For YA Wednesday readers, Kat and I chatted about her literacy journey before, during,
and after the publication of Junkyard Dogs.

Danielle: Tell me about the roles YA literature plays in your life.

​Kat: I like that you use plural for roles because there are multiple roles. First and foremost, I write YA literature. Every day, I'm trying to keep my hand in my novel. I also read a lot of YA, both for work and my own enjoyment. I teach a children's lit class at Saint Mary's College where we incorporate literature for birth to adult. Because I tend to read in the genre I'm writing, when I was working on Junkyard Dogs, I was reading a lot of books with characters that were struggling with financial situations or the threat of being unhoused. Now I'm writing a scary ghost story, so I'm reading that YA genre.

Danielle: How did the idea of Junkyard Dogs enter your writer’s heart?

​Kat recollected Stephen King’s process described in his book titled The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. King said his stories come to him first as a cup, holding an idea, until he finds the handle for that cup and begins writing the idea.

Kat: I had this story idea from years ago, where I was sitting in the carpool line, waiting for my kids to come out of school, and I noticed a gentleman just walking down the sidewalk. He was walking with no shoes, looking straight up at the sky, and his hands were rolling and rolling and rolling. I thought that would be a really interesting character. There's something about this person that's just intriguing.

Two months after that, I was at the mall food court with my children, and I happened to notice that man. He was doing the hand rolling and some rocking back and forth. He was going table to table and there was a lunch-size brown paper bag at one of the tables. He opened it to look inside, rolled it back up, and left it. That paper bag was so intriguing to me. What was in it? Why did he roll it back? It was just these story questions that started to form and so then I came up with a name: Dan Dan, the trashcan man. He was going to be ridiculed for going through the trash, and my main character was going to either defend him or react to it in some way. I knew that he was going to be a pivotal character.

The handle for the story came when I was researching a horrific event that made national news in 2006: South Bend’s Man-Hole Murders. Four men were found murdered in the manholes along the railroad tracks downtown. It wound up being a dispute between the men, who were living in an abandoned warehouse, over scrapping metal and getting money from copper out of those holes.
​
Danielle: Tell me about your journey to and through publication for Junkyard Dogs.

Kat: I've been thinking about this because I'm getting ready to talk about this a little bit at the Get Inked Teen Writing Conference in February/March 2024.
​
Before Junkyard Dogs, I had Hanging with My Peeps published through a small press. They did a lovely job, but I didn't get the editorial feedback that would have pushed me to go deeper with the story. Because of that experience, I knew I wanted to go with a mainstream publisher for Junkyard Dogs.

Junkyard Dogs took several years to write. From the story seed idea to a first draft was probably four years. I shared it with my trusted readers. I did several complete revisions. I sent it to 15 different agents through various conferences, and I was always getting really positive feedback, but it was still a no. It was discouraging, but it was a level up from the previous rejections I'd gotten so I felt like, these aren't rejections. These are encouragements. So I kept revising and submitting.

It happened that Jonah Heller, editor at Peachtree Teen, was presenting at the SCBWI Michigan Conference. He was open to submissions. I wondered: Do I dare submit to an editor when I don't even have an agent? After the conference, we were given the option to submit to him. At the time, his submission process was snail mail; I sent him my query letter, printed out the first 3 chapters, and physically mailed them.

Months later, I received an email from him saying he received my materials. Two days later, he requested the full manuscript, which I sent electronically. He read it quickly and said he wanted to take it to acquisitions. Once acquisitions gave him the green light, the editorial process, which is what I was waiting for, began. It took about a year of going back and forth between Jonah and myself, where he would push me to go deeper, and I welcomed the challenge. Danielle

Danielle: I love it when novels surprise me like Junkyard Dogs did. I won't give anything away, as I certainly want readers to enjoy the thrill of surprise after surprise. But I am wondering if there's anything in the book that surprised you.

Kat: Drafting Gran was a surprise for me. I was not intending to write that character. When I was trying to think about who Josh would have in his life, initially it was just him, his dad, and Stan (who was Dan originally in the first draft). But then, when the little brother, Twig, came in, I knew another adult was needed because Josh was at school. Who would be with this little boy? The characters surprised me, even Josh.

