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. ​

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. ​

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.​

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!

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.

​Class injury through language
​
In Jeff Zentner’s In the Wild Light, Cash, under extraordinary circumstances, leaves his rural Tennessee small town to attend a posh Connecticut prep school with his best friend, Delaney. There, in addition to suffering in general as a scholarship student, Cash must share a dorm room with Tripp, a politician’s son, who is in the room the first time Cash calls home and speaks to his beloved grandfather who raised him. Cash holds his conversation with his Papaw on speaker phone, and when he is done, and is feeling just a bit better after being so far from home for the first time, his roommate comments. “‘Ep thar,’” Tripp says, smirking…”’It’s how your gramps says
“up there.”’” 

Even as a poor, rural youth in his home community, no one had ever humiliated his Papaw for the way he spoke before. This source of class-based injury comes from rubbing right up against tremendous class privilege and a sense of entitlement from his wealthy roommate. But the exact site of injury that is inflicted here is language–one of the foremost repositories of class standing as we well know since Shaw’s Pygmalion. Paying attention to class-based injuries through language is one way to open up discussion around social class difference and its implications.

Some questions that a scene like this could raise for discussion might include:

•How does language preserve social class identity?
•How does language reflect societal norms around social class?

​

Class injury through expectations of leisure time
I have enjoyed Julie Murphy’s Ramona Blue for years as a great text for teaching about bisexuality that also does not shy away from race issues. But the main facet of this story centers on the experiences of Ramona, who lives in a post-Katrina trailer in Louisiana with her father, her pregnant sister, and the baby’s father. Though smart and determined, Ramona has no plans for after senior year. All she can think of for a future is working even more hours to have money to help her sister support the baby since their family is already struggling financially.

So when Ramona’s childhood friend, Freddie, who is Black, moves into town for good with his grandmother, who is solidly middle class, some of their interactions start to churn up conflicts that center around social class.

For example, when Freddie invites Ramona to join him and his grandmother to swim, so he can keep up his practice since their school does not have a swim team like his old one, Ramona’s first thought is: Why would I exercise when I am on my feet all the time for my three jobs? Here, Ramona’s thoughts expose the way that “exercise” is a middle class concept that relies on leisure time. But how many experiences or expectations like this might readers not see as classed experiences without some guidance?​

​Hi, all.  Gretchen Rumohr here with some important updates to the Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature.  Have you registered yet? 

First of all, we have a snazzy new website where you can learn more about our conference theme, read up on the authors, register for the conference, and book lodging.  

Our speaker list has been modified slightly. We are excited to welcome Brendan Kiely, Gae Polisner, and Sonia Patel for Thursday, Malinda Lo and Brandy Colbert for Friday, and Varian Johnson for Saturday (Yes!  There will be signings!).  

We have an incredible, interactive schedule that will keep you up to date on recent research and pedagogy in Young Adult literature--and connect with scholars and teachers from near and far.

Take the time to register for the summit today!

​ How can these characters find strength to cope with personal and global tragedies, pick up the pieces of their broken lives, and find hope? How can we connect with these characters and support each other in trying times?  Often, my students carefully examine any clues hinting the hope and future for this or that character is possible.

What warms my heart is that my students have outside-of-class conversations about the books we read. Imagine one of yours (mine is Olivia, or Maggie, or Skyler) just say: “The other day, when I was talking to Devin about Freya, I pointed out…”  This is such a joy to have this semester!

Usually, prior to class discussion of a YA novel, my students are tasked with writing a one-page response analyzing the novel through one of theoretical lenses: reader response, gender, post-colonial, social class/Marxism, biographical, or psychological lens. I have to say that students’ responses this semester are beyond my expectations. They are thoughtful, critical, and make note of some slight details that make understanding and interpretation more meaningful.

