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Exploring Representation of Rural Language Varieties in Young Adult Literature by Dr. Chea Parton

8/31/2022

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Chea Parton grew up on a farm and still considers herself a farm girl. She has been a rural student, a rural English teacher, and is currently a visiting assistant professor at Purdue University where she works with future teachers through the Transition to Teaching Program. She is passionate about rural education. Her research focuses on the personal and professional identity of rural and rural out-migrant teachers as well as rural representation in YA literature. She currently runs Literacy In Place where she seeks to catalogue rural YA books and provides teaching resources, hosts the Reading Rural YAL podcast where she gives book talks and interviews rural YA authors, and serves on the Whippoorwill Book Award for Rural YA Literature selection committee. You can reach her at readingrural@gmail.com. ​
Exploring Representation of Rural Language Varieties in Young Adult Literature by Dr. Chea Parton
On a recent phone call with my mom, we were talking recipes, and I was explaining that my daughter and I made sugar cookies because I “didn’t have no shortenin’” to make the oatmeal cookies I really wanted to. To which Mama replied, “Didn’t have none? Aren’t you supposed to be some kinda English teacher or somethin’?” and then chuckled. Since when did she become the language police? I reckon it’s probably payback for my own language policing after I learned in school that the way we talked was wrong. In my defense – I didn’t know no better at the time. I hadn’t yet been introduced to the wonderful world of sociolinguistics. 
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What my mom demonstrated was a keen understanding of the position of our language variety and its inferiority to the kind of English that ELA teachers are supposed to speak and value and teach. And she’s not the only one who gets it. Blue Collar TV, a sketch comedy show that evolved out of The Blue Collar Comedy Tour, had a segment called “The Redneck Dictionary” where the comedians would take common words or phrases and present them as “redneck” speech. For example, one episode defined “mayonnaise” by using the sentence “Mayonnaise [Man, they’s] a lot of people here.” This move is also showcased in memes like those shown below. 
Rural people and their language are always the butt of these jokes that continue to other and diminish the language practices of rural people.
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In my work and personhood, language diversity and linguistic justice (Baker-Bell, 2020) are things that I think about often. I’ve even undertaken cataloging my own Appalachian-infused Hoosier rural ways of speaking and written about it on the blog I host on Literacy In Place. 
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Recently, these two things came to a head when talking with Monica Roe and Ginny Myers Sain as part of the Author Talk interviews I’m conducting for my YouTube series/podcast Reading Rural YAL. I have noticed in my reading of YA literature that while there may be some code switching in rural YAL, for the most part they are written in what I call White Middle-Class Mainstream English (WMCME). 

*Note:* I know that there are different names for the type of English that is privileged in academic spaces as standard and the measuring stick against which all other versions of English (e.g., African American Vernacular English; Appalachian English; Acadian) are judged. However, I find that most of those terms focus on race and omit the very real and important aspect of social class. For example, though I am White, I didn’t grow up speaking what Baker-Bell (2020) calls White Mainstream English. Because of my class position, rural raising, and closeness to my Appalachian family, I grew up speaking a version of English that I very quickly learned was considered non-standard and lesser than the version of English favored and privileged in school spaces. So, though it is still unlikely to capture all the nuances amidst speakers of English varieties, I use White Middle-Class Mainstream English to refer to the type of English considered to be “standard” in academic and other spaces of power. 

When I asked Monica Roe about how she goes about deciding what to write in dialect and what not to, she described a couple of salient factors: (1) what would be authentic to the rural regional language practices of the characters; (2) what will the editor/publisher allow; and (3) how much can she include without alienating readers unfamiliar with the dialect. 
I asked Ginny Myers Sain, author of the Whippoorwill Award winning book Dark and Shallow Lies the same question because her book takes place in the rural Louisiana bayou where folks speak a Cajun dialect called Acadian. There were instances where Acadian speakers were clearly using their dialect but then others where it seemed they were speaking WMCME. She gave a very similar answer to Roe and described feeling a need to strike a balance between representing the speech and culture of her characters authentically and writing in a way that doesn’t alienate readers. 