Josh was a lot harder on Twig than I expected him to be. He's a kind, supportive brother but there's a scene where he feels like Twig is letting himself get walked on and put down. And Josh blows up at Twig. Twig’s only 9, but Josh tells him he can't let people walk all over him because he will end up being walked over his whole life. That conversation devastated Twig. As I wrote it, I felt Twig’s angst. That was hard for me, but Josh was talking from his frame of reference.

Danielle: In the story, Gran is the complete opposite of a hoarder. Tell me a little bit about that choice of having Gran choose to live with minimal stuff.

​Kat: I was trying to explore the idea of what defines a home. With Gran, I was trying to explore what it would be like for a kid whose adult caretaker does not value things. In Gran's trailer, she doesn't have pictures on the refrigerator. She doesn't have family photos around because she has a backstory of her own trauma where she doesn't want to get attached to anything. After all, it's not going to stay. Danielle: As you know, poverty and homelessness are thematic threads in Junkyard Dogs. Why did you choose to write about teenage poverty and homelessness? 

​Danielle: As you know, poverty and homelessness are thematic threads in Junkyard Dogs. Why did you choose to write about teenage poverty and homelessness?

Kat: I grew up in a low-income home. My dad would take us shopping at the junkyard. It was fun! We’d explore and find all these treasures, especially unbroken teacups for my mom. She still has a collection of mismatched teacups. That whole idea of trash to treasure, you don’t know what's going to be beautiful for somebody. So growing up in that situation, I wanted to reflect the beauty that you can find in things that other people discard. Part of what I was trying to show in that book relates to white poverty, per my experience. It is a reality throughout our country. And I just wanted to show a realistic representation of a family living with such challenges.

Danielle: In a previous post you provided for YA Wednesday, titled Facing Difficult Family Situations in YA Literature, you highlighted many important novels. What do you think the role is of YA literature in the lives of young people?

Kat: I think that honesty is pivotal in a YA book, so that readers can see the world as it is and how it should be. In YA literature, we walk that line. We represent the difficult situations in the world, and then we show a path through them. I wanted readers to see that bad things happen to Josh. He’s responsible for what he can be responsible for. By the end of the story, Josh is okay because there are people around who will help. They might not be the people that he was born to. It might not be the people put directly in his life, but they're there. I want readers to know to look for the helpers in their own lives.

Danielle: What do you hope resonates with readers of Junkyard Dogs?

​Kat: I think it's important that they see somebody struggling. Josh struggles. Twig struggles. Everyone in the story is struggling, even Gran. You don't have to struggle alone. There are people around who can be your found family. Those people exist. You need to find them, and you have to put forth effort to find them. You must reach out. Your life can get progressively better.

Danielle: Tell me about your current work in progress.

Kat: The premise is two ghosts are caught in a perpetual game of hide-and-go-seek. They can't find one another. A family moves in, and finds themselves caught in the middle of these two ghosts.

The ghost story is inspired by this really weird tree near where I live. It's going to be the final image of my book, currently titled Twisted Roots. Just seeing this tree was the handle for the cup holding my idea, like Stephen King mentions. Seeing this tree helped me pick up the story about these ghosts.

In closing, Kat shared that overall, as a writer, she is trying to define the world for herself. With emotion in her voice, she questioned, “I'm trying to figure out why does stuff like this happen. Why can't your family be there for you? Why do we have to struggle? How do we get through that? How do we figure out who our helpers are? How do we figure out who we're supposed to be in this world?” She believes that “the strongest writing is when you write to discover what you know and don’t know in your heart.” As a writer, she aims to be the “the writer that kids can go to on the page and trust that they're going to get reality. And they're going to get hope. And they're going to see a path to get through it all."

This week our post is prepared by Briana Asmus. She is a wonderful educator and a veteran contributor to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday having produced several posts over the past few years. It is great to have her back.

