: Engaging Youth in Social Justice through Young Adult Literature.

Disabilities Studies with YAL in the English Classroom by Rachel R. Wolney and Ashley S. Boyd

In recent years, teaching to cultivate students’ critical literacies (Janks, 2000; Luke 2014) has taken root in English Language Arts classrooms (e.g. Riley, 2014), and educators have devoted attention to facilitating students’ critiques of systems of oppression in their worlds. This work includes explorations of systems such as racism, class disparities, and gender inequity, and teachers have proposed myriad ways, through both canonical and young adult texts, to explore those with students. Such work is crucial to developing critical, democratically-minded youth who are prepared to engage in social change.

Yet, despite such efforts, we find that a focus on one system of oppression–ableism, and its counterpart, disabilities–continues to be lacking in classrooms. While numerous texts highlight (and even perpetuate) the stereotypes and misconceptions of disability in our culture, we feel that more can be done in our field with youth to unpack those and to help them develop more empathy and understanding. As such, in this post, we explore the common tropes of disability created by and found in literature and culture. We also offer some advice and resources on teaching about ableism and disability in English classrooms, including how to select texts and lead dialogue. We focus on one work from young adult literature, The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling (2019), and use this as an example to illustrate how a teacher can promote understandings of ableism and disability and critically respond to literature and society. We conclude with additional text recommendations as well as implications for teaching.

Approaching Ableism and Disability in the Classroom
In conversations, especially as related to social justice issues, it is always important to begin with definitions. Students are often unfamiliar with the variations in disabilities and thus a bit of diligence is required to explain the social model versus medical model. Disability within the social model is defined as a common human experience. We will all face disability at one point or another during our lifetime (Dolmage, 2017, pg. 61). Disability is also always present, as Dolmage (2017) teaches us, “there is no perfect body or mind” (pg. 62). The social model defines disability as social exclusion, not impairment. Essentially, disability requires us to “accept impairment and to remove disability” (Shakespeare, 2017, pg. 197). The social model and the medical model are dichotomous; the medical model seeks to cure, erase, and remove impairments and disability through medical intervention.
Providing students with concrete examples of how disability is socially constructed is helpful to solidify these definitions. When we work with students, we often discuss how wearing glasses is not defined as a disability but is an impairment. It is not until this impairment becomes extreme that it is then socially defined as a disability, where the structure of society is no longer accepting of impairment, and where exclusion limits full participation in everyday life activities. The medical model would offer corrective surgery or another form of medical intervention to remove this barrier and renormalize the body within society. The social model would accept the impairment and remove the social stigmas and structural barriers preventing inclusion.
After defining disability and giving clear examples and space for introspective identification of disability, students are often eager to share. This is a great time for autobiographical writing, journaling, drawing, or some form of expression of personal experience with or in close relation to disability. Socially, we are often hushed when we see and discuss differences, as though it is impolite. By presenting an open dialogue about disability as an entity that promotes oppression and through offering critical engagement for social change, students quickly respond positively and want to share their stories. Stories become a form of social action against abstraction (Sharpe, 2016, pg. 8), and allow students to contemplate lived experiences and build empathy through sharing. As students begin to understand disability as a social construct, identify it personally and share, we then ask them to apply this understanding to YA texts.
Applying Disability Studies to Literature and Developing Reading Criteria
While literature can inform culture, culture also informs literature. This interdependency can often be identified in multiple constructs. If we think about racism, sexism, classism, or any of the ‘isms,’ as cultural and social constructs, as constructed and built ways of knowing that are identified as inherent biases woven into multiple structural frameworks, then it is no surprise that ableism appears in the same ways. Patricia Dunn (2015), a scholar of YAL and disability studies, writes that, “Many barriers contributing to disability are material or attitudinal; either way, they are built. They are constructed. And whatever is constructed can be named, mitigated, or removed” (pg. 1). Literature offers a space for this work. By teaching students about disability and identifying ableism as oppression, students can begin to discern how texts promote or resist these barriers. Dunn (2015) writes that literature often “blithely and uncritically draw[s] upon disability myths or stereotypes, thus cementing them further” and it requires a “resistant reader” to critically examine these uses and challenge them (pg. 9). Resistant reading requires naming spaces where definitions of disability remain unchallenged. Providing YA novels with characters with disabilities and offering critical discussions focused on representation offers students space to develop critical literacy, exposing the text as a space for critique.
Critiquing traditional texts unfortunately reveals that representations of disability are often stereotypical. Presentations often offer characters who are dejected, need to overcome their disability, and/or need to be cured (Dolmage, 2017, pg. 5). To resist these misrepresentations of disability, we must first identify them. Dunn (2015) writes, “Fiction can affect the way real people are treated. It can open readers’ minds to entrenched discriminatory attitudes, or it can be complicit with those attitudes, making them worse” (1).

