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What's the Matter With YOU? by Roy Edward Jackson

2/22/2023

We welcome Roy Edward Jackson back to the YA Wednesday blog! In the past, Roy has written with Dr. Erinn Bentley. Today is Roy's first solo YA Wednesday post.

Roy Edward Jackson holds degrees in Education, English, and Library Science. He has worked in public education in a variety of roles for over two decades. Currently, he is working on his doctoral research on the rise in LGBTQIA+ book challenges in school libraries. He resides in Pennsylvania with his husband and menagerie of pets.

What's the Matter With YOU? by Roy Edward Jackson

If you decide to go outside and see what is happening turn to page 122...

For many, the first foray into second person point of view most likely occurred in a Choose Your Own Adventure book. One could be in the shoes of a track star or a zombie hunter upon turning to page 122. The book series has captivated young readers for generations. Many reluctant readers are hooked through the books that require the physical act of turning pages forward and backwards to progress the story, and the story changes each time one reads it by making different choices. But for some, the unconscious sliding into the shoes of others through second person point of view may have even more serious impact for the older YA reader. Second person POV is often described by adults as cold and distant. However, for the YA reader, second person can be quite the opposite.

We know through Contact and Intergroup Contact Theory that the more interactions we have with people different than ourselves helps decrease the bullying and marginalization that occurs in society. For many students, the only contact with others vastly different from themselves may occur through literature. The second person POV brings the young reader into a closer connection with others than perhaps any other narrative. Being in the shoes of a character, or having the narrator speak to them through the word /you/, has a powerful emotional impact on the reader. There are various second person POVs that include reader as character, narrator speaking to reader, narrator speaking to other characters in the novel, and second person masking as first to cover trauma. Second person POV is a powerful tool regarding social emotional learning and building empathetic capacity. Novels like Two Boys Kissing, Damage, Booked, and 13 Reasons Why show the power that the word /you/ has in YA literature.

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan is the story of Harry and Craig who set out to break the world record for longest kiss. Narrated by gay men of the past, the novel isn’t just a story of Queer kids today, but of the struggles from the past for gay, male Americans. The novel vacillates between various POVs but it is the second person POV that is the most powerful, especially for the reader who may not identify as LGBTQIA+. Levithan often uses the /you/ to give readers breathing space to ponder and consider as they are spoken to directly by the narrator. From the first page, the narrator is addressing all young readers. “You can’t know what it is like for us now-you will always be one step ahead,” (1). All kids can read this line and know that they are in a way one step ahead in all forms of progress than a narrator who was a teen in the 1980s. This writerly move to impact young readers continues to the last page. “There will come a time when the stars of your favorite teen TV show will be sixty. There will come a time when you will have the same unalienable rights as your straightest friends,” (195). While the first line clearly encompasses all young readers, it is the second that will engage the social emotional lens of the reader who is not Queer. They can pause, emphasize that while progress has occurred, Queer youth are still without equity. That their rights are still up for debate. This type of writing, addressing the reader through second person, impacts young readers in a most powerful way.

A.M. Jenkins’s young adult novel, Damage, is the story of Austin Reid who is sliding into a deep state of depression. A star football player in his small Texas town who dates one of the most popular and pretty girls in his school, Austin cannot seem to connect with anything or anyone around him. He suffers from depression and is coping through the trauma of his father’s death to cancer. His girlfriend’s father committed suicide and Austin has suicide ideation. Jenkins uses second person in the form of masking as first person. The narrator, Austin, is telling his story to himself. Telling himself the things he cannot face fully. He has stepped outside of himself to fully extrapolate his trauma. Because Austin is a football star, his girlfriend a cheerleader, they are the juxtaposition of the perfect outward life, and internal struggles of mental health and trauma. This allows the reader to slide into the shoes of the characters easier through the second person POV, and thus have a stronger understanding of the mental health struggles of others--particularly those who appear to have a perfect life outwardly, while struggling deeply inwardly.

Kwame Alexander’s young adult novel, Booked, centers around eighth grader Nick Hall. Nick, an African-American young man who would rather spend his time playing soccer than studying. He is particularly averse to reading, much to the dismay of his linguistic professor father. Alexander has crafted a voice so direct, and distant from his circumstances, that as a reader we literally are both the /you/ as addressee and protagonist. There is a clear reason that Alexander chose the second person, and that is because Nick is going through compounded trauma. At the surface level he is in competition with his white best friend and starting to find his first romance more complicated by racial bullying. Deeper below the surface he is watching his family crumble through divorce and feeling abandoned by his mother. He cannot face these compounded trauma’s face on, in first person, so he has chosen to tell his story in the second person as if it’s not fully happening to him. The second person POV, along with a novel written in verse, allow readers of all races to relate to Nick. Young readers will relate to the trauma of divorce regardless of their own experiences with it. In addition, for young readers in predominantly white schools, Booked gives them a window to the experiences of racial bullying through the use of second person in a more connected way.