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I’m grappling with this. 
I understand the tense negotiation that must occur because of the way places of power, including the publishing industry, privilege WMCME. But I wonder if not representing the rural language dialects characters would speak serves only to reify the power disparity instead of disrupting it. 
So, now I’m thinking – what does that mean for our work with students? In my multiculturalism class, over one quarter of my students identify as rural. When we talk about linguistic justice, I assign my language variety blog as one of the readings for that week and all of my rural students have talked about how important it was for them to read and think about their language variety. Now they want to know how to do it with their students. 
One way would be to read rural YAL like the books I’ve mentioned here. Asking students to inquire into the way the characters’ speech is represented in their book and the ways that they do/n’t relate to it by cataloging their own would be a great start. Comparing and contrasting the different ways rural language is represented across different rural YA books could also be enlightening. 
I have also found that even when I’m reading WMCME, I actually read it in my Appalachian-infused Hoosier rural variety of English. When I read it aloud, especially, I notice the ways I alter words (e.g., making contractions where there aren’t any, dropping g’s when they’re still present). Asking students to vocalize the characters as they’re written and as they hear it in their own way of speaking could open up conversations about language diversity, power, and linguistic justice in significant ways.  
If you’re interested in doing this work with your secondary students or preservice ELA teachers (and I really hope you are!), here are a few books that offer rich opportunities to do that:
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From Thoughts and Prayers to Action and Reform: Gun Violence in 2022 by Dr. Shelly Shaffer

8/17/2022

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We are grateful to benefit from  Shelly Shaffer's wisdom this week. Shelly is a professor of Literacy at Eastern Washington University. Much of Shelly's research focuses on how school shootings are portrayed in YA literature. That interest has led to an edited collection about gun violence in the ELA classroom-Contending with Gun Violence in the English Language Classroom.  Shelly is also working on a book related to the Toe Tag Monologues.  
From Thoughts and Prayers to Action and Reform: Gun Violence in 2022 by Dr. Shelly Shaffer
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I had already worked for several years on reading and researching YA literature related to mass violence, specifically school shootings. With the hope that knowledge and critical thinking accomplished through reading and discussing YA literature might impact this unfortunate trend, I tried to advocate for the inclusion of books portraying stories of school shootings (including the viewpoints of survivors, outsiders, and shooters themselves) in K-12 classrooms. I presented at conferences, co-edited a book (Shaffer et al., 2019), and continue to work on projects related to this topic. I still believe that talking about gun violence and creating more awareness of warning signs will make a difference in prevention. Learning about school shootings and watching for warning signs will still not be able to prevent a teenager from obtaining a gun from home or from friends or relatives, which according to Cox et al. (2022) is the case for more than 85% of shooters. And, since some of the most recent mass shootings took place after 18-year olds purchased automatic weapons (Oxner, 2022) without a background check, psychological evaluation, or training, access to guns is still a larger issue altogether. 
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Parents, students, teachers, and others continue to live in fear of school violence (e.g., Columbine, CO-1999 - Uvalde, TX- 2022). According to Vigderman and Turner (2022), there have been 304 deaths from school shootings since the shooting at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. The government response always seems to be “thoughts and prayers” after an incident. No action. Very little gun reform. Few changes in regulations on who can own guns. No difference on which types of guns are being sold. Guns are big business. Apparently, the loss of children’s lives is the cost of doing business. After all, not many have died in these past 23 years from school shootings: 304 children and teachers. A pretty low number percentage-wise. Though many more than 304 students have been exposed to the trauma associated with school shootings, pro-gun folks figure the more than 311,000 students who have experienced gun violence at school since 1999 (Cox et al., 2022) are less important than their guns. These students have died, have been injured, and have been profoundly traumatized by violence in their schools. Yet, gun folks refuse changes to the laws, making claims of second amendment rights. But our Constitution also promises “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”--doesn’t this type of violence take that promise away from those who are impacted? 
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Often we don’t even hear from the survivors–the 311,000 students who have lived in the aftermath of a school shooting. The students who hid behind doors, who watched their friends die, who now live with constant fear, who no longer feel safe, who are angry their lives have changed, who are angry at adults who failed to protect them–these students are supposed to just move on with their lives. Heal and move on. But how are they supposed to move on when nothing has actually changed? Schools aren’t any safer. Guns are still just as accessible–and just as automated. The “grown-ups” still aren’t protecting kids by passing safer gun laws. 
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In 2018, students got angry. And they had a reason to be mad. They decided that their voices needed to be heard. #NeverAgain became a rallying cry after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018. It was supposed to be a start to ending school violence. Students across the nation staged walkouts protesting the government’s inaction toward passing more restrictive gun laws; young people marched on Washington and lobbied lawmakers. Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School published books. David and Lauren Hogg wrote #Never Again: A New Generation Draws the Line (Hogg & Hogg, 2018), which shares their journey to becoming activists following the shooting at their high school. Both David and Lauren were in the school February 14, 2018–hiding and texting their friends and family as they feared for their lives. Parkland Student Journalists published the book We Say #Never Again (Falkowski & Garner, 2018), a collection of news articles and editorials written by student survivors of Parkland. The book has four sections: “Introduction,” “Part 1: Activism,” “Part 2: MSD Strong,” and “Part 3: What Comes Next.” With 24 student contributors and 2 faculty advisors/editors, this book offers a personal and compelling voice about how a school shooting impacts a high school community. Parkland Speaks: Survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas Share Their Stories (Lerner, 2019) adds to the voices of student survivors of this tragic shooting. Sarah Lerner, an English and journalism teacher at Parkland, edited this collection of photos, art, poems, stories, letters, speeches, and journal entries from student contributors. It is a gripping collection full of heartbreaking loss–and hope, reminiscent of a class book. The Founders of March for Our Lives published Glimmer of Hope: How a Tragedy Sparked a Movement, which chronicles the evolution of the March for Our Lives Movement. Twenty-three of its 25 contributors were students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and the collection includes a diverse array of text types as readers learn about these young activists’ experiences. These four books–written by the students who were there, and survived–provide a priceless look into the impact of trauma, grief, anger, determination, healing, and hope felt after school shootings. 

