Using YA Wednesday as a Supplemental Text for Your Young Adult Course.
I am reaching the point where the first group of volunteer contributors will have cycled through in about six weeks. It seemed a good time to review what has been published. Below is a list of all of the blog post titles with a hyperlink. Hopefully, this will make it easy for you to browse. The topics have included Urban Texts, Youth and Sexuality, Memoirs, Disability-Themed books, Sports, Historical fiction, how awards might be used in a class, and several others. I hope you consider using the posting as guest lecture in you classroom.

These posting can serve as a discussion board for your students. (Recently, there has been some interesting exchanges around YA books with religious theme, Urban spaces, and book ending.)   If you are introducing a theme or a book that has been discussed in one of the posting, I hope you will feel free to post the link and encourage your students to respond. In many cases, the posting are a way for the contributors to discuss a book they have written or are writing. Some of them have talked about themes and frameworks that they use for writing articles and for teaching their courses. Occasionally, a post will focus on an author. Some contributors have discussed how they use young adult literature with their students in schools.

In my posts, I have talked about diverse books, awards, new authors of interest, foreshadowed and reviewed the ALAN Workshop, looked at libraries, banned books, and a few other issues. I have also promoted the UNLV conference and other events that we have on campus around YA literature. I will gladly promote other events as well. I tend to write about what I have been either thinking about or writing about at the time. I hope you have found at least a few of them interesting. I know that others of you have great ideas. I hope that you will consider getting in line for a contribution. I am always looking for new voices.

The images in this posting represent some of the authors and books that have been featured in the blog.

Dr. Bickmore's Contributions

Bickmore, S. T. & Hays, A. (2016, March, 2). Finding Renewal: YA and Music Connections and Remembering the 2015 ALAN Workshop with Alice Hays. 
​Bickmore, S. T. (2016, February, 17). Makes Me Wanna Shut Up: Reconsidering how I used African-American Authors in My Classroom.
Bickmore, S. T. (2016, February, 3). Marveling at the work of an eleven year old (#1000BlackGirlBooks) and more Authors coming to Vegas.
​Bickmore, S. T. (2016, January, 27). A Confluence of Two Authors Named Chris in Georgia.
Bickmore, S. T. (2016, January, 20). Introducing the 2nd Issue of Study and Scrutiny.
Bickmore, S. T. (2016, January, 6). YA Textbooks to add to your shelf and share with students, teachers, and librarians.
Bickmore, S. T. (2015, December 23). YA Fiction, Rereading, Music, Adolescent Resiliency, Summer Conference Keynote Authors, and Breakout Proposal Forms.
​Bickmore, S. T. (2015, December 9). Of Young Adult Literature, Educational Summits, and Collaborative Projects.
​Bickmore, S. T. (2015, November 25). The ALAN Workshop 2015 and NCTE!
​Bickmore, S. T. (2015, November, 4). Announcing the 2016 Gayle A. Zeiter Young Adult and Children’s Literature Conference.
​Bickmore, S. T. (2015, October 21). Reviewing Past National Book Award Winners as I Consider a "Meta-Gold Medal"
​Bickmore, S. T. (2015, October 7). Shakespeare and YA literature: Some Promising Novels for a Beginning
​Bickmore, S. T. (2015, September 23). Looking forward to the ALAN Workshop
Bickmore, S. T. (2015, September 16). Welcome to Jason Reynolds
Bickmore, S. T. (2015, September 9). Rebooting and Reviewing: A New Place and New Start
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, November, 14). Come Join us at NCTE for the CEE's roundtable event for the Commission on the Study and Teaching of Adolescent Literature.
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, November, 5). Looking for Classics in the Library Stacks.
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, October, 22). Holden, Dear Holden; Your Influence Stretches On and On and Readers of YA Literature Thank You.
​Bickmore, S. T. (2014, October, 15). Introducing M. H. Herlong and Her Two Wonderful Novels.
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, October, 8). Slow and Steady Wins the Race: Lonesome George Reminds about Science, Children’s Books, and the Classroom.
​Bickmore, S. T. (2014, October, 1). Of Banned Books and Other Troubling Things.
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, September, 17). Exploring the Longlist of Nominees for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
​Bickmore, S. T. (2014, September, 10). An Interview with Padma Venkatraman.
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, September, 3). 10 Young Adult Novels That Have Stayed With You.
​Bickmore, S. T. (2014, August, 20). From Guilin Normal College in Guilin, China to Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana: YA Literature Goes International
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, August, 13). Reminiscent Reading: Reflecting Back on Books That I Just Don’t Forget.
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, July, 30). Dr. Bickmore Dives into the Blogosphere.
​Bickmore, S. T. (2014, July, 23). Pioneer Book Recommendations: Exploring the Literary Frontier.
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, July, 16). An Update from Dr. Bickmore: Life After A Super Successful Conference
Bickmore, S. T. (2014, July, 10). Remembering Walter Dean Myers

Reviews of the Past Conferences that I held at Louisiana State University. Keynote Authors 2014: Chris Crutcher, Matt de la Peña, Kimberly Willis Holt, Sarah Guillory, and Chris Crowe.  Keynote Academics 2014: Teri Lesesne, Chris Crowe, Alan Brown, and Steven T. Bickmore. Keynote Authors 2015: Kwame Alexander, Jacqueline Woodson, Coe Booth, Sharon Flake, and Sharon Draper. Keynote Academics 2015: James Blasingame, Steven T. Bickmore, Joan Kaywell, and Mark Lewis. 

