This week we turn the posting duties over to Melanie Koss. Melanie and I have been acquainted with each others work for more than ten years. She is a fine scholar and can always be found doing something interesting. A little over a year ago she wrote a post about her experience as the chair of the Michael L. Printz Award committee.  What an experience and she provides some insights into the process. You can revisit that post here. 

This week Melanie introduces and discusses a project that combines YA and Stem. I am more and more interested in how YA Literature can be used to make all kinds of cross-curricular connections. I have been focused on the Social Studies and Music. I found myself intrigued when Melanie mentioned that she was involved in a Stem Read Experience. Maybe more of us should be exploring these opportunities. Thanks Melanie,for showing us a model.

Picture a room full of 350 high school students, working together to solve puzzles, complete science and engineering challenges, compete in relay races, debate ethical questions, all while talking about a YA novel. The room is filled with cheering, hushed whispers, excited talk, and high energy. At times, students had their noses stuck in a book. Just about all of the students are engaged. This was the scene at the STEM Read: The Frankenstein Experience field trip event featuring YA author Kiersten White and her book, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein.       

Standards are a necessary component in teaching, for good or for bad. The ultimate goal of the different standards is to prepare students for college, careers, and overall life skills. Many of us are familiar with the English/Language Arts standards, and the different ways we are told to teach reading and literature skills in our classrooms. We all know that a key to future success is the ability to read and write. Another critical area of interest right now is STEM, as according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in STEM fields will be increasing to more than nine million by 2022. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) target STEM skills, including critical thinking and problem solving. I think we can all agree that the content in the standards is important. The question is what to do we do with them.
 
Looking at the standards, they are segregated out into different content areas, essentially turning learning into silos, something that isn’t aligned with the way of everyday life. Our teaching is also often segregated, with many of us focusing on only one curricular area. This is how education today is set up, but are there opportunities to work together? If we wish to create critical thinkers and meet all of the standards effectively, why not find ways to combine the standards into authentic learning opportunities.
 
The world and workforce in the 21st century need people who are able to think critically, solve problems, read complex texts over a variety of media, interpret data, and be creative and flexible. We need to teach our students that failure is ok, as long as they try again to solve their original problem using innovative ways of thinking and perseverance. YA literature is a great springboard into tackling many of these different skills.

When we find the right book for the right reader at the right time, and we set an authentic purpose for reading, we can encourage teens to read, even reluctant ones. There is little better than igniting curiosity and encouraging teens to read to connect to topics they find interesting or useful. And using what they read in high-energy, critical thinking activities is a combination for success.
 
High-interest young adult literature is a natural pairing to teach literacy and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math) concepts. Teachers are familiar with using literature and critical thinking techniques in teaching literacy, and using problem-solving activities to teach science, math, and social studies. Combining the two, and adding in problem-based learning activities, can create motivated and engaged students while learning STEAM and literacy concepts and skills. What more can a teacher ask for? This is where STEM Read fits in.

​You enter a large room. The lights are dim, eerie music is playing, thunder booms in the background, thick red velvet drapes fall heavily on both sides of a stage. On the stage sits a dead corpse draped in a bloody, white sheet, surrounded by body parts. Electric static lights glow purple light. Tables are set up with odd looking materials on them. A screen covered in lightning bolts projects the words Frankenstein: The STEM Read Experience with special guest Kiersten White.
 
Students file in, at first boisterous and chatty, and a hush falls as they take in the scene. Excited chatter follows as they are assigned a table and begin to explore the materials at hand. On each table, a small pile of money and red and gold tokens. These are the first to be examined.
 
The event begins with an introduction and instructions. Teams must complete challenges to earn money and morality points. For each challenge, teams can earn or lose money based on their successes. For each ethics challenge, teams must place a red or a gold chip into the morality chip bowl. The team with the most money at the end survives. The morality chip randomly chosen at the end of the field trip from the morality chip bowl determines whether Elizabeth lives or dies, so the ratio of the chips in the bowl matters.

Students are guided through the day by a moderator, introducing the author and experts, explaining challenges, and inviting students’ exploration of ethical constructs. The general structure is a read aloud of a passage from the book, often done by the author, followed by an expert presentation in the form of a video or in person, a related STEAM challenge, and lastly an ethical dilemma to debate. This cycle takes place several times during the course of the event, and the challenges target each of the STEAM curricular areas. All of the challenges relate to themes and topics from the books.

​Teachers are provided with additional activities and lessons aligned to the book, including writing prompts, debrief sessions, and research projects, and are encouraged to continue the literature exploration.
 