Characters and events in The Poisons We Drink are skillfully woven into a detailed socio-political context. Textual features like the “Witcherpedia” entries at the beginning of each chapter offer the reader more detail about the abilities of witchers and help the reader understand some of the intricacies of the witcher community. Like other dystopian novels, the present moment in the novel is complicated by events of the recent past, and the future is something that isn’t promised. This sense of time isn’t too far off from what an adolescent in today’s present might feel. As a “crossover” novel, this book aims to appeal to 18-19 year olds, a group that is positioned to feel the tug between the past and the future, between youth and adulthood. Considered adolescents by most measures, including those used by the World Health Organization, it’s common for this group to get left out of the conversation of “YA Lit”, despite the varied experiences that can happen in these years, including increased responsibilities, formational relationships, and major life transitions. ​

Baptiste is a teacher, through and through. Astonishingly, she wrote her book while teaching full-time by pouring every ounce of her creative energy leftover from the classroom into her writing. In our interview, she said she often felt like writing and teaching were at war with each other, which I interpreted as not too dissimilar to the world of V and the conflicts on the inside and outside of her world. These lessons are what ground The Poisons We Drink. People are complex, relationships are not always smooth, and we all do our best to find our way in the world we are born into. What Baptiste describes isn’t easy for most people, but falling in love with this idea is perhaps one of the most worthy undertakings. ​

References: 
Baptiste, B. (2024). The Poisons We Drink. Sourcebooks Fire. 

Baptiste, B. (2020, October 25). The Tragedies of Trying to Get Agented. Bethany Baptiste. https://www.bethanybaptiste.com/
​
" EJ" in Focus: How Re-thinking Adolescence Helps Re-imagine the Teaching of English
ST Sarigianides, MA Lewis, R Petrone - The English Journal, 2015

​

There is a scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone that resonates with me on a visceral level. When I was about the same age as Harry, I also received an invitation to join a magical society. Mine wasn’t from Hogwarts and to be fair, it was addressed Dear Occupant, but I was sure that it was meant for me, since I had been the one to pull it from our mailbox. The letter suggested that all I had to do was submit a writing sample and they would provide a definitive answer to the burning question carried in the heart of all writers: Do I have what it takes to be a published author?

Unlike Harry, I had already been practicing magic for years, creating entire worlds in my notebooks. But an author? Authors were mystical creatures adorned with patched-elbow jackets, and the one item that all smart people must have—glasses. The only patches I had were on the knees of my jeans and I was cursed with perfect vision. Plus, I was from a little town in the Midwest. Certainly, authors walked amongst the clouds. Or—according to the return address on the invitation from The Institute of Children’s Literature—the distant realm of Delaware.
 
Long story short, I wasn’t able to attend The Institute. But their invitation was pivotal in my journey to becoming a published author. It made me aware that there were other people like me in the world and that there were places designed to nurture us. Unfortunately, all of those places seemed reserved for adult writers. Back when I was a kid, the only camps and classes for creative teens focused on visual or performing arts, neither of which included writing. So, for me, writing remained a solitary endeavor.

The National Council of Teachers of English (2018) identifies the need for young writers to develop “a clearer sense of who they are as writers” through “a context/culture/community of feedback.” Many teachers are dedicated to making their classrooms exactly the type of environment that fosters students’ identity as writers (see teacher Debbie Myer’s posts on Instagram for just one example). School districts, universities, and libraries help support that growth, extending the writing culture beyond the classroom through young author festivals for elementary students. The problem is, right when students are starting to take themselves seriously as writers, those festivals drop off, leaving many preteen and teen writers still yearning for their own version of Hogwarts.
 
That’s where teen writing conferences come in. Offering instruction and community, writing conferences are the perfect place for teens to explore who they are as writers within a supportive community that values growth and feedback. The most effective conferences are modeled after the conferences that adult writers attend and incorporate mentoring, choice, and community. Despite their similarities, conferences come in all shapes and sizes. If you’re interested in sharing information about teen writing conferences with the young writers in your life, see descriptions of a few below.

The Teen Author Boot Camp Conference is huge, attracting nearly a thousand attendees. Held each spring at the Utah Valley Conference Center, it features keynotes from well-known YA authors and breakout sessions that focus on developing writing craft. This year’s conference will be Saturday, March 23rd. The organizers also offer a separate Tween Author Boot Camp for grades 4-7 each summer at Utah Valley University, which promises two weeks of hands-on activities to develop writing skills. Can’t make it to Utah for the in-person events? Teen Author Boot Camp has a robust online presence, providing online opportunities for teens to learn from YA authors during their Webinar Wednesday series. For more information on The Teen or Tween Author Boot Camps, see the TABC website: https://www.teenauthorbootcamp.com/conference. Due to a partnership with Owl Hollow Press, TABC also publishes poetry and short story anthologies of teen writing, with copies on sale at the TABC Conference and via Amazon. Submission information is available here: https://owlhollowpress.com/gathering-the-magic-teen-anthology/​