You can review each conference and there are several pictures from each day.
(2015, June 5). LSU Young Adult Literature Conference 2015 – Day Five Recap: Author Sharon Draper Closes the Conference on Day 5
(2015, June 4). LSU Young Adult Literature Conference 2015 – Day Four Recap: Dr. Mark Lewis & Author Sharon Flake Headline Day 4
(2015, June 3). LSU Young Adult Literature Conference 2015 – Day Three Recap: Dr. Kaywell and Author Coe Booth Highlight Day 3
(2015, June 2). LSU Young Adult Literature Conference 2015 – Day Two Recap: LSU's Dr. Bickmore & Author Jacqueline Woodson Round Out Day 2
​(2015, June 1). LSU Young Adult Literature Conference 2015 – Day one Recap: Arizona State's Dr. Jim Blasingame & Author Kwame Alexander Kick Off the 2015 Conference
​(2014, June 5). LSU Young Adult Literature Conference & Seminar: Day 4 Re-cap: Dr. Alan Brown of Wake Forest University & Local Author Sarah Guillory Deliver Final Keynote Addresses.
(2014, June 4). LSU Young Adult Literature Conference & Seminar: Day 3 Re-cap: Dr. Steven Bickmore of LSU & Author Kimberly Willis Holt Headline Day 3.
(2014, June, 3). LSU Young Adult Literature Conference & Seminar: Day 2 Re-cap: Dr. Chris Crowe of Brigham Young University & Author Matt de la Peña Usher in Day Two
.(2014, June, 2). LSU Young Adult Literature Conference & Seminar: Day 1 Re-cap: Dr. Teri Lesesne of Sam Houston State University & Author Chris Crutcher Open Day One.

The gallery below feature some of the past keynote authors.

This week's guest contributor is Jon Ostenson. Jon is another educator who spends time helping the YA community. He is the current web master for the ALAN website. Any time you have been able to access information about the ALAN organization or about The ALAN Review, you can thank Jon. If something goes wrong. It isn't his fault. It is simply one of the poltergeists that live in the internet and cause us trouble from time to time.  Jon taught both junior high and high school English before joining the Faculty at BYU where he is part of the English teacher preparation program. As we talk about diversity, Jon discusses how religion is presented in YA fiction. Join us for his thoughtful consideration of the issue.

PS. At the bottom of the blog is the flier for the UNLV YA and Children's Literature Conference and above is a link to the conference in the header. Thanks Jon.

The call for and concern about diverse representations in young adult literature is critical and welcome. The young readers who encounter these books are, themselves, complex and diverse, and we rightly hope that they will encounter narrators with experiences that will mirror their own. Likewise, we hope that diverse representations in young adult literature will open new doors of understanding for all readers as they encounter the new and unfamiliar in these books.
This recognition of the need for diversity has allowed writers in the young adult genre to break all sorts of boundaries and taboos, to write about sex and sexual identity, about abuse and violence, about suicide and self-harm. It has also raised important discussions about the need for authenticity in representing the experiences of characters from different backgrounds. While there is still much to do, the increased diversity we see in today’s young adult literature is surely helping more and more readers find a home in these books.

​But there’s one boundary that writers and publishers have seemed less eager to cross: treatments of teens who embrace religion and spirituality as an integral part of their lives. In fact, this topic has been so markedly avoided that the scholar Patty Campbell subtitled her recent book on the subject “The Last Taboo.” Too often, when religion is explored in literature for young people, it’s done so in ways that are either dismissive (where spiritual belief is portrayed as unsatisfactory in a modern, secular age) or decidedly negative (as in treatments of religious cults or fundamentalist groups). But given research that shows that 40% of young adults report being actively involved in organized religion and most claiming that they think religion is a good thing, it seems that there is an audience who would be interested in authentic, genuine explorations of religion and faith.

Why is spirituality in young adult literature still so taboo? Why do we see more books with characters who are wrestling with their sexual identity or their cultural heritage or suicidal thoughts than characters who are seeking to understand God or their faith? Patty Campbell suggests that writers and publishers might steer clear of the topic for fear of offending some readers (and thus cutting into potential sales) or out of a mistaken interpretation of the Constitutional separation of church and state. I’ve read from authors writing about this topic on the Internet that they worry about either misrepresenting religious beliefs or having their own efforts misinterpreted as proselyting or advocating for a specific faith. Although the vast majority of Americans share a belief in God, the issues of personal belief and practice are complicated and not always discussed openly in the public sphere.

This shouldn’t prevent us from seeking out books for young readers that explore these issues–issues that can play an important role during a teenager’s formative years. But these books can’t be preachy and moralizing; I believe most teen readers will see through this and dismiss it, not to mention that such an approach won’t really help those who are striving to make sense of faith and spirituality. Instead, young readers need literature that highlights the real role that religion or spirituality can play: how it addresses their deepest metaphysical questions, how it helps them make sense of right and wrong in their lives and in the larger world, how it guides their lives in positive ways. This literature also needs to address the wrestles so many of us have with faith, both the personal struggles (What do I believe? Where is God in my life?) and the more global (Why do bad things happen to good people? Where is God to be found in a world of war and exploitation and suffering?).

I am hopeful that with the interest in diverse literature for young adults we will see more and more books that break this taboo. I’d like to highlight two recent books that I feel embody authentic and complex explorations of religion and faith.