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Unfortunately, #NeverAgain did not come true. Three months after February 14, 2018 - after one of the worst school shootings to ever occur - more shootings, more death, more injury, and more trauma: Forest High School, Santa Fe High School, Noblesville West Middle School, Dixon High School, North Scott Junior High School…the list goes on and on. Forty-two shootings in 2021, according to the Washington Post (Cox et al., 2022). The third deadliest school shooting took place just months ago (in spring 2022) at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, resulting in the death of 21 people and injuring 17 others (Flourish team, 2022). Incidences of mass violence in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, North Carolina, Maryland, oregon, Georgia, Colorado, Alabama, California, New Jersey, Tennessee, South Carolina, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington D.C. have threatened the lives of schoolchildren, teachers, and staff since 2018 (Flourish team, 2022)--since Parkland’s deadly shooting had America saying #NeverAgain. 
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So depressing. So maddening. I feel helpless and frustrated, so I’ve continued my work with YA books focused on school shootings, still hoping to make a difference. So many of the books I’ve been studying recently feature survivors trying to “move on” with their lives, like the Parkland students and the 311,000 other students who have been impacted by school shootings.
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Thoughts and Prayers by Brian Bliss (2020) follows the lives of three students who survived a school shooting by hiding in a stairwell. A year later, all three suffer from trauma and guilt, and all three have trouble moving on with their lives. One has such terrible PTSD that she struggles to attend school; another is so angry that she started wearing T-shirts stating “Fuck Guns,” resulting in being targeted and threatened by pro-gun groups, and the other escapes into the world of “Wizards and Warriors” a fictional RPG similar to “Dungeons and Dragons.”

Every Moment After by Joseph Moldover (2019) takes place at senior graduation and the summer that follows. Three students who lived, after a shooter killed every one of their classmates, still struggle to figure out how to move on - even after 12 years. The shooting happened when they were 6 years old, in first grade; yet, their lives continue to be haunted by their lost classmates and thoughts of “What if?”

Liz Lawson’s The Lucky Ones (2020) tells the story of May, who is a survivor of a school shooting that killed her twin brother. She is angry - so angry that she vandalizes the  house of the lawyer representing the shooter, gets into fights at school, and blames herself for not saving her brother. Anger paralyzes May, and even eleven months after the shooting, she cannot move forward.

Aftermath by Emily Barth Isler (2021) is a middle school book about a 12-year old girl’s experience of moving to a town four years after a school shooting took place. When she starts school, the trauma is still thick in the hallways of the school. Almost every new classmate she meets tells her about the shooting - where they were, who they lost - and it seems like the entire town is stuck. Lucy finally meets Avery, who seems to be an outsider, but Lucy finds out that Avery has a different kind of connection to the shooting; the shooter was her step-brother. Lawson does an excellent job helping readers to see how difficult it is to move on, and how hard it is to forgive.

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Marisa Reichardt takes readers on a personal journey of trauma and recovery in Underwater (2016). Everything changed on October 15th, the day of the school shooting. Morgan used to be outgoing, competitive, and friendly, but after the shooting, she becomes trapped in her apartment by her own trauma. She can’t move on; she literally can’t step outside of her own front door. Reichardt’s story poignantly illustrates just how paralyzing trauma can be. Though this is not an exhaustive list of YA school shooting novels that feature characters trying to heal, these 5 texts share stories of trauma and provide insight into what survivors of school shootings–even those students who weren’t physically injured–are facing years later. 

