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Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday's 
Monday Motivators

This blog page hosts posts some Mondays. The intent and purpose of a Monday Motivator is to provide teachers or readers with an idea they can share or an activity they can conduct right away.

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Looking to the Future: Agency in YA Dystopian Cli-Fi by Dr. Fawn Canady

11/21/2022

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“You would be forgiven if you mistook the world for a dystopian science fiction film.”
 –Antonio López

I have been reading cli-fi or climate fiction and science fiction and thinking about how to guide students gently into dystopian worlds and to lead them out safely. Dystopian literature may feel too close for comfort. Every day, we are inundated with climate crises in the news media. So much so, that “you would be forgiven if you mistook the world for a dystopian science fiction film.” This experience of a dystopian reality contributes to climate anxiety, or stress related to climate change and the fate of our planet. In a recent study of over 10,000 youth in 10 countries, the majority claimed they experienced some form of climate anxiety and nearly half (45%) said their feelings impacted their daily lives and 59% agreed with the viewpoint that “humanity is doomed.” So, should we teach climate change issues through dystopian cli-fi? 

Dystopian cli-fi is a powerful tool for teaching climate change. As Allen Webb recently reminded me, we need our students to feel a sense of urgency. In the book he co-authored with Richard Beach and Jeff Share, Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents, we must acknowledge that, “whatever happens, climate change will be the defining feature of the world our students inhabit. Addressing climate change is everyone’s responsibility, and that includes English teachers.” Dystopian cli-fi creates the opportunity to explore ‘what-ifs' related to complex questions stemming from the wicked problems we face today. So, cli-fi is an expression of radical hope. 

Dystopian cli-fi an expression of radical hope? Literary scholar Pamela Bedore claims that dystopian literature is more utopian than utopian literature because utopia is unattainable and dystopian futures are still avoidable. In other words, there’s still hope for us. And that fits with Lear’s definition of a radical hope, which “is directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is.” What we do now matters.

Focus on YA Novels
Youth protagonists in novels like Parable of the Sower, The Marrow Thieves, and The Last Cuentista all exercise agency in worlds that appear to leave little space for individuals to act. In Parable of the Sower, 15-year-old Lauren is a climate refugee who flees her home after her family is murdered and her neighborhood destroyed. Migration is a desperate yet hopeful act. She sets out North toward hope and a new beginning. Lauren is also the vessel for a new religion, one that compels people to adapt and survive. One of the verses she writes in her journal exemplifies not only adaptation and survival, but the importance of purposeful action:

ALL THAT YOU TOUCH
YOU CHANGE.
ALL THAT YOU CHANGE
CHANGES YOU.
THE ONLY LASTING TRUTH
IS CHANGE.
GOD
IS CHANGE.

The other stories also include forced migration. In The Marrow Thieves, almost all people have lost the ability to dream– all except for Native people, whose dreams are literally in their marrow. Native Canadians are being rounded up and their marrow harvested to create an antidote for dreamlessness. Frenchie flees further into the wilderness of Canada and finds family, friendship, and hope in his journey. 
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The Last Cuentista is a middle grade novel about a migration off-planet. Earth is no longer habitable and Petra Peña, along with her family and a few hundred others, are sent into space to save the human race. As they travel, they learn. When Petra lands on a new planet, she is the only one who remembers the stories from Earth. Stories, then, are the connection to our humanity.

Creating from Dystopian Literature
The concept of ‘imaginary activism’ is YA scholar Megan Musgrave’s way of describing how reading compels us to take action. The following activities encourage students to interact with texts, work through difficult topics, and lean into radical hope.
  • Hot Spots are what sticks with you- what bothers you, disturbs you, or what you will remember long after you’ve read the book. High school English teacher Erick Gordon utilized the “Hot Spots” activity, a Literacy Unbound technique, while reading the graphic novel version of Parable of the Sower with his 11th grade students. He invited them to photocopy or recreate panels from the story and post them to a wall. Students used graffiti or other artistic marks to express their emotions around these moments in the book. It created a way for students to identify parts of the text that they wanted to work through together (see image below).
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  • Culture jamming is the subversion of messages in popular or dominant culture to alter the original intent. Students can subvert advertisements, social media posts, news stories, and other everyday texts through playful or creative jams to convey alternative perspectives on climate-related topics like big oil or deforestation. 
  • ‘Artifact from the future’ inspired by gaming researcher Jane McGonigal. I also like the examples of a similar idea from IDEO’s HyperHuman machines of the future. Students can create artifacts from the future that show technology can be used for good. Students use maker space pedagogies like the design thinking process such as empathize, design, and prototype an artifact from the future based on an issue that resonates with them. 
  • Time capsule— Create a digital time capsule or curate current events and imagine how people from the future might look back on how we successfully addressed these challenges. Troy Hicks recommends tools from Knightlab.