Get Inked Teen Writing Conference started in 2013 as a local, in-person event that allowed attendees to work on the aspects of writer’s craft that interested them. The conference shifted online during the pandemic and attracted a national audience. Due to capped enrollment, attendees benefit from small breakout sessions in which they write alongside published YA authors, receive personal attention, and leave with signed copies of authors’ books. Previous attendees have cited networking with like-minded teens and critique groups as a highlight of the event. The in-person conference is held on the campus of Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, exposing participants to the college culture and climate. The 2024 conference will be offered on two platforms: February 24th in-person and March 2nd via Zoom. Teens may register for one or both events. More information is available on the Saint Mary’s Event Page: https://www.saintmarys.edu/get-inked-teen-writing-conference- or by contacting the Education Department at [email protected]

TeenSpeak Novel Workshop differs from most teen conferences in that it runs concurrently with a workshop for adult writers. Teens may submit their writing in advance and can include questions regarding the specific type feedback they would like to receive. Attendees receive a written faculty critique at the event in addition to peer feedback. The intergenerational format is beneficial for teens in that it recognizes their position as the intended audience for aspiring YA authors and allows them to provide feedback on adult writers’ full and partial manuscripts. Teens can capture behind-the-scenes glimpses of editors, agents, and writers who collaborate to publish young adult novels and gain insights on writing by eavesdropping on the feedback adult writers receive from editors and agents during the open critique sessions. The November 2024 workshop (weekend TBA) will be on Zoom and registration will open in September. For updates and inquiries, see their website: www.childrenswritersworkshop.com or contact organizer.

References
The National Council of Teachers of English. (2018). Understanding and teaching writing: Guiding principles. https://ncte.org/statement/teachingcomposition/

 Asking students to make connections to a text is a common strategy that teachers use to help students comprehend literature. The goal is to activate students’ prior knowledge - to connect their existing schemas to the new schema they will encounter in a book. Often connection making is taught in the format of text-to-self; text-to-world; and text-to-text.

Another way of thinking about connection-making is Sims- Bishop’s (1990) well known metaphor of literature as a mirror, window, and sliding glass door. These powerful metaphors are what we often use to orient our work with students when we consider the literature that we are choosing as well as how we are asking students to respond to texts. And while we love Sims-Bishop's metaphor, an article by Jones and Clarke (2007) prompted us to think more deeply about how students connect to texts, so rather, those times when students disconnect. Disconnections include those moments when we don’t feel represented in a text, or because of our own privilege we recognize that we cannot fully relate to the experience of a character. Jones and Clarke argue that disconnections as a form of response, “opens up the spectrum of
connection-making and could potentially help teachers and students to see and talk about similarities and differences in more meaningful and nuanced ways while working toward deeper engagements with texts” (p. 103-104).

When we ask students to make connections, we are expecting that students should connect to a text rather than consider why students may not be able to connect to a text. Disconnections remind us that, for students, literature isn’t always a mirror, window, or door; sometimes literature is a reminder that they are locked out of the house entirely. These disconnections, we’ve come to believe, are a form of reader response that is often underrepresented, probably because we don’t teach students to recognize disconnections or give them ways to think and talk about them.

We became interested in helping students consider disconnections as part of the connection making process. We recognize that navigating these types of conversations can often be challenging and therefore, Monica developed sentence stems to help facilitate this work with high school students and with preservice teachers.

We typically use sentence stems as a way to help guide conversations around books. We are committed to reading young adult literature that offers a wide range of perspectives and experiences. We have used sentence stems with fiction and nonfiction, including Poet X (Acevedo, 2018) and Born a Crime (Noah, 2016). However, we are located in a state that often mandates an English language arts curriculum with an emphasis on canonical literature, typically from the western canon and so we have used sentence stems to support students’ transactions with canonical literature as well.

First, during book club discussions we ask students to use one of the contemplative sentence-stems from the Voicing and Honoring sections (see chart below). Students use the contemplative sentence-stems from the Voicing section to describe the connections and disconnections they experienced while reading. This step is to help support students as they experience what Janks (2019) describes as reading with or against the text. Students are asked to use one of the contemplative sentence-stems from the Honoring section to respond to their classmates.