STEM Read is obviously an elaborate, large scale event that exemplifies ways literature can be used to spark STEAM activities. But this is just one example. Each of these challenges can take place over the course of a literature study unit, or in conjunction with multiple teachers and classes. Smaller activities based on a poem or short story can also be done. The idea is to make STEAM learning authentic and reading an essential component of authentic success.
 
If you’re interested in learning more about STEM Read, please visit www.stemread.com. The website is full of free resources on a variety of books, as well as blog posts, videos from authors and experts, and links to a podcast. 

Until Next Time.

To some it might seem that Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday is not a friend to poetry when it sponsors primarily narrative fiction within the large classification of Young Adult Literature. Nothing is further from the truth; but is often difficult to figure out when to include a post on poetry. I also need to recruit scholars and teachers to write about it other than me. I am clearly not the expert, although I enjoy it and love the abundance of YA verse novels that have appeared over the last few years.

To be clear, if you have an idea for a post that includes poetry please suggest it; then, we can get you in line.

Lots of good stuff has been posted already. Many thanks to Lesley Roessing (find here and here), Padma Venkatraman (find here), and Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong (find here). And, in many other blog post, poetry and verse novels are referenced. Browse around a bit through past posts listed on the contributor's page

As most readers know, April is poetry month. Many colleagues have posted notices and work about poetry on social media. Some have engaged in community practices about writing poetry during the month. You might check out the Facebook pages of Sarah Donovan, Lesley Roessing, Sylvia Vardell, and Janet Wong. I admire their work. I might it try to tune up a couple of my poetic efforts during the month.  

If you need a few suggestions to hold you over, here are some of my favorite YA verse novels. 

Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming, Virginia Euwer Wolff’s True Believer, Chris Crowe’s Death Coming up the Hill, Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover, Laurie Halse Anderson’s Shout, and Margarita Engle’s Enchanted Air.

One final author and book of note: Padma Venkatraman’s A Time to Dance. In a lucky turn of events, Padma Venkatraman will be joining the 2019 Summit on Teaching YA Literature.

My commitment for the month is to post a poem each day on my own Facebook page and on the Facebook Page of Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday. I hope you check them out. Each day will feature a different poet and each poem will be a favorite of mine by that poet. To review this impulse to post a poem each day, I have written a few paragraphs about how I came to be more enthusiastic about poetry in college.

Who Brought me to Poetry?

—Well, the answer to that simple question is William Shakespeare. When I learned to understand the language, it was transformative for me. I was always a reader of narrative. Shakespeare combination of poetry and narrative spoke to me. Marshall Craig and Arthur Henry King guided me through the craftsmanship of Shakespeare’s language. The language lived and my ability to explore rhyme, rhythm, and structure grew.
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This experience provided me with confidence and the poetry of other started to come a live for me. I discovered John Donne, Gerard Manly Hopkins, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickenson, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, William Wordsworth, Derek Walcott, Hart Crane, Robinson Jeffers, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, H. D., Maya Angelou, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell.

Of course, there were others, but the poems of those above still creep into my mind at odd times. I am forty years away from my college graduation and slightly more and a dozen years from teaching AP literature courses. As a reluctant reader in high school myself, I loved slowing down and helping students ease into poetry. Every Monday was poetry day and over time it worked well. Students read three to five poems by the selected poet over the weekend. If they were on task they took the time to read them several times, to read them around, to consider the themes and symbols, and to explore their ability to figure out some literary devices—assonance, consonance, alliteration, anaphora, pentameter, metonymy.

Not every student joined in the spirit endeavor, but many did. I found that reading poetry every week bred familiarity and pushed out fear. Poetry became manageable and the terminology was no longer an obscure jargon that they only heard once a year for 2 or 3 weeks. My AP students slowly developed confidence that served them well. As a result, post AP test discussion were about how they manage the poetry prompt and not about how awful the experience was. Hurrah, success.
 
I hope you find a poem to love, a poem to share, and a poem that helps you see the world a new.

This week author Jo Schaffer talks about her work with teen authors through the Teen Authors Boot Camp (You can find go on Facebook and Twitter).  I met Jo a little over a year ago through Georgia McBride at Month9Books (thanks Georgia). Jo also came and presented at last year's Summit. Before attending, Jo also produced a blog post where she discussed writing historical fiction for teens. In that post we also talk about her books, provide an interview, and an brief link to the Boot Camp. Before I let her take over, we should talk about her books a bit. Last year she had just released her first book in the Stanley and Hazel series. Further good news--The second book in the series is now out Stanley and Hazel-The Winnowing.  You should be reading these books.