We have students read Dunn’s (2015) introduction and first chapter of Disabling Characters: Representations of Disability in Young Adult Literature as a guide for critical thinking. Dunn instructs that, “If characters with disabilities are depicted as pitiable victims, or as those who must be rescued by others, or as unlikely heroes who save the day, the novel can simply perpetuate harmful views of disability and cast people with disabilities as ‘other’” (2). She goes on to describe multiple tropes that exist and promote ableist views, including literature that portrays characters with disabilities as “inevitably passive, ever cheerful, long-suffering, and dead by the close of the book” (3). By naming these stereotypes and tropes, students can begin to identify and resist them as they read.
Students are also given the Anti-Defamation League’s article “Evaluating Children’s Books that Address Disability” as a guide for further thinking about disability representation. This resource contains specific recommendations for texts to avoid, such as those that “include disabilities only in tokenistic ways'' or “never show people with disabilities as independent, but rather depict them as overly helpless.” It instead encourages the inclusion of texts that “promote empathy,” “positive images,” and “represent people with disabilities from different racial and cultural backgrounds.” Such tangible criteria is helpful for students learning to select authentic and appropriate texts for their future classrooms.
To connect Dolmage’s and Dunn’s description of harmful representations of disability with the lived experience of disability, we offer Stella Young’s TED talk, titled “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much” to further solidify the social and cultural impacts of representation. Stella Young was a well-known disability rights activist, comedian, and journalist. In her TED talk she discusses how disability is not present to inspire and shares overcoming stories and rhetoric that continue to promote these harmful representations. She states that “Disability doesn’t make you exceptional, but questioning what you know about it, does” and she asks the audience to think about disability as more than a site of pity or inspiration.

An Example in Practice: YAL and its Potential for Discussion of Disabilities
As an extension of this work with students, we then have them apply their learning to YA texts. One novel that is appropriate for such work, and which we highly recommend, is Dusti Bowling’s (2017), Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus. This complements the inclusion of Disability Studies in the English Arts curriculum well. In evaluating this text, we have found that it offers students new and informed ways of thinking about disability, while also providing areas of critical engagement with the representations of disability.
The novel tells the story of 14-year-old Aven Green who, at the outset, faces one of the most difficult challenges a middle-schooler can imagine: moving. Her family’s transition from Kansas to Arizona fills Aven with apprehension. She is unsure of many things, including the weather in the new area, her ability to make friends, and her parent’s job which will be running an old western theme park. The move to Arizona also requires Aven to repetitively explain her disability, being born without arms, and worry about being accepted. At her first home, she was just as ordinary as everyone else. Throughout the novel, readers follow Aven’s adventures as she finds friendship and acceptance. She meets Connor, a classmate with a different disability, and Zion, who is often labeled and ignored, and Aven realizes that she is not alone. The three friends embark on a journey to be seen, respected, and valued for their differences, all while researching the mystery that lies beneath the theme park where her family relocated.
When discussing the novel with students through a disability studies lens, teachers can prompt them to consider how Bowling presents Aven’s disability. Questions might include: How is the book about more than Aven’s disability? In what ways do we get to know Aven as a character–what are the qualities of her personality? They can also explore how the book challenges stereotypes and tropes, asking students: What stereotypes about disabilities does Aven debunk? Finally, readers can consider: How do Aven’s parents raise her, and why do you think they choose the strategies that they do? This last set of questions may raise the ‘overcoming narrative’ discussed in Dunn’s (2015) work and Stella Young’s TED talk, ultimately leading them to the ADL’s notion of characters needing to be seen as independent. With regards to Connor, teachers could also ask: Why do you think people’s reactions to Connor are so negative? How do we see Aven and her parents respond in more thoughtful ways? How does Bowling use humor to show us these aspects? We also ask students to be critical of the text: To what extent is this narrative about overcoming? In what ways do Aven or Connor uphold any tropes or stereotypes of disability, if at all? How does Aven, at times, mirror the epitome of Dunn’s description of disabled characters as “ever cheerful” or as an “inspiration” as defined by Stella Young? How can these critical readings support our understanding of representation and culture?
A number of activities could help guide students toward an understanding of disability as socially constructed and to help them consider the perspectives of disabilities studies. For instance, students might note the ways that Aven’s world is not set up to make her life easier and note the adjustments she has to make. They might then suggest changes to Aven’s school that would make her experiences better, including a way for her to eat in the cafeteria that is more conducive to her needs (rather than Aven having to find another place to eat). A similar activity could apply to Connor, whose life is limited by others’ reactions to him when society could more readily adjust to enhance his life.
As a social action project (Boyd & Darragh, 2019), students could create materials to educate others (especially middle schoolers) on misconceptions around disabilities and provide suggestions for affirming everyone, regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, or ability. They might research legislative policy related to individuals with disabilities and analyze it in terms of the medical and social models, writing lawmakers to encourage changes that align more readily with the social model. As blogging was quite important in Aven’s life, they might seek out narratives online written by people with disabilities and synthesize their learning from those in a presentation for their classmates.