Second, we believe that critical reflection is important. After each book club discussion, we ask students to write a brief reflection about the connections and disconnections they experienced. We ask them to pause and consider how they felt and the ways that making connections and disconnections influenced their understanding of the book.

Finally, we recognize the importance of engaging in dialogue with students about their experiences. We have found that while students can name connections and disconnections, they often need additional support in considering their own positionality and how their experiences shape their responses. We believe that these conversations are necessary in
helping students understand systems of oppression, power, and ideologies, in addition to talking about how they might respond and act.

​We have found that using sentence stems provides a language that students can use to share and discuss their connections and disconnections to literature in compassionate ways. When students have the language to talk about their connections and disconnections, it allows for critical self-reflection. Including a spectrum of connections that includes disconnections challenges the emphasis on personal connections to literature, by allowing disconnections to
serve as an important avenue for transacting with literature.

​Several others lead by Gretchen Rumohr, Leilya Pitre, and Melanie Hundley have kept the blog up and running. It is my turn to start contributing again. We have several developments to reveal during 2024—so stay tuned.

​Now, back to the topic of this week’s post. One of my projects that was finished just before I left for Rwanda was an edited book with my two co-editors T. Hunter Strickland and Stacy Graber entitled--How Young Adult Literature Gets Taught: Perspectives, Ideologies, and Pedagogical Approaches for Instruction and Assessment. The book was published in October 2022 and, since I was in Africa, I didn’t have the time to promote the book. Well, I am back and have a little bit of free time. In addition, many of you are getting ready to teach another course on YA literature to a group of college students or preservice teachers. It is a perfect time to consider how you teach this course and what others who have taught a similar course have to say about a formal approach to developing such a course. 

The book represents nearly 15 years of me wondering how people really are prepared to teach and become scholars of Young Adult Literature.  I fell into the role almost by accident. I was a new  graduate student at The University of Georgia and a as part of my assistantship I was required to work with undergraduate  preservice teachers. Our instruction team consisted of faculty members Peg Graham and Sally Hudson-Ross with Sharon Murphy and I as new PhD students. As we divided up responsibilities, I ended up coordinating the strand that involve the teaching of Young Adult Literature. What a wonderful gift. At the same time, there was no instruction. I just did what I wanted and started to find out who knew about this stuff in a formalized way. During the next NCTE Convention, I became aware of ALAN and several people who were deeply involved with the organization--Chris Crowe, Marshall George, Joan Kaywell, Teri Lesesne and Gary Salvner. Both Joan and Marshall had written pieces for English Education that became important landmarks for my work and interest in Young Adult Literature. 

The book represents nearly 15 years of me wondering how people really are prepared to teach and become scholars of Young Adult Literature.  I fell into the role almost by accident. I was a new  graduate student at The University of Georgia and a as part of my assistantship I was required to work with undergraduate  preservice teachers. Our instruction team consisted of faculty members Peg Graham and Sally Hudson-Ross with Sharon Murphy and I as new PhD students. As we divided up responsibilities, I ended up coordinating the strand that involve the teaching of Young Adult Literature. What a wonderful gift. At the same time, there was no instruction. I just did what I wanted and started to find out who knew about this stuff in a formalized way. During the next NCTE Convention, I became aware of ALAN and several people who were deeply involved with the organization--Chris Crowe, Marshall George, Joan Kaywell, Teri Lesesne and Gary Salvner. Both Joan and Marshall had written pieces for English Education that became important landmarks for my work and interest in Young Adult Literature. 

​Of course, as one of the editors, I recommend that you buy the book personally, but you can also encourage your department to buy it if you work in a middle school or high school setting. If you work in a college or university setting, please request that your university library buys a copy as well as your curriculum library for your college of education. It is also a wonderful book for a group of colleagues to read in a book group setting.

An edited book doesn't exist without the hard work of those who write the chapters. Below we provide a brief introduction the opening of the book and its set up in the first two chapters. This is followed by the titles of the subsequent chapters with the current bios of the authors.

The first two chapters discuss what we know from research and specifically about what a focused study of syllabi from YA courses suggests we know about how Young Adult Literature is currently being taught around the country.
 