Right now our attention is on adolescents as writers and as people who are responsible for their own growth and learning. Before Jo talks about the Boot Camp, I would like to mention two ways other ways in which students will be front and center at NCTE 2019. First, once again, R. Bryon Stringer will be bringing students who will perform with the Toe Tag Monologues (see a previous post). Second, my friend, colleague, author, and frequent contributor to the blog, Sarah Donovan will be escorting a group of seventh graders to NCTE 2019 to talk about student inquiry. I am sure that both groups can use your support.

​Thanks Jo, take it away.

The Stories We Tell
Most of us assume that we own our ideas. But as the work of renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung suggests... maybe ideas own us. In the creative world this can be a good thing. What else besides possession could compel an otherwise sane person to talk to multiple people in their head, write through the night, pace and rant and generally behave like a lunatic in order to finish an entire novel?

But this ability to be possessed by ideas is a double edged sword. Some that take hold of us can largely be the thoughts and viewpoint of influencers who pull the proverbial strings that make the culture dance. And sometimes that dance isn’t pretty. We’re not programmed to take in all the information but to find what reinforces the frame presented to us—whether it’s true or not.

We live in a time when critical thinking is…well, critical. It’s an intense time to be growing up. One of the best ways for young people to process and explore their own thoughts and ideas amid the noise is through the written word. Creative expression transcends regurgitated indoctrination. It encourages the authentic spaces of the mind to express themselves. Creativity dips into the truths within each of us. A truth necessary to navigate oneself through a sea of conflicting ideas.
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We need young writers and young people need to write. This can be facilitated by encouraging kids to find their voice, tap into creative flow, and by giving them opportunities to share their ideas and stories.

Why Creative Writing Needs Kids
Years ago, my writing group and I were discussing the particular dilemma of being a creative and sensitive teen. When we were young there seemed to be clubs and auxiliaries for so many kinds of interests—but what about that odd kid who likes to write? The flabby and faded curriculum of the English department of my youth was in no way dynamic or relevant to my encounter with the world. Where was the literature that spoke to me in my time? Was there a place for my stories?
 
It’s important to be familiar with the great works of the long dead which carry important themes and present timeless tropes. The 12th century author John of Salisbury said "We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."
 
But, not to rest upon our giants, an update is sorely needed. What better voice for the future than the future itself? Young people, when given the wisdom of the past and tools to express themselves are an important part of our combined cultural narrative as we move forward. 

Why Kids Need Creative Writing
 My writing group and I wondered how we could offer the support and skills teens would need to break through the framing and tap into their own ideas and stories?  We landed on the idea of creating a writing conference for teens and fostering a subculture for the young and book-inclined. We wanted to find those who have already discovered their inner bibliophile and to also get the marginalized and voiceless kids excited about books—whether reading them or writing them.
 
At our first Teen Author Boot Camp (TABC) event there were around 130 kids, which was great for a first time conference. This year we’re looking to hit almost one thousand attendees. Apparently, kids care about writing, especially when they have creative freedom and are empowered to feel they have something to contribute to the collective dialog.

​There’s a lot going on inside of kids that they don’t feel safe expressing in the real world. With anxiety, depression and suicide on the rise, writing allows kids to emote the feelings trapped inside. Author and podcast host Adam Grant said, “Expressive writing has also been linked to improved mood, well-being and reduced stress levels for those who do it regularly.”
 
Creative writing can help the medicine go down, but it’s also a good way to encourage critical thinking and foster a sense of empowerment. It prepares them to be successful communicators in times when effective communication is crucial.
 
Following are some things to keep in mind if you want to encourage creative writing in kids:

Finding Their Voice
 Actor and rapper Mahershala Ali says, “Social media has colonized what was once a sacred space occupied by emptiness: the space reserved for thought and creativity.”
 
For many kids, self-expression has been reduced to a status update. They’re expected to mimic one another in how they present themselves and what they think. Creative writing helps them to turn off that noise and the demand to mirror what’s outside and instead, reflect what’s inside.
 
Kids are still finding their voice. A class-like setting often sets up expectations to get it “right” or to do whatever it takes to get an “A”. There’s a lot to inhibit kids from participating freely and authentically. Kids need validation to be willing to reveal their inner world.
 
E.E. Cummings said, “Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
 
Kids yearn to know themselves. Have them take a quick personality quiz or the color code test and let them share the results with one another. They’ll identify some similarities and differences. Appreciating their uniqueness gives kids permission to speak their mind and interpret things their own way. They’ll realize they don’t have to sound like everyone else.
 