​Once Was Lost (also published as What We Lost) by Sara Zarr

When life is good and everything’s happening the way it’s “supposed to,” belief in God can seem easy and natural. But what happens when your life is upended and God doesn’t seem to be listening anymore? This is the question at the heart of Sara Zarr’s book, told through the perspective of Sam Taylor, the daughter of a pastor and part of what had seemed to be the perfect family. Now her mother is in rehab for alcoholism and her father seems more interested in preparing for his Sunday sermons than in addressing the family crisis. He becomes only more distant when a local girl is abducted and Sam’s dad is called upon to offer spiritual comfort for the girl’s family. Sam is left alone to wrestle with her doubts about God, who doesn’t seem to be listening to her pleas for help or performing any miracles in the search for the missing girl.
​
Zarr presents Sam’s struggles with faith in honest and touching ways that ring true to readers who have had similar questions and doubts. And as powerful as they are, her questions don’t define Sam: she also has to deal with the public shame of her family falling apart and with the possibly romantic attention she’s receiving from the older brother of the kidnapped girl. Perhaps most importantly, while Sam does begin to find some answers to her questions, those answers aren’t easy and don’t come in a neat little package. In fact, she even discovers that her father doesn’t feel like he has all the answers, in spite of his vocation and the faith that the members of his flock have in him. Zarr has crafted both a poignant story about a young girl dealing with grief and loss as well as a nuanced and authentic portrayal of the complex relationship between faith and questioning.

​Confessions of a Closet Catholic by ​_Sarah Darer Littman
​
A great middle-grade read, Littman’s book is more lighthearted but no less genuine in its treatment of faith and religion as seen through the narrator, Jussy Silver. Jussy’s family is Jewish, and she finds herself torn between the more orthodox traditions of her grandparents and a real curiosity about the Catholic church and its practices. She asks about dietary and Sabbath traditions during family dinners, and later practices making confession and saying Hail Mary’s in her closet. But she’s also insecure about her looks and weight (no thanks to an older sister who looks like a fashion model) and she’s worried about losing her beloved grandmother Bubbe. And, if she’s being honest with herself, her attraction to Catholicism is influenced in part by the crush she’s developing on her best friend’s brother (whose family is Catholic).

Jussy’s questions about religion and what she believes are especially poignant in the context of her prayers for her grandmother and the grief she feels when Bubbe passes away. The pretending in the closet and the questions at dinner become very real for Jussy as she tries to understand her loss and seeks comfort in faith. While many readers will likely smile a bit at Jussy’s naïveté when it comes to her sins and the guilt she feels, her feelings are nonetheless real and will resonate with readers. An insightful Father and a patient Rabbi help put some of Jussy’s fears to rest and set her on the path to finding comfort and peace, and to exploring more seriously the way that faith will shape her identity.
 ​
 Neither of these books makes religion the centerpiece; instead, both protagonists are relatable and recognizable to any reader: they struggle with feelings of insecurity, they are dealing with the loss of a family member, and they work through some budding romantic feelings as well. But they also take religion seriously, and are asking genuine questions about faith and its role in their lives. They will be a rich source of insight to readers who find themselves asking and wondering, and I hope they signal the beginning of more books that do the same.

Dr. Jon Ostenson
Assistant Professor
Department of English, BYU
jonathan_ostenson@byu.edu 

I have been watching Marshall George navigate the waters of young adult literature since the turn of the century. He has been a strong advocate for the use of this literature in the secondary classroom for quite a while. He is also a dedicated servant in the field of English Education. He recently finished several years of service on NCTE’s Conference on English Education (CEE) where he eventually served as the chair. He has recently returned to more active service to the young adult literature community and serves as one of the directors of ALAN. When I first started to study this field his commission report, published in English Education (Vol. 37 No. 1 Oct., 2004), was one of the guiding lights. While this academic blog is entitled Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday and the YA clearly stands for Young Adult; I am sure I am not the only one who has debated back and forth about the use of that term or whether or not I should be using Adolescent instead. Indeed, the LA in ALAN stands for Literature for Adolescents. Marshall discusses this polemic in this week guest contribution.

What is in a Name? Adolescent Literature? Young Adult Literature?
Does it Matter?
 
“Names.
What’s in a name, really? I mean, besides a bunch of
letters or sounds strung together to make a word. Does a
rose by any other name really smell as sweet? Would the
most famous love story in the world be as poignant if it was
called Romeo and Gertrude? Why is what we call
ourselves so important?”
― Julie Kagawa, Summer's Crossing

A Little Recent Background
This has been an interesting year for me professionally. After 18 years of serving on the faculty of the Graduate School of Education at Fordham University, I accepted a position at Hunter College of the City University of New York that began in August. Each and every year from 1997-2015 I taught a course at Fordham, entitled Adolescent Literature in a Multicultural Society. This semester, I am teaching my first course at Hunter, Young Adult Literature in a Diverse Society. As I reviewed the master syllabus for the Hunter course provided me by my new colleagues, I realized that, other than the semantic differences in the titles, the two courses are really quite similar. The primary objective of each (according to the syllabus) is to develop teacher candidates’ content knowledge (of adolescent/young adult literature) and content pedagogical knowledge (of curriculum planning and instructional strategies for teaching literature to adolescents). (See Shulman 1986 to gain an understanding of these constructs if they are unfamiliar to you and you find them intriguing).
 