​The focus of this Monday Motivator is to share some activities that engage students in wrestling with difficult topics such as climate change while helping to express hope. Through the use of various YA cli-fi novels, teachers can hopefully move towards a more optimistic and hopeful future. 
​

Dr. Fawn Canady is an Assistant Professor of Adolescent and Digital Literacies. In the Curriculum Studies and Secondary Education department, she serves as the graduate advisor for the MA in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning. Dr. Canady teaches a range of courses including the educational technology area of emphasis, secondary English Education, and literacy K-12. Her interdisciplinary research interests include adolescent literacies and digital multimodal writing, Young Adult Literature, media literacy, and Teacher Education.
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Building Empathy through Virtual Reality by Clarice M. Moran

11/7/2022

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Clarice M. Moran, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of English Education, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC

Daily reports of the war in Ukraine have, sadly, become part of the wallpaper of the news cycle--with regular footage showing bombed-out buildings, scarred land, and displaced people. It is hard to fathom that as of Oct. 11, 2022, 14 million people were classified as Ukrainian refugees. Pushed out by the violence and pulled into countries more peaceful, these refugees have risked their lives to seek shelter. 

Yet, it is so easy to turn away from them. 

When I visit area schools, I ask students, “What do you think about the Ukrainian refugee crisis?” I am met with blank stares. 

Ukraine seems so far away, so removed from students’ daily lives that they have a hard time connecting to the situation. The war seems to have gone on for ages, and it has become background noise, drowned out by midterm elections, mass shootings, and salacious tidbits about celebrities. An in-person visit to Ukraine would bring the war and the refugee crises to the forefront of our consciousness. Yet, obviously, none of us can (or want) to visit. What to do? How can teachers focus students’ attention on this humanitarian crisis? One answer may lie in pairing digital technology with Young Adult (YA) literature. 

Virtual reality (VR) and the YA novel Refugee by Alan Gratz offer a way for students to gain empathy for the refugees in Ukraine. Together, they offer a one-two punch toward understanding. 

Refugee and Virtual Reality
Refugee, suitable for middle grades readers (or any secondary reader with an interest in the topic), tells the story of three kids – Josef, a Jewish boy in 1930s Nazi Germany; Isabel, a Cuban girl in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy in 2015 – and how each of them became a refugee. Gratz builds the characters slowly and puts the reader alongside them as they escape their home countries and seek asylum. Their stories are interwoven in an unexpected way, and the turmoil and crisis of each one makes the novel a page-turner. When I read it for the first time, I quite literally read it in one sitting—too absorbed in the perils of the characters to put the book down.

The novel is quite engaging, but sometimes a virtual field trip can help students really picture what’s happening. Aided by the wonders of a 360-degree VR sphere, students can feel as if they have stepped into another world. They can see up, down, behind, and in front of them, walking alongside refugees and visiting their camps. 

VR is useful for more than playing video games. It is an alternative paradigm that allows a viewer to enter a new domain and become someone else. VR is a portal into a realm in which users can “see” as if they are a character, “feel” as if they are in a new place, and “know” what it means to inhabit the skin of another. It belongs in the English language arts (ELA) classroom as a way to amplify literature and act as an experiential tool for a deeper understanding of course content. 

Using inexpensive VR cardboard players is a great way to help students enter this 360-degree sphere. The cardboard players, available on Amazon from $5 each, use a mobile phone to view video content. The players are sturdy and can be used for years without much wear and tear. They are low-tech and have no moving parts. But when you slide a mobile phone into one, you get an immersive experience that is lifelike and rich with sound and color. 

To pair VR before, during, or after reading Refugee,
  • Ask students to open the YouTube documentary, “Life in the Time of Refuge,” on their mobile devices. This 10-minute film, created by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), documents the life of young Syrian refugees. 
  • Tell students to insert their phones into the VR cardboard players and watch the documentary. (Tip: Students without a mobile phone can be paired up with another student who has a phone. Ask students to use earbuds to reduce noise in the classroom.)
  • After watching the video, ask students to answer the following questions:
    • In what ways do the characters in Refugee seem the same as the real people in the documentary?
    • In what ways are they different?
    • Can you imagine how you would feel if you needed to leave this country and move to another country? 
  • Lastly, ask students to write about the plight of refugees and propose some solutions to help them. 
 
In addition to Refugee, similar text connections for the same activity and same VR documentary are as follows:
  • A Long Walk to Water (Linda Sue Park) – This novel, based on a true story, follows a boy and a girl as they become refugees and walk across Sudan in search of water. This book is appropriate for older elementary and middle school readers. 
  • Other Words for Home (Jasmine Warga) – This Newberry Honor book tells the tale of Jude, a young Syrian girl, who leaves some of her family behind to move to America. This book is appropriate for middle school readers. 
  • We are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World (Malala Yousefzai) – Nobel Peace Prize winner Yousefzai gives a first-person account of her own story as a refugee and weaves in the heartbreaking tales of other girls. This book is suitable for middle school readers and some high school readers.
  • Before We Were Free (Julia Alvarez) – This novel is loosely based on Alvarez’s own experiences as a 10-year-old refugee. It follows the saga of Anita who flees the Dominican Republic in the 1960s to escape el Trujillo's dictatorship. It is suitable for middle school and high school readers.
 
Teachers interested in service projects or a call to action, can partner with local non-profit agencies and gather supplies or write letters to refugees. Organizations such as UNICEF, the Red Cross, and Save the Children have active campaigns to assist refugees. The government website, Office of Refugee Resettlement, also offers links and ideas for assistance. 

Although a novel and a VR experience won’t stop the crisis, they might be enough to garner empathy in students, who may then go on to enact real change. 
 
Additional Resources on refugees can be found at:
  • UNHCR (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees): https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/
  • World Refugee Day: https://www.globetrottinkids.com/world-refugee-day-resources-activities-for-kids/
  • Trauma-Informed Strategies to Help Refugee Students: https://www.edutopia.org/article/5-trauma-informed-strategies-supporting-refugee-students

​Clarice M. Moran is an assistant professor of English Education at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia, as well as a master’s degree in creative writing, secondary English teaching certificate, and Ph.D. in literacy—all from North Carolina State University. She is a former journalist and high school English teacher, and she has published four books, including Virtual and Augmented Reality in English Language Arts Education (Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington)—winner of the 2022 Divergent Publication Award for Excellence in Literacy in a Digital Age Research—and the recent Next Level Grammar for a Digital Age (Routledge/NCTE). Her research centers on digital literacies, teacher education, and digital technology in English language arts.
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    Curators

    Melanie Hundley
    ​Melanie is a voracious reader and loves working with students, teachers, and authors.  As a former middle and high school teacher, she knows the value of getting good young adult books in kids' hands. She teaches young adult literature and writing methods classes.  She hopes that the Monday Motivator page will introduce teachers to great books and to possible ways to use those books in classrooms.
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    Emily Pendergrass
    Emily loves reading, students, and teachers! And her favorite thing is connecting texts with students and teachers. She hopes that this Monday Motivation page is helpful to teachers interested in building lifelong readers and writers! 
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    Jason DeHart
    In all of his work, Jason hopes to point teachers to quality resources and books that they can use. He strives to empower others and not make his work only about him or his interests. He is a also an advocate of using comics/graphic novels and media in classrooms, as well as curating a wide range of authors.
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    Abbey Bachman
    Abbey hopes to share her knowledge as well as learn more resources for teaching YA lit and reading new and relevant YA picks. She was a secondary English teacher for 11 years before earning my PhD in Curriculum & Instruction. Her research centers around student choice in texts and the classroom, so staying relevant on new YA books is a passion that she shares with others.
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