New York Times bestselling YA Author, Marie Lu in her keynote address at Teen Author Boot Camp encouraged kids to be fiercely themselves when they write. She told them, “Writing is your rebellion.” The loud applause after her statement testified to how much kids want their own voice.

​Creative Grow and Flow
There needs to be the proper environment for things to grow. Showing you care about what kids think and engaging with their questions and suggestions is like fertilizer. Allow them time to think and express themselves freely. How a mentor speaks to them can invite sharing, mutual respect and trust. You’re asking them to be vulnerable. As Ernest Hemingway aptly put it, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
 
Sitting quietly at a desk isn’t conducive to learning in auditory, kinetic and verbal ways. Let it get a little loud sometimes. Allow kids to move around, talk in groups and try some hands on activities.  Regardless of what you’ve prepared, let the kids riff a little. That’s when creativity happens.
 
In a creatively fecund environment and with a basic understanding and appreciation of their own voice, kids are primed to tap into their own stories. Let them think for themselves and pose their own questions. Resist imposing your voice on them. Allow the differences—this isn’t math!

As past TABC keynote Author Brandon Sanderson has said, “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”

Allow kids to “flow write”. Tell them not to worry about edits at first. Give encouraging feedback and then show them how to identify their own weaknesses before you point them out.

Freedom to improvise allows creativity to grow, but so do limitations. There are many games and activities that give structure while offering freedom to think around the rules.
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Writing prompts are a “limitation” that will spark the imagination. They can be pictures, music, scene suggestions, dialog, or a question to get their minds going. Writing games and the opportunity to share results get kids excited to tell stories and help them recognize there are countless possibilities in the telling.

​Create Opportunities
 Everyone likes recognition. Incentives and opportunities to shine are a great motivators. Writing contests and prizes encourage kids to create and achieve.
 
In addition to a yearly First Chapter Contest, Teen Author Boot Camp has recently partnered with Owl Hollow Press. Kids submit short stories that may be chosen to be published in an anthology. Teens have the chance to share the spotlight at the TABC book signing with some New York Times bestselling authors. This is the ultimate validation and encouragement for kids who love to write!
 
Run a writing contest where the winning pieces are featured in a blog or newsletter. Any kind of reward helps some kids to reach inside themselves and pull out some incredible words.

Share
 Both the students and teacher need to be willing to be known. Let them share what they have written. Read them things that resonate with you and tell them stories from your personal experiences. Pull out your embarrassing, old manuscripts and poems so they can enjoy your mortification. When you allow them to see your mistakes they’ll feel safer making their own.
 
Do writing prompts and activities along with them. If you offer feedback and rewrite suggestions- allow discussion and even disagreements. Some things they’ll have to learn over time or the hard way. Just get them writing and enjoying the written word.
 
Writing helps kids feel that they belong. It lets them join the conversation between the generations and contribute to the collective narrative. No matter the subject, topic, time, or place, writing can be relevant to kids in the world they live in now.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”

Everyone belongs. Imposed ideas are unnecessary battle grounds that lead to isolation and discord. For communication to cross the generational and cultural gaps we have to know how and what kids think. We need to help them find their voice—not learn to echo ours. Creative writing builds communication bridges and fosters individualization and lifelong learning. When a young person finds their voice, they become more eager and engaged in the conversation. More inclined to read what other voices say and ultimately own their ideas and unique view of the world.

The success of Teen Author Boot Camp has been encouraging. If more mentors support young people in their desire to creatively express themselves and provide them with the tools and an outlet for their voice, it will enrich their present and gift our future as a society.

 “One of the biggest indicators of a youth’s future success is their ability to read and write well. In the years since it was started, Teen Author Boot Camp has become one of the best teen writers’ conferences in the country. I’ve been extremely impressed by the quality of the classes, teachers, and writing contest. This is the total package. Teen writers come away inspired to polish their writing skills as well as being excited to read more.” Author, J. Scott Savage.

Until next week.

Some people impact your life everyday. Melanie Hundley is one of those people. We shared office space in graduate school. She cheered me up when times were tough. She could poke fun just enough that I felt good about my efforts. And boy, is she a reader. I just wish I could keep pace with her efforts. Later, when we both had jobs, Jackie Bach and I recruited Melanie to be part of an editorial team. Together, we made naive plans to apply as editors of The ALAN Review. I just knew that Melanie's attention to detail and her subtle, but appropriate prompting to do everything just a little bit better would help. Well, strange forces prevailed--we got the gig. We spend five wonderful years learning how to do the job and getting to know a host of wonderful people.

