Our contributor this week is Tara Anderson Gold. Tara is a type of contributor that we love to have and, frankly, we don't host as frequently as we should--a practicing school Media Coordinator. I have worked with Tara on a couple of projects. She has written chapters in books that I have edited or contributed. In fact, she will have a chapter in a book due out this summer. I love what she has to say about YA classes in a high school setting. Keep watching for Tara's work.
Lessons Learned From Teaching My First High School Young Adult Literature Course
This school year, despite the uncertainty and challenges of the pandemic, I was excited to engage in my own challenge -- teaching a young adult adult literature course through the high school library program. Officially titled “Trends and Movements in Young Adult Literature,” my English elective course was taught one block a day for students across all grade levels in the school. My students have had a blast in this class even though I have yet to meet many of them in person, so I thought I would share some reflections on things I learned from my first foray into teaching YA lit with actual YAs.
Our Why
Before I even get into the nitty gritty of our course, I want to explain a little about why I wanted to teach this course. After all, I am a librarian who already has a lot on her plate -- why would I be teaching an English elective? The short answer is that I love young adult literature and I wanted to experiment with new ways to connect students to great books. As other librarians may understand, getting students into the library to read for pleasure can be a challenge at the high school level. In brainstorming ways to do this, I asked our media assistant students what holds them back from reading more. Most reported that homework, jobs, and extracurricular activities leave them with little time to curl up with a book for fun. When my co-librarian and I learned that our school had a YA Lit course in the course catalog with no one to teach it, we jumped at the opportunity to try something new.
Our vision for this course was to design it to serve as a gateway to the library. We would read, explore different types of books, complete a research project, and have the students participate in authentic projects around the media center. Ideally, we wanted these students to come back as members of our school book club or as student media assistants in future years. Spoiler alert: many of our students from this year have already expressed interest in both!
I would say that our class was, overall, a huge success despite being taught 100% virtually using a combination of Canvas and Google Meets. While it absolutely was not perfect, I learned a lot and my students did as well!
I would say that our class was, overall, a huge success despite being taught 100% virtually using a combination of Canvas and Google Meets. While it absolutely was not perfect, I learned a lot and my students did as well!
Lesson One: Setting Goals for Reading
Our course design was heavily influenced by the work of Donalyn Miller, as her book The Book Whisperer inspired my teaching practices many years ago when I was in the English classroom. With the whole library as our classroom, we had three main priorities: student choice, a text-rich environment, and time to read in class. To this end, each student set a series of goals for themself at the start of the semester to guide their individual reading. First, they created 3-5 personal reading goals. These could be anything related to reading. Some examples from this year included:
- “I want to read five books recommended to me by my mom.”
- “I want to use a bullet journal to track my reading.”
- “I want to read for 30 minutes every night before bed.”
- “I want to find a book I love in a genre I hate.”
Each goal was unique to the student and based on their unique priorities for why they wanted to read and why they were taking the class. Students also spent some time researching and listening to book talks to create a TBR (To Be Read) list of 5-10 books they were interested in reading. The goals served as the backbone for our class.
Throughout the semester, students reflected on their progress and participated in 1-on-1 conferences with me to discuss their goals, modify them, delete them, or create new ones based on their progress. Critically, grades in the course are not defined by whether or not the student completes their goal, but rather on their reflection and discussion about the process. I also used this time to ask questions about the books they completed and recommend new books based on their responses.
Throughout the semester, students reflected on their progress and participated in 1-on-1 conferences with me to discuss their goals, modify them, delete them, or create new ones based on their progress. Critically, grades in the course are not defined by whether or not the student completes their goal, but rather on their reflection and discussion about the process. I also used this time to ask questions about the books they completed and recommend new books based on their responses.
At the end of the semester, students shared short presentations on any and all aspects of their reading journey with the class that they wanted to share. These presentations were the highlight of the semester for me! Some shared top ten lists of books they’d read, some shared their progress with their individual reading goals, and one student shared an excerpt from the novel she’d written during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month in November). Of my seventeen students, thirteen reported that setting goals for their reading motivated them to read in the ways they wanted to read, even if they did not reach every goal. Many of the students shared goals for the next semester in their presentations as well.
I learned a lot from these goal setting conversations with students. In particular, it was so helpful for getting to know my students as readers and how to challenge them individually. These conversations were also so important while teaching and learning during the pandemic when students were struggling with their “new normal.” Goal setting and conferences were an exceptionally valuable part of our course and in building a community in our classroom.