Ch. 1 Introduction by Steven T. Bickmore and T. Hunter Strickland
 
Ch. 2 What We Learn from the Research on YAL Methods Syllabi by T. Hunter Strickland and Steven T. Bickmore

Ch. 3 “You Gotta Know the Territory:” A Comprehensive Historical Approach to Teaching a Young Adult Literature Course by Chris Crowe and Kiri Case
Abstract
This chapter reviews one university English professor’s approach to teaching a Young Adult Literature course. It gives a detailed look into how this professor has tailored his semester-long course to be the most effective for his students, including how required reading is decided and assigned, how discussions are facilitated, and what activities can be used to supplement these conversations. It emphasizes a historical approach to YA literature, demonstrating how students gain a broader understanding for current YA trends if they are taught how to contact trace the beginnings of those trends and how they’ve evolved. This chapter also includes examples from the professor’s own syllabus and the reasoning behind his reading selections. Overall, this chapter gives an overview of how a university-level Young Adult Literature course can be effectively structured around a robust reading list and student-led class discussions.

Author Bios:
After a decade of teaching high school English, Chris Crowe taught at universities in Japan and Hawaii before moving to the English department at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He teaches a range of English courses including composition, creative writing, and pedagogy, but for nearly thirty years he's most often taught YA literature to English majors and to nonmajors. He's the author of scores of professional articles, book chapters, and books as well as YA fiction and nonfiction.
 
Kiri Case is currently studying to receive her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. There she has taught freshman writing and beginning creative writing, and she's worked as a research assistant for Chris Crowe's young adult literature course. Her first YA novel, The Hollywood Dropout was published in August of 2021. When not working on her next novel she writes for television.

Ch. 4 From Hovering in the Margin to Taking Center Stage: Including YA in the English Methods Course by KaaVonia Hinton
​
 Author Bio:
KaaVonia Hinton is a professor in the Teaching & Learning Department at Old Dominion University and the author of several articles and books, including Angela Johnson: Poetic Prose (2006), Integrating Multicultural Literature in Libraries and Classrooms in Secondary Schools (with Gail K. Dickinson, 2007), Sharon M. Draper: Embracing Literacy (2009), and Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation and Appreciation, 3rd ed. (with Katherine T. Bucher, 2013).

Ch. 5 Understanding the Value of Choice in the Young Adult Literature Methods Course by T. Hunter Strickland

Abstract: 
This chapter examines the power of student choice when it is infused into every aspect of a young adult literature methods course. With a decided focus on using choice to foster teacher candidates' identities as both readers and writers of YAL, this chapter shows how choice in reading and writing gives students agency and power to tell their own stories, prepare to work with diverse students in their own ELA classrooms, and work towards change in their communities. Through intense independent reading and targeted choice in academic and creative writing, this methods course weaves together the potential of 21st century technology and a chance for teacher candidates to seek a better understanding of themselves and their future students.

 Author Bio:
T. Hunter Strickland, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of Literacy Education in the College of Education at Anderson University. He received his Ph.D. in Language and Literacy Education with a focus on English Education at the University of Georgia where he studied the young adult literature methods course in secondary English teacher education programs across the United States. His teaching at AU focuses on Prek-12th grade literacy including elementary literacy, secondary content area literacy, and English education. Through his understanding of young adult literature pedagogy, he believes that the best literacy teachers of any grade level are teachers who foster their own identities as readers and writers. 

Ch. 6 A Social Action Approach to Young Adult Literature: Reading and Moving for Justice by Ashley Boyd and Janine Darragh

Author Bios:
Ashley S. Boyd is an associate professor of English education at Washington State University where she is a faculty member in the English Department. She teaches English Methods, Young Adult, Literature, and Critical Theory, and her current research focuses on secondary teachers’ social justice pedagogies and students’ development of social action projects. ([email protected]; @boyd3_boyd)
​
Janine J. Darragh is an associate professor of literacy and ESL in the Department of Education at University of Idaho where she instructs courses in English Education, Young Adult Literature, and ESL. Her current research focus is sociocultural issues in English teaching and learning in both the United States and abroad. ([email protected])