In graduate school I loved hearing about Melanie's experiences as a teacher. I especially loved hearing about how she taught Shakespeare. In this posts she gives us just a hint of her expertise. Do Shakespeare and YA belong together? You bet. 

The students in the afterschool reading group are like me, coming to Shakespeare a bit sideways, through stories and quotes and young adult novels. Young adult authors have embraced Shakespeare and his plays—from appropriations to retellings, Shakespeare is alive and well in contemporary young adult literature.  Marsden’s Hamlet (2009) and Lester’s Othello (1998) retell the plays in prose form, adhering closely to the original plot.  North’s (2016) To Be or Not to Be and Romeo and Juliet take Shakespeare’s plays and turn them into choose-your-own-adventure stories.  Shakespeare’s plays have not escaped the incorporation of vampires and zombies as seen in Gabel’s (2010) Romeo & Juliet & Vampires, Jay’s (2011) Juliet Immortal, and Marion’s (2010) Warm Bodies, a zombie retelling of Romeo and Juliet. These novels can serve as introductions to Shakespeare, companion texts to the classroom teaching of Shakespeare’s plays, or as stand-alone novels.  They are similar to the storytelling that happened on the porch of my childhood, a way for contemporary adolescent readers to be exposed to one of the great playwrights.  

Ophelia says in act four of Hamlet that “we know what we are, but not what we may be.” This line stands out to me as I think about the multiple ways in which young adult authors have appropriated, retold, and reimagined Shakespeare plays for contemporary adolescents.  We know, as English teachers what these plays are but we don’t know what they can become in the hands of talented writers. Some authors choose to focus on characters who are marginalized or misunderstood; for example, Klein (2007) reimagines Hamlet but from Ophelia’s point of view in Ophelia. Ophelia is the central character, acting instead of reacting.  Will she choose to continue her relationship with Hamlet? Will she choose to leave Elsinore?  This shift empowers Ophelia and provides opportunity for her character to grow and develop.  Ray (2011) reimagines Hamlet and Ophelia in Falling for Hamlet set in an exclusive high school for the rich and famous; all the same deaths and problems but add the paparazzi to really make events vivid.

​Two of my favorite reimaginings of Shakespeare’s work are Exit, Pursued by a Bear and The Steep and Thorny Way. These novels take the plays they are based on and provide contemporary settings in order to develop a story that incorporates elements from the play but also critiques issues of gender and power. Johnston’s (2016) Exit Pursued by a Bear is a retelling of A Winter’s Tale.  Hermione is raped at cheerleading camp, and what is genuinely powerful about this text is the ways in which she is supported by her parents, her church, her friends, and the police.  Her best friend Polly is the best friend we all want—funny, sarcastic, strong, caring, and supportive.  Her parallel in the play, Paulina, plays this role as well as she tries to convince Leontes that Hermione is innocent of the charges against her.  Polly is a vocal advocate for Hermione, pushing against victim-shaming, and challenging those who would try to condemn Hermione for her choices when she learns she is pregnant.  The friendship between the two characters, Hermione and Polly, is the backbone of the book, pulling the focus of the story from the king who wrongly accused his wife of infidelity to the women whose friendship will help them survive violence and sexual assault.   

The young adult authors who create narratives that connect to and reimagine Shakespeare’s plays provide them access to the stories that have shaped so much of Western literary culture.  Allowing adolescents to take a sideways path to Shakespeare by reading texts that build on, connect to, or retell Shakespeare’s plays provide multiple entry points to these cultural texts. I look at the students in the book group.  They know who they are as readers now but they do not yet know who they may become. Hopefully, these novels help them become the readers they want to be.

Bibliography
 
Jay, S. (2011). Juliet immortal. New York: Delacorte Press.
Johnston, E. K. (2016). Exit, pursued by a bear. New York: Dutton Books for Young Readers.
Klein, L. (2007). Ophelia. New York: Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books.
Lester, J. (1998) Othello. New York: Scholastic Paperbacks.
Marion, I. (2010). Warm bodies. New York; Atria/Emily Bestler Books.
Marsden, J. (2009). Hamlet: a novel.  Summerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
North, R. (2016). Romeo and Juliet.  New York: Riverhead Books.
North, R. (2016). To be or not to be. New York: Riverhead Books.
Ray, M. (2011). Falling for Hamlet. Lebanon, IN. Poppy, an imprint of Hatchette Book Group.
Shakespeare, W., & Gabel, C. (2010). Romeo & Juliet & vampires.  New York; Harper Teen.
Winters, C. (2016). The steep and thorny way. New York: Amulet Books, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams.

Until Next time.