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher has been one of the most talked about YA novels in the last decade and a half. As new generations discover the book, it will continue to capture young readers. The novel’s, and author’s personal controversies aside, it merits mention in an examination of the power of second person POV in YA books. Asher’s protagonist, Hannah, speaks from the grave to the other characters in the book, as well as to the readers. Hannah’s suicide, and the implications to the characters she sends her tapes to, have serious impact on the young reader. That great impact comes from the use of the /you/ in the novel. While Hannah tells each recipient how they marginalized and hurt her, the young reader of the novel steps into interesting shoes. They do not step into Hannah’s, rather the reader steps into the victimizers’ shoes and receive how their harmful behavior hurt Hannah. Readers are not empathizing with those that hurt others, rather they come to terms with how they, through the characters in the book, can harm and cause pain to others. It is a powerful place to receive how our behavior hurt others, and that is the precise power of the use of second person in 13 Reasons Why.
Many adult readers find second person point of view difficult to read. They often struggle with how to read, or receive, the use of the word /you/. But with each new generation comes new ways of reading. As more and more kids are taught social emotional learning and social justice, the way they read changes. That makes the power of second person POV in YA books all the more useful. Teaching kids to read with the ability to empathize with the marginalized, those that are hurting, or are othered, is a powerful tool in social emotional learning, and young readers find connections to others they may not have typical contact with in their daily lives through books. These books show how the use of second person can make that connection even deeper as it can force readers to become the /you/ they are reading in literature.

Reveling in Reading, Space for Safety by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

2/8/2023

Dr. Gretchen Rumohr is Chief Curator of YA Wednesday. She serves as a professor of English and writing program administrator at Aquinas College, where she teaches writing and language arts methods. She is also a Co-Director of the 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.

Reveling in Reading, Space for Safety by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

As a teacher of literature, I know that being a reader is the best way for me to improve the literacy of my students. So I read whenever I’m offered the opportunity. My reading has ranged from the very easy (such as Jason Reynolds’s Ghost) to the practical (such as Jeffrey Wilhelm’s Planning Powerful Instruction to the challenging (such as Peter Elbow’s Vernacular Eloquence, a thick, dense book that explores what the spoken word can bring to writing).

And generally I read well, making meaning as I read. I usually “live through” the text, as Louise Rosenblatt would desire. Employing Jeffrey Wilhelm’s evocative, connective and reflective dimensions, I see the story world and its characters, fill in plot gaps to make sense of textual events, and feel myself “living” in the text. Wilhelm calls it “BEing the book.” In the thick of Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, I caught myself at the grocery store, looking at all the printed labels, and thinking about what they would look like in that particular story world--all pictures, no words. When reading Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy in the middle of a bitter winter, I basked in the sun that Gary Schmidt created for me, rereading passages that reminded me of the twinkling sea, hot sand beneath my toes, and a salty ocean breeze. Craig Thompson’s graphic novel, Blankets, prompted memories of awakening and experimentation in my youth. I was, in effect, “shaping” each text, just as Rosenblatt would suggest, “draw[ing]on our reservoir of past experience with people and world...participat[ing] in the story…identify[ing] with the characters... [and] shar[ing]their conflicts and feelings (Morawski and Gilbert 11).

As we read, live through, and enjoy books, how do we make sure we’re allowing adequate time for students to process the ways they identify with plot events and related characters? In what ways, for example, can we help students revel in what they are reading yet create space for students who may be living through more difficult events? In what ways can we create safe spaces when, as Wolpow and Askov state, “reading a book or writing a paper may trigger traumatic memories in a student who has suffered from violence and trauma” (607)? How can we make sure students can speak up if they need help?

