Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesay Reaches a Milestone and I Want to Book Talk

9/8/2020

Today, I am reviewing the growth and a few of the milestones of Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday after seven years of keeping this blog active. I also want to offer some help to those of you that are teaching in any format during these trying times. Do you need a break in your classroom? I would like to help.

Oh! And because a blog needs visuals, I am going to put a few pictures of some of my favorite authors and one of their books.

A. S. King

Visiting Classrooms and Giving a Book Talk

In the new era of teaching during COVID19, many teachers might find it even more exhausting to be in front of students all of the time. I know I find myself doing a lot more preparation to be in a Zoom classroom.

I want to help. I am happy to visit your in person or virtual classroom as a guest expert on YA literature (Free through the rest of the year.). I can Zoom in for a discussion/lecture of an author, a book award, a genre—verse novels, historical fiction, nonfiction, or I can book talk a couple of classic YA books or voice my opinion of a few new releases. Contact me through a comment on the blog, send me a private message through FACEBOOK, or send me note in my UNLV email.

Tiffany Jackson

Why the Project Started

Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesday began as a way to report on a summer summit on the research and teaching of YA literature that I hosted at LSU in 2014. After that report, I started writing nearly every week and started recruiting others to share their ideas about researching and teaching YA literature. I learned more than anyone else.

A year later and after another Summit at LSU, I moved to UNLV. The Summit took a hiatus as I learned my way around a new university and made contacts throughout Las Vegas. In the meantime, I kept writing and recruiting contributors for the blog. I sent our more annoying emails and learned more about websites and about how to use social media. For the last three years the blog has averaged more than a 250,000 unique visits and many more page views. Thank you.

Andrew Smith

Additions and Growth

A few years in, I realized that I needed to archive what I was doing and what the contributors were offering. So, I established new sections to enhance the blog. Over the winter break between 2016 and 2017 I started a new feature: Dr. Bickmore’s Weekend Picks. Since January 2017, I have been posting a book I think that adolescents will like every Friday. At first, just a selfie with the book, but that didn’t seem like quite enough. I began to add a brief annotation. After a year, I realized that I needed new perspectives. I tend to drift toward older, realistic YA fiction that focuses on Race, Class, and Gender. I began asking others to take a month. That started with Sarah Donovan, moved to Gretchen Rumhor and, then, I recruited Lesley Roessing. All three of these woman have profoundly influenced how I think about YA literature. They have unique experiences, ideas, and expertise.

Others have also contributed to the weekend picks: Jenny Paulsen, Jon Ostenson, Shanetia Clark, Stephanie Toliver, Tiye Cort, Georgia McBride, Nancy Johnson, Shelly Shaffer, Morgan Jackson, Rob Bittner, and Katie Sluiter. There are few more folks waiting in the wings for their turn. If you want to take on a month, send me a note.

Jo Knowles

Other Uses of the Blog

I have also used blog as a place to communicate with my YA literature classes, archive the Summits as they continued at UNLV, and as a place to look at my research interests -- the National Book Award and Music and YA (both need more work).

If you teach a YA course, I think you will find one or more of these sections useful, especially the contributions of others. If you are classroom teacher, I think you might find the blog posts an interesting way for you to think about how you might use YA in the classroom. In addition, I think that the Weekend Picks can be a convenient place for your students to browse for new reading options. Librarians can help teachers organize and sort information quickly if they are familiar with the blog. Finally, as a parent the weekend picks can help you see current trends and established YA novels that are grabbing the interest of scholars and teachers that work with YA literature all of the time.

Eric Gansworth

Until next week.

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.

Dr. Gretchen Rumohr
Co-Curator

Gretchen Rumohr is a professor of English and writing program administrator 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.

Bickmore's
Co-Edited Books

Meet
Evangile Dufitumukiza!

Evangile is a native of Kigali, Rwanda. He is a college student that Steve meet while working in Rwanda as a missionary. In fact, Evangile was one of the first people who translated his English into Kinyarwanda.

Steve recruited him to help promote Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media while Steve is doing his mission work.

He helps Dr. Bickmore promote his academic books and sometimes send out emails in his behalf.

You will notice that while he speaks fluent English, it often does look like an "American" version of English. That is because it isn't. His English is heavily influence by British English and different versions of Eastern and Central African English that is prominent in his home country of Rwanda.

Welcome Evangile into the YA Wednesday community as he learns about Young Adult Literature and all of the wild slang of American English vs the slang and language of the English he has mastered in his beautiful country of Rwanda.

While in Rwanda, Steve has learned that it is a poor English speaker who can only master one dialect and/or set of idioms in this complicated language.

Blogs to Follow

Kathleen

9/3/2023 12:53:20 am

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