As I was working on my Hunter syllabus, I found myself struggling with the repeated use of the term young adult literature, which appeared throughout the document. My Fordham syllabus had been peppered with the term adolescent literature. Somehow, the language difference did not feel right to me. With the course title having the word young adult in it, it seemed wrong for it not to appear in the syllabus; however, so many of the course materials I have gathered and created over the years privilege the word adolescent, so it needed to be there as well.  After many revisions and edits, I ended up using the venerable hyphen each time I felt the need to name the body of literature we would be studying together: young adult/adolescent literature. I admit this might be confusing to a reader of my syllabus, and somewhat cumbersome, but I felt that the hyphenated option seemed like the most reasonable compromise. 
 
This internal conflict over semantics (only an English teacher or librarian, right?) continued as I worked on my lesson plan for that first class. For years, on that first night, I have led my students though a series of activities that allowed them to unpack the language of the course title, including an exploration of their understanding and perceptions of the words adolescent, literature, and multicultural. Yearly, working in table teams, my students used their knowledge from prior field experiences and courses in adolescent literacy and adolescent development and learning to collaboratively think about what they knew about the social, emotional, cognitive, and reading development of human beings between the ages of eleven and eighteen (the ages of the students in grades 7-12 that they would be teaching).  Our conversations always included a discussion of the connotations and denotations of the terms adolescence and adolescent (in New York, certification for grades 7-12 is called adolescence, rather than the more common secondary used in many states), admittedly most of which are negative. This activity was usually followed by two others, in which we considered the definition of the words literature (often resulting in the agreement that we had two definitions, one for literature (lower case), writ large, the other for Literature, said with a Downton Abbey affectation and held by snooty English majors) and multicultural (a word with which they are quite familiar, given that it is one of the foundations of all adolescence education programs at Fordham). After these three activities, I always tell the story of how I became a scholar of adolescent literature and how I determined the name of the course in 1997 when I developed it in my first year at Fordham. It goes like this…

A Little More Distant Background
 
“It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone.”
― Lois Lowry, A Summer to Die
 
It all started in August of 1994, when I began my doctoral studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and signed up for my advisor’s course, simply titled Adolescent Literature. Ted Hipple, my advisor and professor for that course, would become the most influential character in my personal academic story, teaching me the true meaning of another term, mentor. He shaped my thinking about the teaching of English language arts, the preparation of teachers of English language arts, the role of the teacher education professor and scholar, and the roles and responsibilities of a doctoral mentor. But perhaps most important to this story, Ted Hipple introduced me to adolescent literature, to writers of adolescent literature, to publishers of adolescent literature, and to the field of scholarship focusing on the teaching and study of adolescent literature.

For those who never had the pleasure of meeting Ted Hipple, he was a larger- than-life figure. He was a prolific writer, with more than 150 published articles (many in NCTE journals, including The ALAN Review), numerous books, and countless op-eds, letters to the editor, etc. A past president of ALAN, member of the NCTE executive committee, and Conference on English Education, Ted was familiar to all who were part of NCTE and ALAN. A gregarious character, Ted wore bright colored ties (often with matching suspenders) to the office, to class, and really just about everywhere he went. On campus and at NCTE conventions (he presented at every one over his 35 years in higher education) he usually had a stack of books and papers in a bright orange cloth “tote bag” in his hands. He read most every work of literature written for adolescents in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s and was on a first name basis with many of their authors (and knew their drink of choice, as he socialized with them often). As a professor, he was a delight to listen to, to talk with, to ask questions of, and to discuss books with. That first night in adolescent literature, I knew I was a lucky young man to be studying with this man.
 
I was recently reminiscing about that first night of adolescent literature with fellow “Hipplites,” David MacInnis Gill and Melissa Comer, and we all remember part of his spiel from the class where he explained the difference in the terms adolescent literature and young adult literature. His preference, he would say, was for the term adolescent literature, which he believed to be more inclusive of literature written for both middle grade readers and those in high school.  As David, Missy, and I all recall, Hipple pointed out that adolescence is the accepted academic name for the developmental stage of the readers that the literature we were studying was written and he argued that young adult was a marketing gimmick created by publishers. Proud of having been a founding member of ALAN, The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English, Ted pointed out the use of the word adolescents in the organization’s name (as opposed to young adult), but also noted that adolescents was used as a noun, focusing on the reader, rather than an adjective, which would modify the word literature (thus, literature for adolescents instead of adolescent literature). Indeed, Ted Hipple was both a champion of adolescents and literature written for them, but would always focus on the young reader more than the literature itself.

Also on that first night, Ted shared with us the seminal text by and Alleen Pace Nielsen and Ken Donelson , Literature for Young Adults, and acknowledged their discussion of their own choice to use the term young adult literature (which they contrast with children’s literature), despite “confess[ing] to feeling pretentious when referring to a 12- or 13-year-old as a young adult (p. 2).” They justify this choice by pointing out that the term adolescent carries many negative connotations and point out that teachers and librarians regularly report that teenage readers do not like the term adolescent. Hipple acknowledged this truth, but told us that he still preferred to call the field adolescent literature. As he often said to me, “words matter.” I guess that is why I’m writing this blog entry focusing on words that matter to me and, I believe, to our field.
 