​Here are just three poems I want to showcase as examples; otherwise, this blog post will be too long. I will use my students’ real names as they provided me with their consent knowing about this blog post.
The first poem is written by Brooke J., in which she reveals struggles Freya experiences until she meets Harun and Nathaniel in Manhattan, NY. note that Brooke's poem is written in haiku.

​ Another poem, written by Sadie K., depicts Nathaniel, another protagonist, and his journey throughout the book. She explains her choice of a free verse to keep the contemporary atmosphere that the book presents.

​One more poem in response to this novel, to represent the third protagonist, Harun, and his struggles as a young gay man is written by Grace L.:

​Following the homework and class discussion of the novel and poems, I teach my students how to write a sevenling and golden shovel poems. A Sevenling is a poem of seven lines, which contains:

•     two lists of three items
•     one-liner that resolves (or plays up) the difference between your lists.

 
A Golden Shovel is a poem written by using the lines from the favorite poems. This is how it is created:

• Take a line (or lines) from a poem you admire.
• Use each word in the line (or lines) as an end word in your poem.
• Keep the end words in order.
• Give credit to the poet who originally wrote the line (or lines)--you can do this in your title.
• The new poem does not have to be about the same subject as the poem that offers the end words.

In class, we practice writing both kinds of poems. The task is  to focus on a theme of hopes and dreams for tomorrow, but students can choose any young adult novel we have read throughout the course. We do not attempt to analyze or interpret these poems as we have a shared purpose and know the context of each poem. As beginning poets in class, we agree to a no-judgement policy, but praise each brave soul for sharing their poems out loud. Most of my students prefer to share.
Below are a few poems created in class.

​One more sevenling written by Grace is about Melinda Sordino, the protagonist in L. Anderson’s Speak (1999):
 
Speak
I am a willow tree.
Drooping, sad willow tree.
Hiding behind my branches.
 
I was a sapling,
With dreams of being an oak -
Strong and sturdy. 
 
My branches are lifting; I am free.

To write the golden shovel poem, I offered my students to use either a quote from a  novel, a few lines from Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope is the Thing with Feathers,” or any other poem.  
In the following poem, Kelsey J. chose two lines from the first stanza of Dickinson’s poem, “And sings the tune without the words—//And never stops—at all—” replacing the first word “And’ with “hope.”  Her poem focuses on Kyle’s loss in The Memory of Things:
    ***
I cannot dare to hope
when all the world sings
a wailing cry of mourning at the
towers gone down. Life feels out of the tune
now. How do we carry on without
the pressing guilt of disregarding the
fallen and the unpredictable future. Words
cannot help, but we try. And  
the only thing that is left is hope in the never
ending world. The future never stops
She keeps my heart beating wherever she’s at
Maybe I can have hope after all.
 
The bold-type words at the end of each line are from Dickinson’s poem. Kelsey describes Kyle’s feelings, and refers to Hannah as the one giving him hope for tomorrow.

Maggie’s poem will conclude this poetry marathon. She used the final lines from Forman’s I Have Lost My Way: “They see him. He hears them. They find each other.”
   ***
Clashing with the current, they
Destroy the path they see
Before them. They have found him
Here, on this bridge of broken bones. He
Can’t believe he has been found. He hears
The music of her voice and feels them
Pulling him down to earth. This was how they
Met, but now it’s his turn to take the fall. They find
Him trapped and pull him down. Each
One of them holding onto the other.

Using poetry in any class is rewarding, and in a young adult literature course, it is even more worthwhile. Often chasing to achieve academic benchmarks, we forget that our students have family lives, day-to-day challenges, happy and sad moments, and they need to nurture and heal their souls as well. Teachers can help with these needs. Employing poetry and providing creative outlets for their expression. Poetry has always been a tool for coping and healing, Engaging in poetry reading, writing, and sharing, I do not simplify tasks, skills, and goals, but instead add another level of complexity to students' (and my own) thinking. Teaching pre-service teachers how to include poetry reading and writing in the classroom, I, too, have hope that  they will bring it to their prospective students.  

​Till next time
Leilya