Empowering Multilingual Learners with YA Literature to Bridge Cultural Divides in Secondary Classrooms

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Meet our Contributor:

​Victoria Tome is a TESOL teacher at Shelton High School in Shelton, Connecticut. She studied Sociology and Spanish at Cornell University before getting her Masters in TESOL from Fairfield University. This is her eighth school year with Shelton Public Schools. She is currently getting her Sixth Year Certificate in Bilingual Education from Fairfield University and is also a Connecticut Writing Project Teacher Fellow. When not teaching, you can find her exploring state parks and local libraries with her husband and two kids.

Empowering Multilingual Learners with YA Literature to Bridge Cultural Divides in Secondary Classrooms by Victoria Tome

As a TESOL teacher at Shelton High School in Connecticut, I have witnessed how difficult it can be to get students excited about reading, especially with the classical texts often taught in mainstream classrooms. I have 65 multilingual (ML) students on my caseload, ranging from American-born students who are close to meeting exit criteria on the LAS, an annual exam we give students to measure their English proficiency, and newcomers who don’t know much more than hello and goodbye. My students represent 11 languages and hail from Ecuador, The Dominican Republic, Peru, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Haiti, Jamaica, Brazil, Portugal, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Russia, Ukraine, Albania, Yemen, and China. Like others, there is much diversity in my classroom, yet it saddens me that the one commonality amongst students is that very few of them love reading (in English or in their native language).

I firmly believe, however, that reading expands students’ worlds, giving them access to people, places, and ideas beyond their immediate experience, and that for multilingual learners this freedom is especially powerful. Such freedom seems to be rarely felt, however, for my students. There are many reasons as to why this may be the case, as their attention is pulled in a thousand different directions and the era of instant gratification makes slogging through a classical novel seem less enjoyable than it was in previous generations. Unfortunately, teachers have no control over the effects of phone usage and social media that happens outside of school. What we do have control over is the books and stories we ask students to read. I feel we could do a much better job selecting the titles we use in our classrooms. When students see their own stories, languages, and struggles reflected in texts, reading can become not only an academic act but also an act of belonging. As educators, we must embrace diverse texts that give our students the chance to see their identity being valued. 

​The biggest challenge my students face is they attend classes taught by teachers who, the majority of the time, have no TESOL training. Although I have presented at faculty meetings, held professional learning events, and led a Professional Learning Community about ML issues in our school, many teachers do not do anything differently when they have MLs in class and fail to support language development. Students acquire language when the language input they are receiving is slightly above their current proficiency level, but the English being used in most secondary classrooms is far above the current proficiency level of my students. This lack of instructional adaptation limits MLs access to comprehensible input, which is essential for language development and understanding of classroom content (Krashen, 1982). Strategies I share with teachers are rarely enacted. Instead, most teachers will run class materials through Google translate and allow students to respond in their native language, before translating into English. When translation is not possible, teachers give my students the same assignments that their native English-speaking peers are receiving, without any modifications. Freeman and Freeman (2004) argue that MLs need engaging content and meaningful texts, with opportunities to connect to their lived experiences. When teachers fail to draw on MLs backgrounds and funds of knowledge, teachers limit opportunities for engagement. This creates a situation where students are not learning, and they are not developing their English skills in class. 

In Just Read It: Unlocking the Magic of Independent Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms, Jarred Amato (2024) argues that helping students develop literacy skills is more important than having students read any one particular book. He writes, “I would argue that the ability to read and write proficiently, to think critically, and to communicate clearly is more important than an understanding or appreciation of any specific text, no matter how much you or I may love it or how long it’s been in the curriculum” (Amato 23). If educators are going to get kids to improve their literacy skills, we need to think outside the box and allow some flexibility into classrooms. This includes opportunities for them to choose what they are asked to read and write about.

Young Adult (YA) literature creates opportunities and connections students crave because it is more representative of their lived experiences than the traditional canon. These books give every student the opportunity to read stories that reflect their realities. Best practices in literacy instruction emphasizes that young people must be invited to bring their own home and neighborhood experience into school through both reading and writing (Crandall, Chandler-Olcott, & Lewis, 2022). When paired with TESOL-aligned practices such as activating background knowledge and developing cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP), YA literature can become a bridge between language development, democratic literacy, and joy. Books such as Born a Crime, They Call Me Güero, Walk Toward the Rising Sun, Learning America, When Stars Are Scattered, and Dragon Hoops offer diverse entry points for engaging MLs in the classroom. Such books have the potential to inspire collaboration between English teachers and TESOL faculty.