What can we do? What MUST we do? We cannot count the damage of school shootings simply by the number of lives lost or people wounded. We have to include the hundreds of thousands of people who are left behind to try to heal the emotional trauma they carry as a result of the experience. These lives are forever changed from a tragedy that should have been prevented. 
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We must change the narrative because gun ownership DOES NOT hold more value than human lives. Children’s lives cannot be the cost of doing business. 
References
Bliss, B. (2020). Thoughts and prayers. Greenwillow Books. 
Cox, J. W., Rich, S., Chui, A., Thacker, H., Chong, L., Muyskens, J. & Ulmanu, M. (2022, May 27). School shooting database. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-database/
Falkwoski, M., & Garner, E. (Eds.). (2018). We say #neveragain. Crown. 
Flourish team. (2022, June 10). School shooting timeline: Incidents with active shooters on school campuses from Columbine to Robb Elementary. Kiln Enterprises Ltd. https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/10219708/
Grinberg, E., & Mauddi, N. (2018, March 26). How the Parkland students pulled off a massive national protest in 5 weeks. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/us/march-for-our-lives
Hogg, D., & Hogg, L. (2018). #NeverAgain: A new generation draws the line. Random House. 
Isler, E. B. (2021). Aftermath. Carolrhoda Books. 
Lawson, L. (2020). The lucky ones. Delacorte Press. 
Lerner, S. (Ed.). (2019). Parkland speaks: Survivors of Marjory Stoneman Douglas share their stories. Random House. 
Moldover, J. (2019). Every moment after. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 
Oxner, R. (2022, May 25). Uvalde gunman legally bought AR rifles days before shooting, law enforcement says. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/25/uvalde-shooter-bought-gun-legally/
Reichhardt, M. (2016). Underwater. Farrar Straus Giroux. 
Shaffer, S., Rumohr-Voskuil, G., & Bickmore, S. (Eds.). (2019). Contending with gun violence in the English language classroom. Routledge.
The Associated Press. (2018, March 24). Fiery speech, and charged silence, from a Parkland student [video]. The New York Times.https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000005817208/fiery-speech-and-charged-silence-from-a-parkland-student.html
The Founders of March for Our Lives. (2018). Glimmer of hope: How tragedy sparked a movement. Razorbill & Dutton. 
Vigderman, A., & Turner, G. (2022, July 6). A timeline of school shootings since Columbine. Security.org a Centerfield Media Company. https://www.security.org/blog/a-timeline-of-school-shootings-since-columbine/

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Tween YA books for Mental Health: Please Advise by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

8/3/2022

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​Gretchen Rumohr is Chief Curator of YA Wednesday.  She serves as a professor of English and department chair at Aquinas College, where she teaches writing and language arts methods.   She is also a Co-Director of the UNLV Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature. She lives with her four girls and a five-pound Yorkshire Terrier in west Michigan.
Tween YA books for Mental Health: Please Advise by Dr. Gretchen Rumohr

You may have noticed that this summer, YA Wednesday has taken on a less regular schedule (at least for Wednesdays).  In typical summertime fashion, there has been time to play, time to read, time to rest.  But behind the scenes of this summer, there have been other challenges:  children who are also off of school and require  care and attention; hospitalizations and follow-ups; disruptions in custody schedules.  Throughout these bumps, my goal continues to be an ongoing conversation about the value of YA literature in our, and our students’ lives.


Which brings me to today’s goal. My own summer’s theme has been caring for loved ones who struggle with depression and self-harm.  And in looking for support on this theme, I notice that there are plenty of books in the “grade 9 and up” category that address mental health–yet very few books in the “tween” category.  This is especially challenging if a tween is a reluctant or struggling reader.

Our tweens–who are on waiting lists at psychiatrists’ offices, can’t find counselors who participate in their insurance, or are struggling quietly, alone, afraid to even tell someone what’s actually on their mind–need to be seen and heard.  They need to see themselves represented in accessible, high-interest YA books. 

​Let’s use this space today to share all of our favorite tween books that address mental health.  

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    Dr. Gretchen Rumohr
    Chief Curator
    Gretchen Rumohr is a professor of English and department chair at Aquinas College, where she teaches writing and language arts methods.   She is also a Co-Director of the UNLV Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature. She lives with her four girls and a five-pound Yorkshire Terrier in west Michigan.

    Dr. Steve Bickmore
    ​Creator and Curator

    Dr. Bickmore is a Professor of English Education at UNLV. He is a scholar of Young Adult Literature and past editor of The ALAN Review and a past president of ALAN. He is a available for speaking engagements at schools, conferences, book festivals, and parent organizations. More information can be found on the Contact page and the About page.

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