So while it is too late to make a long story short, I will say that I was very much influenced by Ted’s comments in that first class and had other discussions with him over the years before his untimely death about this, and other semantic choices we make in the field of English education. To be fair, I must note that a review of his impressive CV reveals that he regularly used both the terms adolescent literature and young adult literature in his article and presentation titles, as have I. Nevertheless, as Lois Lowry suggests, “It's a funny thing about names, how they become a part of someone.” The title, content, and instruction of that first course with Ted Hipple did, indeed, become a part of me.  I remember having a conversation with Ted after my first course proposal at Fordham had been approved, and he applauded my title, Adolescent Literature in a Multicultural Society, and noted that, he “had taught me well” and perhaps would change the title of this own course.

Back to the Point of this Blog Post
 
“I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
 
So as I prepared my syllabus and lesson plan for my Hunter course, my thinking about the semantic differences was challenged anew and I was reminded of a conversation I had had a couple of years ago at some NCTE convention (I can’t remember the city, but remember that the conversation happened in some sort of food court during lunch). I recollect commenting to Steve Bickmore and Jacqueline Bach about what I perceived as a fairly even split within our community over the name of our field (in my mind, close to half of us still called it adolescent literature, and the other half referred to it as young adult literature). Steve and Jackie were editors of The ALAN Review at the time, so I asked them if they had noticed a pattern of usage in manuscripts submitted to the journal, and if it confirmed my perception of even usage. I was quite surprised when they indicated that the vast majority of authors used the term young adult literature, or just YA and that this trend had pretty much guided their own use of the term in calls for manuscripts, evaluation rubrics for reviewers, and even their own writing. However, Steve, who has been studying syllabi from adolescent/young adult literature courses across the country, said that many course titles still included the term adolescent literature (which Nilsen and Donelson also note). This conversation came rushing back to me as I grappled with my syllabus and lesson plans.
 
So several weeks ago, I took a play from the Ted Hipple playbook and sent out an email to “various and sundry” colleagues (those who knew Ted will understand this reference), including professors of English education who study literature for adolescents and young adults, professors of library science, publishers who focus on literature for this audience, a couple of YA/middle grade writers, and middle/high school classroom teachers. I asked them, “Which term do you use to describe the field of literature that we study, adolescent literature or young adult literature? Do you see them as synonymous or do they mean different things?” Almost everyone I wrote to responded. As I read through their answers, a couple of things became clear to me. First and foremost, our field is not split over these two terms. Just about everyone prefers the term young adult literature, just as Steve and Jackie told me more than two years ago. However, while many seem to use the term, almost everyone indicated that they were not in love with it, and a few suggested alternatives that are worth considering. 
 
I received paragraph-length responses from thirteen people. Ten of them indicated that they almost exclusively use the term young adult literature, and if they do use adolescent, it is for variety in their writing. Two additional said that they use both terms equally, with adolescent being synonymous with middle grades literature, and young adult referring to texts more suitable for high school students. Similarly, one respondent, a publisher, said that she considers adolescent literature to be the umbrella term, with middle grades and YA referring to specific audiences within the field (this is in line with my own thinking). Several respondents indicated that both terms were problematic and suggested alternatives. Only one said that they try not to use either. Before I share my own post-survey conclusion, let me provide more specificity from the responses I received.
 
The idea of the two terms being used to differentiate between literature for young adolescents and older ones was expressed by several of my colleagues. One person suggested that, “young adult has a more mature connotation,” while another stated that, “adolescent is usually more focused on upper elementary/middle school readers.” However, a couple of the experts I polled expressed more substantive issues with the term adolescent. For example, one scholar stated that, “a problem with the term adolescent literature is that adolescence is nebulous, and psychologists point to it starting possibly as young as 9 and reaching up to 23.” That is not the range that anyone considers to be “our field.” Another pointed out that, “the term adolescent is often riddled with assumptions about this time of life, many of which frame young people in deficit-oriented ways and often suggests that all young people engage in this experience in a singular way.” Conversely, another argued that young adult literature, as an umbrella term “seems to foolheartedly have tween experiences wrapped up in terms we have socially used for the older side of the age range.” Finally, one respondent referred to the term adolescent literature as an “archaic term,” (almost as bad as the juvenile fiction moniker used in my own hometown public library in the 1970s) but acknowledged that it was more all encompassing than young adult.
 
So what I take from all that is that although there is clear agreement that young adult (or YA) is the preferred (if problematic), there are varying (and sometimes conflicting) beliefs about why it is better. Some feel that young adult is used as a more inclusive umbrella term while others feel that although adolescent literature is a more all encompassing term with a broader definition, its potentially negative connotations makes it less desirable, especially considering the goal of making young people want to read more.  Three people suggested that they prefer the abbreviated YA to young adult and that the shortened version actually takes away some of the concerns associated with the full term young adult (that many of the readers of this type of literature are not yet really young adults). This is an interesting idea—just call it by the initials and eventually people will forget what they stand for. One person indicated a preference for the term teen lit. Just what I need: another term to consider. But with one exception, they all pretty much agreed that young adult is the term they used most, like it or not.

So, What Is the Solution to My Conundrum?
 
“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?'
'Cats don't have names,' it said.
'No?' said Coraline.
'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline
 
After reading each of my colleagues’ responses, playing with various ways of coding their language, and trying to be somewhat (semi) scientific with these data, I’ve wondered if maybe I am making too big a deal of this question. Perhaps I need to be like the cat in Coraline—no name needed. After all, I do not have any indication that others are grappling with or even concerned about what we call the field that we study. In fact, most that I consulted in this activity seem to comfortably use whatever term they use (young adult or YA) with a great deal of automaticity, utilizing multiple names interchangeably (sometimes with purpose, sometimes not). Nevertheless, I’m not ready to let it go. Just last night at a cocktail party when I was explaining to someone what my scholarly interests are, I found that whatever terms I used (I tried both adolescent literature and young adult literature), I still had to go further and explain what those terms mean. But their eventual response was rewarding: “That is so cool. I loved those books when I was that age and now my daughter loves them even more-and she has so much more to choose from than I did. I never thought about people, you know scholars, studying them.” (No, I did not have my recorder, but I went to the hosts’ desk and wrote it down as soon as we finished the conversation.) Verification that what we do professionally is cool!

 I think the following response is probably the one that best captures my own thinking after engaging in this whole exercise. It comes from one of my own former students who is now an emerging scholar in the field. He suggests, “What we study is literature written for adolescents; it is literature that explores what it means to be human and deal with life experiences while being an adolescent.” I like this idea, but I think I will expand it, as I did in my new syllabus. At the next cocktail party I attend and someone asks me what I do, I shall respond, “I teach, read, and study literature written for adolescents and young adults.” Likewise, I will use this language in my syllabus, in my class, in the schools where I work, and maybe even on my business card. The conclusion that I have drawn is this: Neither term, adolescent literature nor young adult literature, is perfect, so I will combine them and take the good part of each with the bad-- literature written for adolescents and young adults. Perhaps J.K. Rowling, when writing Professor Dumbledore’s words of wisdom to the young wizard under his tutelage, said it best. “Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.” (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone).
 
 
Marshall A. George
Olshan Professor
Hunter College-City University of New York

Thanks Marshall

I hope all the readers will consider attending the Young Adult & Children's Literature Conference at UNLV June 13-17 2016. The theme of this year's conference is Diversity in Young Adult and Children's Literature/

​It is always great to welcome a friend as a guest contributor. Mark Lewis and I have known each other for awhile now. At first, it was tangentially as part of a larger YA community. Then I became interested in the work he was doing with Rob Petrone and Sophia Sarigianides (Yeah! She will be a featured academic keynote at our UNLV conference this June.). They continue to create a buzz by talking about a youth lens as a theoretical tool for examining young adult literature and to consider how we work with and talk about the adolescents we teach. They were the guest editors of the English Journal, Vol. 104, No. 3, January 2015 and here is the link. If the link doesn’t work you should consider joining NCTE. Isn’t it great that we have an organization that has supported the professional develop of English educators for over a century? Mark is a professor at Loyola University and was a keynote speaker at the conference I hosted last year (read about it here). (I hope he comes again, it is always great to have him in the conversation.) This week, Mark talks about how his students discuss and consider the issues of urban youth and setting through various children’s and young adult text. I will let Mark, and his students, usher us into the conversation.

Young Adult Literature Set in Urban Spaces

Recently, I had the great opportunity to teach an elective literature course designed for pre-service teachers, and chose to focus on issues related to reading and teaching children’s and young adult literature set in urban spaces. The overarching goal for the course was to examine representations and performances of “the city” in literature aimed toward young readers, and, then, how these characterizations might affect individuals and groups within and outside “urban” stories. Our class discussions ranged from the intersection of geography with the socially and culturally constructed identity markers to problematic depictions of poverty to issues of privilege when attempting to teach these stories.
 
We read several children’s literature selections--Knock Knock by Daniel Beaty and Bryan Collier, Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth and Chris Soentpiet, Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson, Water in the Park by Emily Jenkins and Stephanie Graegin, and Dear Primo by Duncan Tonatiuh—and young adult literature selections--Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco Stork, Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge, How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon, One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, and The Secret Story of Sonía Rodríguez by Alan Sitomer. Alongside this literature, we explored varied scholarship to help us think about the overarching goal for the course, including critical multicultural analysis (Botelho & Rudman), perspectives on street literature and literacy (Brooks & Savage; Cahill; Gibson; & Norris), history of immigration narratives (Brown), and representations of adolescence/ts (see English Journal 104(3), particularly Groenke and her co-authors’ article). 

We had an amazing semester, primarily because of the pre-service teachers’ willingness to critically reflect what these stories and scholarship had to tell us as educators working in urban schools and communities. Therefore, when asked to contribute a guest post, I immediately wanted to include my students’ voices, so here are several reactions to our class discussions written by them over the course of the semester. Of course, their work has been re-produced here with their explicit permission.
 
Briana Stuhlman <[email protected]>
The landscape of an urban environment involves themes of racism, class privilege, and poverty and how they trap youth within the urban lifestyle. Gunshots, gang violence sirens and crumbling streets are common images of the urban environment (Thomas, 2011).  Society’s consciousness unfortunately believes that to be a youth in the urban landscape is to engage in this social imaginary, which can be extremely limiting to these students’ potential. It is important to be aware of this social imaginary and how it shapes our understanding of youth in urban environments. Too often we associate individuals found in these spaces as having a lack of potential and underestimate their success trajectory inside and outside the classroom. Teachers in schools serving this population of students need to acknowledge the diverse challenges youth in urban environments face. It is also important to be self-aware of the social imaginary lens you as a teacher have when interacting with these students in order to prevent prejudice towards your students’ potential and work to make sure the environment does not limit that potential. Students, no matter the social imaginary presented, deserve for their education to be invested in.