Providing Context for Immigrant- and Refugee-Background Youth 
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Learning America by Luma Mufleh, the founder of a school for refugee students, offers a vivid look at the experiences of refugee students and the efforts of an educator creating an inclusive school environment. For high school teachers, Mufleh provides an opportunity to critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their own school’s programs and practices for immigrant and refugee students. Educators can consider questions such as: Are newcomer students receiving adequate linguistic, social, and emotional support? How is the curriculum accommodating diverse cultural backgrounds? Are students’ home languages being valued as assets in the classroom? I believe that we, as educators, do not know what we don’t know, and I know that many people I work with might not even be aware of what good programming for newcomer/refugee students looks like. Teachers could use Mufleh’s example to identify best practices, such as mentorship programs, culturally responsive instruction, or individualized academic supports, and reflect on areas for improvement. 

One of Mufleh's biggest goals is for all students to actually learn in school, not just be passed from one grade to the next. For secondary level MLs, however, there tends to be one of two problems; teachers either offer MLs no support in class and they fail, having learned nothing, or teachers offer no support to MLs, and they pass with an A+, having learned nothing. In Learning America, she has a conversation with one of her players’ teachers.

“A lot of kids in his class can’t read.”

Shocked by her reaction, I stammered.

“Well, I mean, what should I do? That can’t be acceptable!"

“I’m not sure there’s anything you can do,” she gave me a smile meant to punctuate the conversation.

“So, I should just accept that he can’t read? That’s what you’re saying?”

“I”m saying Lewis is a really good kid. He’s kind; he doesn’t get in trouble. He’s better off than so many of them. He’ll be okay.” (Mufleh 47)

This problem of mainstreaming MLs before they are linguistically ready comes because teachers think it is impossible to teach them well or to give them the time necessary to catch up with  linguistic and content skills they may be lacking. 

Learning America shows that MLs can catch up with peers when they are held to high standards and consistently given language support and instruction by teachers who know how to meet them where they are. Discussing Mufleh’s book in professional learning communities or department meetings could encourage collaboration and school-wide reflection on equity and inclusion, especially with the reading opportunities young people are given.

Without a Home, But with Total Agency

 Trevor Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime, is rich with linguistic and cultural code-switching, humor, and reflection, which makes it an excellent young adult text for advanced MLs. Many ML students navigate multiple cultures and languages every day, and have immigrant experiences that are reflected in Noah’s story. Noah writes about learning multiple languages as a tool to help him navigate social situations or difficult moments he encounters. He succeeds in getting a group of people to stop mugging him by speaking to them in their language.

They were ready to do me violent harm, until they felt we were a part of the same tribe, and then we were cool. That, and so many other smaller incidents in my life, made me realize that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people. I became a chameleon. My color didn’t change, but I could change your perception of my color. I didn’t look like you, but if I spoke like you, I was you.  (Noah 54)

As a mixed person in South Africa, Noah was not perfectly at home in either the White community or Black community, and this feeling of being “other” could ring true for a lot of students in U.S. classrooms. Noah recounts navigating school, family expectations, and social hierarchies while constantly shifting between languages and cultural norms in his neighborhood, school, and home. Students who have moved between countries, like many of the MLs I serve, often balance home languages with English and experience cultural displacement. This helps them to identify with the struggles and triumphs shared by Trevor Noah, and fosters both engagement and motivation to read deeply.

