Gun Violence in YA Novels by Emily Pendergrass

Emily has contributed to the blog in the past. She did a fantastic post on Harry Potter and study abroad. This week she writes about a topic that is important to me. I spend much of last year thinking about gun violence and how we might talk about it productively in school settings. Shelly Schaffer, Gretchen Rumhor-Voskuil, and I edited a book on just how to do this. The book is doing well. We do hope that you will check it out and consider doing a book group focusing on this book and the topic in general. Any of the editors would be willing to visit such a group in person or by Skype. If you have read it, consider leaving a review on Amazon. 

You can find an introduction to this book at a previous blog post. It introduces the editors, the chapter authors, and summaries the focus of each chapter. To be clear, the book does much more than discuss YA books on the topic.

Thanks Emily, for addressing such an important topic.

​Gun Violence in YA Novels

​​We don’t have to look very hard to find real stories of gun violence in the news from incidences here in the USA and around the world. Already in 2019, over 11,000 different gun violence incidences have occurred resulting in over 3,122 deaths. What?!?! For me, this means that we HAVE to do something as teachers, teacher educators, and researchers.
 
First, let me share a little bit about myself. My family has guns. Please don’t stop reading. Many of the guns have been passed down for generations from our grandfather’s grandfathers. They are all stored properly in a locked cabinet, and we’ve all been through hunter safety training courses. Additionally I’ve taught elementary and middle school in 2 different states. My first school was just a few miles off a military base and most of the students were the children of Army Infantry and Special Forces personnel. My second school was in a semi-rural community outside a major Southern city, and many of the students were hunters and frequently shared their meat with others including places like Hunters for the Hungry (see TWF for an example).

​​After this full disclosure, I TRULY believe that we as educators must step up and work with our students of all ages to build a kinder, more empathetic society where guns are NOT a solution to human problems. How can we do this? We use YA Texts and address the topic thoroughly with students. We don’t hide. We don’t shy away from difficult topics. We dive in and learn together. Let’s explore any example that I used with graduate students WHILE a former student was concurrently doing something similar with her middle school students. 

The Books.
​
I did a quick book talk on each of the following books and explained our goals in reading these texts together
 
Hopkins, E. (2018). People Kill People. Margaret K. McElderry Books. ISBN 9781481442930
Hubbard, J. (2015). And We Stay. Penguin Random House.  ISBN 9780385740586
Nijkamp, M. (2016). This is Where It Ends. Sourcebook. ISBN 9781492622468
Stone, N. (2017) Dear Martin. Crown Reader Pub. ISBN 978-1101939499
Thomas, A. (2017). The Hate U Give. Balzer & Bray. ISBN 9780062498533

Students then chose one of the books above to read deeply and carefully. In class, we began analyzing with images, quotes, and connections before diving into the Bill of Rights and current events. The assignment description is below. 

Students worked and created the following:
(Images 1 and the pdf)

Image 1

​Additional learning tasks that we explored included using Flipgrid to share initial analysis of poetry and song lyrics.
 
Some of the songs we used:
This is America by Childish Gambino
What it Means by Drive-by-Truckers
American Bad Dream by Kane Brown

This is America

What it Means

American Bad Dream

Throughout the unit, we read survivor accounts, we read accounts of family members and teachers, we read polices and laws, we read critiques about video game violence, we read statements from activists groups; we read, we read, and we read some more. We brainstormed alternate solutions of how to address problems people face. We discussed mental health issues and ways to destigmatize the negative connotations of receiving medical help for mental health concerns.
 
We can make a difference. We can have hard conversations with our students about difficult issues. In fact, we must. 

Books used by Middle School Teacher mentioned earlier
The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater
Excerpts from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
I am Alfonso Jones by Tony Medina

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Here are a few resources to use to get started in prepping your own gun violence unit:
Teaching Tolerance Gun Violence in Schools
NY Times Resources for Talking and Teaching about Gun Violence
PBS News Hour

Emily teaches courses in Teaching Reading with elementary and secondary teacher candidates and directs the Reading Education Graduate Program at Vanderbilt University. Additionally, Emily works closely with the local public schools in literacy coaching and facilitating professional development workshops. Her research interests revolve around the complexities of teaching adolescent readers who are struggling and incorporating new literacies into classrooms.Twitter: @Dr_Pendergrass. Emily can be contacted at [email protected].

​Until next week.

Check out the details of the 2019 Summit on Teaching YA Literature
​(click image below)

Register Here!