Additional YAL for Studying Disability

We have taught several texts that include characters with disabilities, both physical and mental, and guided students through analyzing them in similar ways. We have also engaged students in literature circles and provided choices for this work, as we find that students tend to gravitate toward the areas they are most ready to explore and critique. Other such texts have included: Marcello in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork (2009); Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper (2010); The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten (2013); Cinder by Marissa Meyer (2012); and Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (2015).

Each of these texts offer not only inclusion of disability, but spaces for critical engagement with the representations of disability. For example, students can read about characters who represent different disabilities and consider how their worlds limit their participation. In both Cinder and Six of Crows, students can determine how social exclusion disables characters more than their impairments. In Marcello and the Real World and The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B, students can explore the ways in which mental disability is represented. In reading Out of My Mind, they may question structures, such as education or medicine, where disability is often confined to specific spaces, perhaps even removing disability completely from participation at all.

Considerations and Conclusions

In our experiences working with preservice teachers to develop and/or enhance their understandings of disabilities studies and apply it to texts, they are eager and enthusiastic about taking on these endeavors. Implementing culturally responsive and inclusive teaching are their genuine goals, but they often ask for more concrete examples that illustrate how to achieve these. In this post, we hope we’ve shared some of the practices and resources we have found valuable for leading students through discussions of ability and disability and planning for their future classrooms.

It is also our hope that students can begin to translate this work into their teaching practice, not just in terms of the texts they choose but in how they think about and work with their students. If Aven were in their classroom, for example, how might they think about changes to their structure, rather than expecting Aven to alter herself to ‘fit in’? How might they help their class respond to Aven in ways that illustrate empathy and understanding? We thus feel that YA lit and accompanying pedagogies have vast potential for debunking stereotypes, cultivating understanding of difference, and creating a better society for all individuals.

References:

Anti-Defamation League. (2013). Evaluating children’s books that address disability. Education Division. adl.org
Boyd, A. & Darragh, J. (2019). Reading for action: Engaging youth in social justice through Young Adult Literature. Rowman & Littlefield.
Dolmage, J. T. (2017). Academic ableism. University of Michigan Press.
Dunn, P. A. (2015). Disabling characters: Representations of disability in young adult literature. Peter Lang.
Janks, H. (2000). Domination, access, diversity, and design: A synthesis for critical
literacy education. Educational Review, 52(2), 175-186.
Luke, A. (2014). Defining critical literacy. In J. Z. Pandya & J. Ávila (Eds.), Moving critical literacies forward: A new look at praxis across contexts (pp. 19– 31). New York, NY: Routledge.
Riley, K. (2014). Enacting critical literacy in English classrooms: How a teacher learning community supported critical inquiry. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58(5), 417-425.
Shakespeare, T. (2017). The social model of disability. In L. J. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (5th ed.) (pp. 195-203). Routledge.
Sharpe, C. (2016). In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Duke University Press.

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