Here are a few ways that I’ve encouraged processing time and opportunities to reach out for help:

1. Reading on their own terms. How do students read in our classrooms? Do we send them home with nightly reading homework (which I will never, ever, EVER recommend because students don’t really read when this happens)? Do we read together in class? Do we give time for silent reading (or reading with headphones and an audiobook) in class? Regardless, if we are processing a book together as a whole-class read, we need to be aware of the reading method and plan accordingly. If we’re reading as a whole class and come up on a triggering event, it might be time to give a quick warning, or allow a short break afterward, or give students an opportunity to write a bit or turn-and-talk. In other words, be aware of what’s being read, how it’s being read, and how you’re allowing time to think about what’s being read.

2. Responding on their own terms. How do students respond to literature in our classrooms? If students are considering literature that triggers them, they may feel out of control, unable to harness their emotions and reactions. In many ways, bringing a sense of control to the students in how they respond to literature can help. Consider a response assignment that prioritizes the student’s voice and choice. One example: when reading The Outsiders in class and focusing on the essential theme of “what makes a family,” students can curate a soundtrack for the book on that theme.

3. Choosing what’s next. If you are reading a more “triggering” text as a class, consider allowing students to choose their next book from your classroom library. Maybe they will choose a book on the same topic; maybe they will take a “brain break” and choose something completely different. The goal in this instance is to help students take ownership of their reading as well as their responses.

4.Critical witnessing. If a topic is personal to you–is triggering to you, too as the teacher–it’s ok for you to say so. I have never regretted sharing information about my own trauma when discussing relevant texts and topics. In doing so, we turn the classroom power dynamic upside-down, serving as counter-witnesses to each other’s experiences. For those of you interested in learning more about this idea, check out “Writing Wounded” by Elizabeth Dutro.

I have so much more to say about this topic–and don’t worry! I have more prepared for another day. But isn’t it wonderful when our students invest in what they read, bringing those story words to life in ways that become intensely personal to them? It is up to us to encourage that investment by also creating safe spaces for this literary exploration.

Speculative Fiction for Racial Justice by Dr. Sarah M. Fleming

2/1/2023

Sarah M. Fleming is a 20-year high school English teacher, president of the Central New York Reading Council and co-founder of the CNY Social Justice League. Her research focuses on critical inquiry instructional methods for implementing anti racist / anti bias pedagogy, specifically as it relates to disrupting the ELA curriculum with young adult literature.

Speculative Fiction for Racial Justice by Dr. Sarah M. Fleming

I grew up on the genres of speculative fiction and the modes of “thought-experimenting” (Oziewicz, 2017): stories within the realms of science fiction, fantasy, horror, dystopia, and the like. I lived amidst pages where I encountered other worlds and characters with supernatural, futuristic or magical powers, spaces where I could feel emboldened and empowered despite my young adult reality of living in an often unwelcoming and unjust world. Reading such stories provided a much-needed escape from reality. Unfortunately, that escape was not equitably available for all readers. As a white, middle-class, cisgendered, heterosexual girl I did not have to look hard to find myself in the stories of my beloved speculative genre. As an ELA teacher for twenty-one years in a predominately white, suburban classroom, I found most of my students did not have to look hard to see themselves either. But for my students of color and those from historically resilient communities, it was much more challenging.

Scholar Ebony Thomas explains that “when people of color seek passageways into the fantastic, [they] have often discovered that the doors are barred” (2019), speaking to the lack of representation in speculative fiction. We have to do more than simply diversify our book collections and curriculum to do the real kind of anti-oppression and anti-racist work needed in our ELA classrooms. Ebarvia (2021) reminds us of self-work teachers and students must engage with in order to do this work, noting that “we must hold space for students to understand and analyze how those systems of oppression work in their own lives” (p. 582). Sinclair (2018) addresses the call to confront systems of oppression and the symptoms of colonization in the ELA classroom. She claims that “literature can help us and our students identify and understand the systems at work in our society… and once we can see them - and see their impact on others - we can confront and dismantle them” (p. 91-92). In his model for Critical Race English Education, Lamar Johnson (2021) advocates for a pedagogy that “explicitly addresses issues of violence, race, whiteness, white supremacy, and anti-black racism within school and out-of-school spaces” (p. 57). And S. R. Toliver (2020) shows us how speculative fiction can be used to serve as testimony and counter storytelling:
Black authors often assume the role of conjuror, using literary and linguistic magic to challenge oppressors and mitigate the everyday violence enacted on Black communities by those who continuously work to fortify our oppression. To invoke an image of justice, some authors transform the real into the fantastic, grounding their stories in the imaginary because justice has not historically been, nor is it currently, defined as our social reality. In this way, some Black authors embed their truths in the make-believe, combining testimony, and counterstory in hopes that readers will bear witness and join the fight for justice.
We must invite our students to join that fight for justice, and we can do so by embedding texts into our curriculum and classroom libraries that center Black voices, experiences, and perspectives as they exist in speculative fiction. What follows is a brief overview of three recent speculative fiction publications: The Getaway (2022) by Lamar Giles, The Weight of Blood (2022) by Tiffany D. Jackson, and Bloodmarked (2022), sequel to Legendborn (2020) by Tracy Deonn. In each case, I suggest that the centering of these texts can prompt the beginning of the work prompted by these scholars in developing a racial literacy and working toward racial justice. But be forewarned of spoilers! While I leave the resolutions unaddressed, there are specific details discussed below that give away plot lines you may wish to avoid knowing about before reading…