Phillip Ingram <[email protected]>
One aspect of the [class] conversation the struck me this week was the definition of “urban.” Thomas (2011) states that when one thinks about urban the first thing that comes to mind is space.  The small amount of space and high rises. We think of things such as “the Empire State Building in New York City to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.” We may think about what urban spaces lack, such as trees and grass (open areas). This is all true but there is much more to what urban means. Urban for me is what my students carry living in the city. They carry the fact that they are all minorities in this country.  They carry that 95% of them are below the poverty level. They carry the fact that they may be smart enough to get into a great school but they can’t because of cost. At the same time many of my students carry one thing that is not normally referenced that children in urban environments carry: love and support by their teachers. … I have been trying to look at different lenses of what “urban” is. When looking at this I thought “okay” I have a great representation of urban, then I read Thomas’s article where she cited “Urban Geographies of Privilege.” After reading Page by Paige, I just think of a quote [Thomas took from Gossip Girl]: “Winter is coming. It’s the city’s favorite season and mine, too…it’s time to break out those credit cards and hit Bendel’s and Barney’s” (p. 15). A lot of people in urban environments have the opposite feelings about winter coming. Things that would come to their minds are heating bills for heat that doesn’t even work, coats that are not very warm, and holiday gifts that are not going to be bought because money is tight.
 
Rachel Shea <[email protected]>
I could not be happier that I decided to take a class that focused on urban literature due to how it allowed my ideas about reading and education to grow. It was so beneficial to read books about characters from such different cultures from my own. Coming from a small town, I never experienced diverse cultures at a young age, nor did I read books about fictional children who had different backgrounds from myself. It was eye-opening to me to read and analyze books about children and adolescents in urban areas, whose lives growing up differed so much from mine. Race, class, gender, family life, and self-identity are among the vast amount of topics that we covered in this course. I think it is so important for students to read books that they can relate to. In my opinion, a level of interest in a book can have a very positive impact on one’s reading habits. Now that I am student teaching in an urban school in Baltimore, I do not think my students would have a connection to many of the books I read in elementary school. As an aspiring teacher, I realize even more now how crucial it is to take into consideration the backgrounds of each individual student in our classrooms. ​

Kelsey Catanzaro <[email protected]>
After reading Water in the Park and reflecting on the text as a class, I wanted to discuss the importance of an outdoor space for a community in greater depth. Growing up in a suburban setting, I had an adequate amount of land around my home and a large neighborhood I was able to explore with my peers, without any imminent threat to my safety. Memories of my childhood surround this freedom associated with being outside, either working with my dad in the yard or playing with my sister. However, I have come to realize these seemingly unimportant details were privileges I had because of where I live. Many times in large cities this outdoor space to roam free is occupied by large buildings, both functioning and dilapidated, sidewalks, pavement and crowds of people. While in no way are these components of a city necessarily negative, they do prohibit the ability to sustain the kind of outdoor environment I have always had. I think outdoor space is so important for the developmental growth of children, so providing a space for them is crucial. … While parks and community gardens are not the one solution to improving outdoor space for children and other members of the community, it is a step in the right direction. Having a central location for the community to come together has immense power in bringing people together. 
 
Amy Lordan <[email protected]>
Street literacy is based on experiences, which means that everyone’s understanding of street literacy is different. For example, if we look at the characters in Magoon’s novel, How it Went Down, we can see that even two people living in the same area have different ideas of what it means to be street literate. While Tariq eventually believed that in order to survive in the streets he needed to be part of a gang, Jennica realized that in order to survive she needed to separate herself from the gangs. This shows us that street literacy is constantly changing. The more you learn, the more experiences you have, shapes your personal view of street literacy. … As teachers we have to realize that in an urban setting, adolescents have certain norms to uphold. They may act in a way that they don’t even want to act, but they need to in order to survive. They have the knowledge they need to survive in their urban settings. They know who to talk to and who not to talk to. What to wear and what not to wear.

Emily Bruce <[email protected]>
How It Went Down is a book that proves the importance of multi-narrative literature in urban spaces. While the book is a fictional work, it is a book that hits close to home with many of the modern news headlines. Kekla Magoon provides a critical analysis of multiple characters who are searching for answers and closure to a shooting of a black teenage boy. The genius of this book is that there is not one answer. Just as it occurs in real life, everyone remembers the event a little bit differently. There are many ways to use How It Went Down in the classroom. Since How It Went Down draws upon so many character’s perspectives, there are bound to be characters students can relate to or can recognize similarities to people in their own communities. The book could serve as an instrument of healing for a community who may be going through a similar traumatic experience, and may provide voices for students who have not been able to put words to what they are feeling. Although it does make sense to use How It Went Down with a group of students living in an urban area, it is just as important for students living in rural or suburban areas to read as well. It may be more challenging for teachers to get their non-urban students engaged with this text, but it is just as, if not more important, to discuss multiple perspectives with students who may be surrounded by people of one common perspective. It may be hard for White, suburban students to relate to all that is going on in our country with issues of racism and police brutality. But hopefully, multi-narrative books such as How It Went Down can provide students with new insight to the multiple layers of community tragedies and social justice issues.
 