I learned a lot from these goal setting conversations with students. In particular, it was so helpful for getting to know my students as readers and how to challenge them individually. These conversations were also so important while teaching and learning during the pandemic when students were struggling with their “new normal.” Goal setting and conferences were an exceptionally valuable part of our course and in building a community in our classroom.
Lesson Two: Audiobooks are Awesome
I have always been a huge audiobook fan, but I’ve found mixed reviews from students when I try to encourage them to try one. One of the challenges I gave my students this semester was to try reading a book in each of three formats: print, ebook, and audiobook. We relied heavily on the public library’s offerings for digital resources and all of my students tried at least one audiobook early on in the semester. To my surprise, they loved them! One student in particular, who was struggling with mental health, reported that she couldn’t concentrate enough to read in print but that audiobooks allowed her to listen while she went about her daily routine at home. Others were able to read more because they could listen while they drove or went on runs. Reading is reading no matter the format and I was so thrilled to be able to help these students find new ways of reading that worked for them.
Lesson Three: The Outsiders is Still a Hit
| We read three books together as a class in my course as examples of the different eras in young adult literature. The Outsiders is the first book we read as an example of the first/early young adult books that define the category. Even though my students read so many of the latest and greatest YA novels, The Outsiders was still a stand-out novel for many of them in their final presentations and evaluations of the course. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because the book is still widely popular over fifty years since its publication, but it was clear that Ponyboy still resonates with Generation Z |  |
One of the things I really wanted to do with this class was surround students with books and book recommendations so they would never be lacking in books to fill their TBR lists. The pandemic made this challenging! One ritual of our class that worked well was starting every Monday with a collaborative Google Slide deck called “It’s Monday. What are you reading?” Each student would claim a slide and insert images and text about what they were reading that week. Then we would all share our current reads.
These sharing sessions became the highlight of my week because I could physically see students being inspired to read things based on their peers’ recommendations. For example, one week a student shared that she finished The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo and wanted to continue reading books by her, so she picked up Clap When You Land. Next thing I knew I had three hold requests for Clap When You Land in my computer system and half the class added the book to their official TBR lists.
These sharing sessions became the highlight of my week because I could physically see students being inspired to read things based on their peers’ recommendations. For example, one week a student shared that she finished The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo and wanted to continue reading books by her, so she picked up Clap When You Land. Next thing I knew I had three hold requests for Clap When You Land in my computer system and half the class added the book to their official TBR lists.
 |  Elizabeth Acevedo |  |
Other books that spread like wildfire included A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz, and Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. While I love to recommend books to students (and they read many of my recommendations!), the idea of a community of readers coming together to recommend books to each other was a delight to see in action. With the wide variety of reading tastes in the class we were all able to discover new books for our TBR lists!
 |  |  |  |
Lesson Five: I Need To Read More Manga
This lesson is super personal to my own reading practices, but I am sure other folks in education can relate. I need to read more Manga! I am totally in my wheelhouse when it comes to recommending great YA fiction and nonfiction, but I was at a loss when it came to helping my Manga readers find new and interesting graphic novels to read.
Luckily lesson four above applied to these readers and they did a great job of recommending books to each other. I also certainly took note of books and series they were reading that piqued my interest. But it was very clear that I have a huge Manga-shaped hole in my own reading practices that cannot be ignored! Just as my students set reading goals for themselves, I, too, created my own list. “Read the first book in three different Manga series” is my first goal for the coming summer break.
Luckily lesson four above applied to these readers and they did a great job of recommending books to each other. I also certainly took note of books and series they were reading that piqued my interest. But it was very clear that I have a huge Manga-shaped hole in my own reading practices that cannot be ignored! Just as my students set reading goals for themselves, I, too, created my own list. “Read the first book in three different Manga series” is my first goal for the coming summer break.
Final Thoughts
Starting this class in the middle of virtual learning in a pandemic certainly was not ideal in many ways. Students didn’t get to interact with each other much in small groups or face-to-face. They didn’t get to explore the library shelves or curl up on a comfy library chair to read for the first thirty minutes of class like I envisioned when I pitched the class. But I had a blast getting to teach a class every day that simply focused on the love of young adult literature. More importantly, my students and I built a community of readers where we all read more because of our time together in the class. I have a to-do list spanning multiple pages of edits and tweeks I want to make to the course moving forward but overall it has been the highlight of teaching in challenging times.
| Bio: Dr. Tara Anderson Gold is a media coordinator at Millbrook High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Prior to becoming a media coordinator she taught middle school English. Her research focuses on young adult literature and adolescent literacy practices in digital social media spaces such as BookTube. Additionally, she explores how understanding these digital practices can better inform both classroom instruction and library programming. |  |
Until next week.
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