Ch. 7 Teaching Young Adult Verse Novels: Creating Student Writers by Honoring the White Spaces by Melanie Hundley and Steven T. Bickmore
 
Author Bios:
Dr. Melanie Hundley is Professor in the Practice of Language and Literacy Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College; her research examines how digital and multimodal composition informs the development of pre-service teachers’ writing pedagogy.  Additionally, she explores the use of digital and social media in young adult literature.  She teaches writing methods courses that focus on digital and multimodal composition and young adult literature courses that explore race, class, gender, and sexual identity in young adult texts.  She has taught both middle and high school English Language Arts and co-directed RAPS, a reading program for middle school students.  She is the author of multiple chapters on teaching young adult literature in middle and high school classes. Her work has been published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, The ALAN Review, Adolescent Literature Today, Innovative Practices in Teacher Preparation and Graduate-Level Teacher Education Programs and Perspectives on Digital Comics.
 
Steve Bickmore is an Emeritus professor English Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He established the academic blog, Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday that runs a variety of posts on Young Adult Literature from Scholars, Teachers, Librarians, Graduate Students since 2014 (http://www.yawednesday.com). He is a past editor of The ALAN Review (2009-2014) and founding editor of Study and Scrutiny: Research in Young Adult Literature. ([email protected])

 Ch. 8 The Graphic Novel by Stergios Botakis
 
Abstract
This chapter discusses how to teach a YAL course using graphic novels as primary texts, to be used with both novice and experienced readers. It pays attention to the specific conventions of graphic novels and how to structure discussion and learning using these conventions. It includes potential syllabi for readings and reading topics, suggested titles for study, as well as assessment activities for promoting students to read with an informed analytic eye on the medium. It also provides instruction and resources for how to instruct students to compose their own graphic responses to better familiarize them with the form and the craft that goes into producing it.
 
Author Bio:
Dr. Stergios Botzakis is a Professor in Theory and Practice in Teacher Education at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His areas of expertise are content area literacy, middle school education, working with struggling adolescent readers, and new literacies. He blogs regularly at http://graphicnovelresources.blogspot.com/ 

Ch. 9 Augmented Reading for Hyperconnected Youth: A Multimedia Approach to Young Adult Literature by Fawn Canady
​
 Author Bio:
Fawn Canady, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Adolescent and Digital Literacies in the Department of Curriculum and Secondary Education at Sonoma State University. She prepares English teachers, literacy teachers, and teaches master’s courses in educational technology. The syllabus in this volume is designed as an elective for the ed-tech area of emphasis for an MA in Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning. Her research focuses on digital multimodal composition and new literacy practices. Fawn can be reached at [email protected].

Ch. 10 From the YA Novel to Film by Gretchen Rumohr
 
Author Bio:
Gretchen Rumohr is 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 and Chief Curator of Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday blog.

Ch. 11 Who is the “Young Adult” in Young Adult Literature? Critically analyzing Conception of Adolescence in Texts Designed for Their Consumption by Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides
 
Author Bio:
 Dr. Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides is Professor & Coordinator of English Education in the English Department at Westfield State University in Western Massachusetts. She teaches courses on young adult literature, English Methods, and the role of race, social class and gender in the ELA classroom. Her research and scholarship focus on antiracist teaching strategies and the role of conceptions of adolescence in young adult literature and in teacher thinking. She is the co-author, with Dr. Carlin Borsheim-Black, of the 2019 book, Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction for White Students which won the 2022 Outstanding Book Award from the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) in the area of Research and Dissemination. She is also the author, with Robert Petrone and Mark Lewis, of Rethinking "the Adolescent" in Adolescent Literacy.

Ch. 12 The Theory-Directed Syllabus: An Update on Teaching YAL through Critical Frameworks by Stacy Graber 
 
Abstract:
Composed as a blueprint for a syllabus and argument for the continued utility of theoretical frameworks in generating socially relevant classroom talk, activity, and analysis, this chapter contributes to scholarship on pedagogy, critical theory, and YAL by highlighting two frameworks instructors might add to their existing critical repertoire: posthumanism and trauma studies.  Posthumanism, with an emphasis on material culture, explores how non-human actors (things) exert influence in networks of relation, and trauma theory, applied to nonfiction narratives, highlights methods for understanding and representing traumatic events.  Both frameworks stand to enhance students’ range of interpretive skills and amplify literary study’s public resonance.