So, reading these stories set in urban spaces, alongside the scholarship on similar issues, affected these pre-service teachers in a variety of ways—both personally and professionally. Their reactions are further evidence that children’s and young adult literature hold more promise than just as sources of entertainment and educative experiences for young readers. More important, however, we—lovers, advocates, and readers of young adult literature—need to constantly reflect on how this genre teaches its readers to think about young people. In this case, what messages might be internalized by readers about youth living in urban spaces. I read de la Peña and Williams-Garcia and Sitomer and Magoon and others because I trust them to relate stories with which I am unfamiliar, for the opportunity to expand my empathy for those living in both distant and nearby spaces. Young adult fiction should provide an opportunity for its readers to similarly expand their empathy for young people, to open up complex, multifaceted understandings for the exigent and productive lives of youth. We need diverse children’s and young adult literature to have similar effects about those living in urban spaces. I believe How It Went Down, One Crazy Summer, and Marcelo in the Real World work toward this goal. These preservice teachers and I used the opportunity of this course to read such stories with this goal in mind, and I implore other teacher educators and teachers to provide similar opportunities for their students. 

​YA Wednesday Guest Blog Post
Mark A. Lewis, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Literacy Education
Loyola University Maryland
[email protected]

It is that time of year when most of us have fought through the worst of the winter blues and are looking forward to signs of spring. Students seem resigned to the fact that the winter semester is in full swing, but sometime they lack enthusiasm. Well, let’s be honest, sometime we, as teachers, suffer some gloomy days as well and we struggle to find our own motivation. It is on those days that I what to isolate myself with a book and just read. Recently, the books that have provided renewal and kept me up late into the night have been: Sean Beaudion’s Wise Young Fool (yesterday was the launch date for his new collection of short stories Welcome Thieves), Leila Sales’ This Song Will Save Your Life, and Tara Kelly’s Amplified. I loved them and, truth be told, and I wanted to talk about the books with others. It was rejuvenating to read these novels in the midst of other obligations. Furthermore, as I finished reading, I wanted to revisit Dr. Franks’ King Dork and Kevin Emerson’s Breakout. Come on, don’t all of you have a few students who would be interested in these and other YA novels that show adolescents engage in the music they are passionate about?

In the midst of my own renewal, I thought this would be the perfect time to share Alice Hays’ memories of the 2015 ALAN workshop. Alice is a great English Education at Arizona State University student who is enthusiastic about YA literature. If you have ever been to an ALAN workshop her post will put a smile on your face. If you haven’t been, it will inspire you to put the 2016 ALAN workshop on your calendar for next Nov. 21 and 22 following the NCTE Annual Convention.  

Alice Hays Reflects on the 2015 ALAN Workshop
After experiencing the sheer joy and pleasure of opening up a box of FREE books, you start to realize all of the amazing opportunities you have at ALAN.  There are so many panels to see, and, even better, they are full of rock stars.  Not just any rock stars-but approachable rock stars who are incredibly kind and giving because they care about the students as much as you do!  The first time I met Laurie Halse Anderson, she asked me if I wanted a picture with her, and I was so grateful because I was too nervous/shy/stars-truck to actually ask her if she’d be willing to take a picture with me. :)  I was lucky enough to get another picture with her this time around again, and you can see her exuberance bursting through the image! What an incredible woman she is.

One thing that made this particular ALAN (2015) spectacular for me however, was the panel hosted by Patrick Jones.  He brought out “reluctant readers” and spent about 45 minutes in an open conversation with them.  The students talked about how they found joy in reading and their responses very much mirrored the reasons many YA authors write the books they do. They are the books that they need to deal with life.

When asked what they liked about those books, their responses were varied.  They said that they had a “good plot,” “gets into action fast,” had a “good setting” and most importantly had “characters like me”. This was mentioned multiple times by the students, and it was clarified that the characters looked like the readers were “right now”. 

The books that the students identified as being THE book that turned them on to reading included: A Child Called It, American Born Chinese, Hamlet, Monster, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

What was most important to me, however, was how the kids found those books and how teachers could help them find these books that were appealing. The students did NOT identify teachers as helping them find these books.  Instead, librarians were the true heroes here!  Students also said that the blurb on the back of the book, in addition to the cover were the major selling points. (Publishers, take note!)

As a teacher, you might be wondering how you could beat those librarians out of the coveted hero role!  Some suggestions from these former reluctant readers include letting them pick the book!  Help them find a book they might like.  (How does one do this?)  The students suggested asking them questions about their reading interests or personal interests.  

​They also suggested that teachers ought to get to know the students and then suggest books they might like.  (I can’t help but think that this indicates a certain level of personal interest in the student, which might make that book recommendation a bit more meaningful than just trying to help them find a book to meet a reading requirement.) This also reminds me of the headstrong librarian depicted in Kwame Alexander’s Booked.  The protagonist in his story couldn’t escape the insistent recommendations of the librarian eventually, and I know I desperately wanted to be that character in my own students’ lives! 

Of course, as teachers, we are trying to help kids find books all the time, but we often make mistakes.  According to these particular students, one of the major errors we make that prevents them from enjoying the books is giving them “too many worksheets” with those books. Another student beseeched the audience members to “Let [them] enjoy it...don’t put all this work on it.”  (I just imagine how I may not have enjoyed Meg Medina’s Burn Baby Burn quite so much if I’d had to fill in a study guide or write an analytical piece concerning some component of the novel in a way that I didn’t find valuable.)

​If you are like me, you want to share the absolute joy of reading with all of your students, and don’t emotionally understand why everyone doesn’t love reading even though it might make sense logically. And now those students who confuse us are talking to us and giving us an in about how to reach reluctant readers.  I think it might be a good idea for us to follow these guidelines. I know I am certainly going to try!

Thanks Alice, until next week.