From a TESOL perspective, Born a Crime supports the development of CALP because it exposes students to complex sentence structures, advanced vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and figurative language within authentic context. Through guided reading, students can interpret nuanced language, including idioms, humor, and rhetorical devices. Students can also engage in academic discussions and writing tasks by summarizing chapters, making inferences about cultural norms, and comparing Noah’s experiences with their own. Born a Crime is a perfect text for collaboration between English and TESOL departments.  Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocols (SIOP) that TESOL teachers use with MLs has many strategies to scaffold classroom tasks, such as pre-teaching key vocabulary (e.g., apartheid, segregation, discrimination), using graphic organizers to track relationships and events, and providing sentence frames for academic discussion. I believe teachers often struggle with choosing the right vocabulary for their MLs. In collaboration with English teachers, TESOL educators would highlight that this book provides a chance to have MLs write about or discuss their own bicultural identity and would encourage teachers to engage students emotionally while building their academic skills. 

The Power of Verse Novels for MLs

They Call me Güero by David Bowles is written in verse, a genre that is an ideal text for MLs. It is concise, rhythmic, and emotionally rich within its structure. Bowles’ poems are short, highly accessible, and written in a style that mirrors natural speech while also incorporating Spanish words and cultural references. This makes the book a useful tool for reading comprehension and language development, as students can focus on understanding meaning, emotion, and form without being overwhelmed by long paragraphs or complex syntax. 

For example, in the poem “Spanish Birds” Bowles writes,

Everyone I know

speaks a different Spanish:

the rural twang of border folk,

the big-city patter of immigrants,

the shifting of Tex-Mex. (Bowles 77)
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The seven stanzas share the various dialects of Spanish speakers Güero knows, comparing them to “birds in flight” (a hummingbird, a swan, flamingos, and an ostrich) before he concludes how his “own tongue / is an aviary” of them all. MLs can see their own experiences reflected in the author’s story, especially as they grow up between cultures, navigate bilingual spaces like Güero, and negotiate identity within family and community. By reading and discussing such a text, students activate background knowledge (schema) about family traditions, cultural identity, and belonging, which allows them to connect the themes in the text to their own lives.

They Call Me Güero is also a natural springboard for student-created poetry. Using Bowles’ poems as mentor texts, MLs can experiment with form and structure in their own poetry. Students can write short, stanza-like poems or free verse, a type of poetry accessible to even newcomers that have basic vocabulary because it takes away the pressure to write in full sentences. Teachers can also show students they are allowed to incorporate their home languages in poetry by using words, phrases, or expressions from their native language. This would go a long way to promote cultural validation in a school building that is English focused, as well as show students that bilingualism is an asset in writing. When shared with English teachers, this book demonstrates that poetry can be both accessible and academically rigorous. It is a vehicle for students to explore voice, identity, and craft, showing how YA literature can bridge reading, writing, and personal expression in classrooms with MLs.

​Further, They Call Me Güero can also be used in my own classroom to develop vocabulary and academic language. Through guided exercises, students can highlight descriptive words, idiomatic expressions, and emotionally charged terms from the poems, then use them in their own compositions. These poems are made easily visible, and it could be a great activity for students to draw images to represent their favorite poem. Students can also participate in poetry readings of their favorite poem, which supports oral language development and builds confidence.

Embracing Narrative & Personal Stories

Walk Toward the Rising Sun by Ger Duany tells the story of surviving displacement and rebuilding life after war. For MLs, the text provides a mirror for their own experiences, especially starting a new life in the United States. For Duany, adjusting to life in an American high school meant giving up a lot of the freedom he was accustomed to. 

During my first year of high school, in the fall of 1994, I experienced extreme culture shock. I expected to be allowed to work and earn money to send back home, but since I was only sixteen, I had to learn to behave like an American adolescent. Being told what to do and when, and responding to the bell in school like an automation, made no sense to me. I had been walking the earth independently since I was twelve and had no idea how to become a child again. (Duany 174)

Many of my high school MLs too come from backgrounds where they were already working, driving, and treated as an adult in their countries. Secondary level students are often sent to the U.S. alone to live with extended family, and have already begun to think of themselves as adults. Students can connect prior knowledge about migration, family separation, or cultural adaptation to the text, which supports comprehension and schema activation. From a language development perspective, Walk Toward the Rising Sun is excellent for CALP. Its narrative includes complex sentence structures, sophisticated vocabulary (e.g., “resilience,” “displacement,” “perseverance”), and abstract concepts related to identity, education, and community. 