The Getaway by Lamar Giles
Jay works as an Immediacy Helper (janitor) at Karloff Country, a Disney World-esque entertainment resort in a near-future America suffering the effects of climate change and subsequent famine. Jay’s family and friends live in Jubilee, the predominantly Black employee’s neighborhood, and they all work across the resort for the mostly white, affluent guests to keep them happy - with service and joy, as is “the Karloff way.” But something has happened in the world outside the Karloff walls; first Jay’s friend Connie and her family all disappear overnight without explanation, then private jets start arriving, and suddenly everyone gets confined to their living quarters while the world erupts in a chaotic, apocalyptic event. When the smoke clears, Jay and his friends are directed to return to work because there are apparently still a small handful of elite guests at the resort who expect things to run as normal. At a celebration event that first night after, it becomes clear to Jay and all the other Helpers that they are now at the mercy of these guests, the Trustees, as the Karloff director explains that “for the duration of the world’s metamorphosis, you will live, as promised, with the award-winning, five star service and joy you’ve come to expect within our walls” (p. 163) - and that such service will be provided to them by Jay and the Karloff employees. An all-too familiar hierarchy of race and class is quickly established, and when that precarious balance is challenged by the Helpers, a horrific and violent consequence is the result.

What ensues is a hellish new reality in which these Trustees have direct control over the Karloff employees by way of threatening harm to them through technological control, because “they invested in service. The same service they'd have gotten if the world wasn’t burning. Anticipating some resistance, they created safeguards…” (p. 170). Jay first witnesses and then suffers the result of such safeguards, and readers watch a new social environment unfold that smacks of the emboldened white supremacy and history of enslavement we fear can still be part of our reality.

The Weight of Blood by Tiffany Jackson
This book is a must-read for fans of Stephen King, and of Carrie in particular. In this case, the prom nightmare takes place in 2014 in a small, southern town, where segregated proms are still a thing and white supremacy remains unchecked. The main character Maddy is bullied for multiple reasons, but most notably for the recent revelation that she has been passing as white since coming to school in the 7th grade. The story line mirrors its predecessor in that the seemingly well-meaning Wendy is looking to absolve herself of guilt and therefore works to set Maddy up as her boyfriend Kenny’s date to the prom. Kenny, the senior, Black football star, carefully navigates what it means to be the tokenized Black friend amongst his peers, while his white girlfriend Wendy and her circle of friends engage in regular microaggressions. After an incident in terrorizing Maddy went viral on social media, prom chair Wendy decides to work toward a unified prom to combat the spotlight put on their school - but the student body’s response is mixed and some students refuse to participate in the “all-together” prom. As students vote to either keep the proms separate or unify them, teacher Mrs. Morgan explains that “combining proms is a start toward restorative justice, community healing, and unity against an archaic practice,” (p. 91). Kenny’s friend Jason bemoans her statement, claiming that prom’s “not supposed to be about all that. Prom’s about tradition!” and what ensues is an important conversion about tradition being rooted in segregation and systemic racism.

Meanwhile, socially powerless Maddy discovers that she is now manifesting new supernatural powers that let her move objects with her mind. Maddy works to hone her powers, just as she and Kenny become friends in the days leading up to the prom. Interspersed throughout the narrative are excerpts from various media outlets: news stories and a podcast that relate the larger tale to the readers. And while readers watch Maddy grow in her powers, they also get a hint at what is to come on prom night (which I won’t spoil for you), where another terror will befall Maddy - and this time, the entire town will pay for their mistreatment of her as Maddy uses her powers in response. In discussing the final events of that fateful night, one podcast interviewee alludes to the role societal racism played in the disaster, noting that Maddy was “an innocent bystander in a long overdue comeuppance for a town holding on to outdated ideologies” (p. 402). The Weight of Blood becomes more than just a horror story, but one that suggests that if such supernatural responses to systemic racism were possible, “if revenge of this magnitude was even a remote possibility, there would be far less incidents of racial injustice in the world” (p. 404).

Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn
Bloodmarked is the sequel to Tracy Deonn’s novel Legendborn, the story of Bree Matthews. While attending the Early College program at UNC-Chapel Hill, 16-year old Bree first witnesses and then becomes party to magical happenings on campus. Bree discovers she is somehow connected to two magical family lines: that of the fabled King Arthur, and her Wildcrafter ancestors with Root magic. She is drawn into the battle of the Legendborn, who fight as the descendants of the Round Table to protect the world and humankind from monsters of the Shadowborn. In this fight she is Called to be the Scion of King Arthur, destined to lead the Legendborn in the ultimate battle of Camlann. But as she rises to her Arthurian fate, she must also reconcile the manifestations of her Root magic, born out of a history of oppression and enslavement. In Bloodmarked, readers are introduced to a greater understanding of this part of Bree's family history, and how she must work to reconcile her identity as a young Black woman while called to be the heir to King Arthur’s bloodline. When others balk at her legacy as being legitimate, she calls them on it and reminds them that the one who pulls the sword becomes king (which she did) - “unless she looks like me” and saying “when white people say something's not about race, it’s usually because it is and they don’t want to talk about it” (p. 168). Later when Bree and her friends stop at a store in rural Georgia, she immediately understands why the restroom is suddenly “out of order” when she goes to use it: “just a reminder that it doesn't matter what my title is, whose magic I have…” (p. 299). And while she leaves the statement unfinished, the implication is clear to the reader - that no matter how much magical power Bree might have, she must still contend with the racist implications of being Black in spaces characterized by white supremacy.

Later Bree meets Valec at the Crossroads Lounge who warns her to be wary of the promises made to her by the Legendborn Order, reminding her that she is “a daughter of the enslaved” (p. 339). As Bree and her friends elude those in the Order who would wish to stifle her power, they make the acquaintance of other rootcrafters who shelter them at Volition, a former southern plantation and home to the Ancestors. Lu explains that “Volition is both a gravesite and a refuge. A site of mourning and a site of hope” (p. 437). Bree finds refuge at Volition and seeks clarity from those generations of women who came before her, as she prepares to do battle with the one who hunts her.

Speculative Fiction for Racial Justice in the Classroom
In all three texts, readers are asked to contend with characters, settings and storylines that replicate the harsh realities of a social system imbued with facets of white supremacy and elements of anti-Black racism. Black readers and readers of color will recognize themselves and their experiences in the texts, and white readers will be made to better understand and empathize with situations they can only imagine. As stories of speculative fiction, each asks what if? and wonders what could be, if only people were socially and politically empowered they way they might be fantastically, magically so. In prompting readers to question the status quo, the inclusion of such stories in our classrooms aids students in answering the call to fight for justice, and I for one am grateful to these authors for their work.

References
Deonn, T. (20202). Legendborn. Simon & Schuster.

Deonn, T. (2022). Bloodmarked. Simon & Schuster.

Ebarvia, T. (2021). Starting with self: Identity work and anti-racist literacy practices. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(5), pp. 581-584.

Giles, L. (2022). The getaway. Scholastic.

Jackson, T. D. (2022). The weight of blood. HarperCollins.

Johnson, L. L. (2021). Critical race English education: New visions, new possibilities. Routledge.

Oziewicz, M. (2017). “Speculative Fiction.” Oxford Research Encyclopedias. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.78

Sinclair, M. N. (2018). “Decolonizing ELA: Confronting privilege and oppression in textual spaces.” English Journal, 107(6), pp. 89-94.

Thomas, E. E. (2019). The dark fantastic: Race and the imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games. New York University Press.

What's the Matter With YOU? by Roy Edward Jackson

Reveling in Reading, Space for Safety by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

Speculative Fiction for Racial Justice by Dr. Sarah M. Fleming

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What's the Matter With YOU? by Roy Edward Jackson

Reveling in Reading, Space for Safety by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

Speculative Fiction for Racial Justice by Dr. Sarah M. Fleming

Dr. Steve Bickmore​Creator and Curator

Bickmore's ​Co-Edited Books

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Dr. Steve Bickmore
Creator and Curator

Bickmore's
Co-Edited Books