​Author Bio:
Stacy Graber has previously served as an Associate Professor, Program Coordinator of English Education, and cross-appointed faculty member between the Department of English and World Languages and the Department of Teacher Education and Leadership Studies at Youngstown State University. She serves as a supervisor of teacher candidates for all levels of field placements, instructor of English methods courses such as reading in the content areas and the teaching of writing, instructor of literature courses including children’s literature and young adult literature for middle school and high school-age readers, and instructor in composition courses including writing for teachers and introduction to fiction writing. She participates actively on numerous committees, most notably the YSU English Festival Committee. Her areas of interest include pedagogy, popular culture, critical theory, and semiotics.

Ch. 13 Who We Are Where We Are: Reading and Teaching YAL Through a Place-Based Lens by Chea Parton

Abstract:
Identity development, reading, teaching, and learning are all situated within and are contextualized by place. Relying on sociocultural definitions of place, this chapter discusses the salience of place for the reading and teaching of young adult literature (YAL) in both teacher preparation programs and secondary classrooms. It offers an example of a course that centers rural place, specifically, including activities and assignments where preservice teachers (1) define place and rurality, (2) read place theory and develop critical place-based ways of reading YAL, and (3) engage with pedagogical theory to design place-based units that teach rural YAL across multiple geographies (rural, suburban, urban).
 
​Author Bio:
Chea Parton is a farm girl and former rural student and teacher. She is the founder of Literacy In Place, a website that collects, curates, and reviews rural YAL as well as Reading Rural YAL, a YouTube series where she book-talks rural YAL and interviews rural YAL authors. She currently works with preservice teachers at the University of North Texas. You can reach her at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @readingrural.

Ch. 14 Teaching Young Adult Literature in the High School Classroom by Tista Owczarzak

Abstract:
Reading and incorporating young adult literature (YAL) into all classes is one way to make class more engaging for students and teachers while simultaneously incorporating and demonstrating the standards. This chapter examines different approaches to teaching YAL at the high school level through the development of a young adult literature elective course. The author includes ways to structure the course, thematic unit ideas, book titles, and assessment suggestions. Integrating YAL into the high school curriculum provided students with a chance to see what life might be like for others, opened up in-depth conversations, and helped students to read more than ever before.

Author Bio:​
Trista Owczarzak teaches English at Oakfield High School in Wisconsin. She teaches English 1, Senior English, AP English Language and Composition, Social Criticism Literature, and Young Adult Literature.  She earned a bachelor’s degree in English/Secondary Education from Northern Michigan University in 2011 and is currently pursuing a Masters of Library and Information Science from University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Her passion is reading and teaching YA literature in all classes.

Ch. 15 Information Literacy and the Inclusive Classroom: Preparing Future Educators to Challenge Implicit Biases in Curriculum Materials by Amanda Melilli

Abstract:
In order to engage with and be successful in their education, young people need to see themselves reflected in the curriculum materials being brought into classrooms. Classroom educators who are selecting young adult literature to incorporate into their lessons and curriculum are now being asked to be experts in not just selecting materials that meet academic needs but also that authentically depict characters and experiences of historically underrepresented identities without perpetuating negative stereotypes and biases. This level of researching and evaluating young adult literature requires a high level of information literacy, and in order to prepare pre-service educators for this responsibility, teacher education programs need to be incorporating advanced information literacy concepts and skill development into their programs. This chapter focuses on how the Association of College & Research Libraries’ Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education can be used in young adult literature courses to prepare future educators to find and evaluate inclusive classroom materials in order to create engaging educational experiences for all students.

Author Bio:
Amanda Melilli is the head librarian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s (UNLV) Teacher Development & Resources Library which provides research support to UNLV’s teacher education programs. She specializes in youth library collections with a focus on the discovery and evaluation of diverse children’s/young adult literature.  Her research focuses on promoting the use of often underutilized youth materials, specifically the importance of incorporating graphic novels into elementary/secondary classrooms and supporting LGBTQIA+ youth through inclusive school library collections and curriculum.

I hope you found the overview informative. 

Please encourage your institutions library to by the book. If you decide to use the book as as the center of a book group experience. Please let us know. One of the co-editors would be happy to join a discussion.

​Until next week.