​Teachers of students who speak multiple languages can work with English departments to use this book as a springboard for ML students to write their own personal narratives or memoir excerpts, practicing chronological organization, transition words, and descriptive language in English. Students can answer the question: how did you come to America? By reading Walk Toward the Rising Sun they can see that everyone’s journey to this country is fraught with challenges and is not always a straightforward path to take. This book would be great to use with students to show them that everyone’s story is worth hearing, even if it is not as fascinating as Duany’s. 

The Power of Visual Literacy in Graphic Novel

When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed, and Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang, are graphic novels that are great to use in a secondary class with MLs. They both use visuals to convey emotion and narrative, making it accessible for MLs of many levels, while introducing complex themes of displacement, family responsibility, and hope. Visual cues scaffold comprehension, allowing students to focus on higher-order thinking without struggling with dense text. These texts give students of a lower English proficiency the chance to read truly meaningful works that they can connect to. The authors of When Stars Are Scattered describe a refugee camp teacher talking to students about their refugee status.

Throughout your life, people may shout ugly words at you. Words like, “Go home, refugee! Or “You have no right to be here!” When you meet these people, tell them to look at the stars, and how they move across the sky. No one tells a star to go home. Tell them, “I am a star. I deserve to exist just the same as a star. How do I know? Because here I am. I am here. The proof is in the stars. (Jamieson and Mohamed 120)

Too often, beginner MLs are given only basic or decontextualized texts, yet they deserve literature that is rich, heartfelt, and reflective of their own journeys. Graphic novels allow them to experience the kind of emotionally compelling, identity-affirming literature that is often inaccessible through conventional English-class texts. 

In ESOL classes, TESOL teachers can use these books with students to learn new vocabulary that corresponds to the graphic novel panels, write character analyses or personal reflections, and have students produce illustrated narratives of their own, combining images and text to tell personal or imagined stories. English teachers might use graphic novels such as these with MLs to practice summarization and inferences, and highlight visuals to support understanding of cause and effect, character motivation, and thematic elements. Teachers can pre-teach Tier 2 vocabulary (e.g., “refugee,” “resilience,” “perseverance”), then move students toward written reflection and essay responses. 

In one comic panel in Dragon Hoops, a Sikh player’s pre-game basketball prayer ritual is illustrated and described:

As with all rituals, Jeevin calms his heart and allows him to focus. But for him, I expect there’s something more. He performs it so that in the heat of the game, regardless of what his opponents or the fans might say, he’ll remember that he belongs. (Yang 264)

Secondary teachers can use scenes like Jeevin’s pre-game ritual in Dragon Hoops to design multimodal writing activities, prompting MLs to create their own comic panels that depict personal rituals or moments of belonging, fostering emotional engagement, cultural reflection, and accessible self-expression.
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High School English teachers should not fear that using graphic novels in class means they are not providing students with rigorous literary texts. These are not books that should be overlooked. They support comprehension and writing skills, just as well as traditional novels. The visual input reduces the barrier to entry for MLs, which makes them ideal for diverse classrooms.

A Final Thought

Overall, YA literature gives MLs the ability to imagine and belong through story. When educators combine the joy of reading with TESOL-informed instruction, we are nurturing readers and writers who can think critically about their worlds. These texts described above remind educators that it is through reading diverse, honest, and inclusive stories that students learn to trust their own voices and to honor the voices of others. Is it permissible for high school teachers to let go of classics like The Scarlet Letter and Romeo and Juliet to make room in the curriculum for books like these? Every book offers something unique and important for students to learn, and I am sure that many arguments could be made about what we lose when we take these classics off our class’s book lists. However, there is also a lot to be said about what we lose by not including diverse texts that reflect the lives of our students. I believe that securing a future generation of readers makes it worth the risk.

References

Amato, J. (2024) Just Read It: Unlocking the Magic of Independent Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms. Corwin

Crandall, B. R., Olcott, K. C., & Lewis, E. C. (2022). Creating and sustaining inclusive writing communities for adolescents. In K. Hinchman & H. K. Sheridan-Thomas (Eds.), Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press.

Freeman, D., & Freeman, Y. (2004). Essential linguistics: What teachers need to know to teach ESL, reading, spelling, and grammar. Heinemann.
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Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon.