Teaching Young Adult Literature Today: Insights, Considerations, and Perspectives for the Classroom Teacher

"Teaching Young Adult Literature Today" introduces the reader to what is current and relevant in the plethora of good books available for adolescents. More importantly, literary experts illustrate how teachers everywhere can help their students become lifelong readers by simply introducing them to great reads--smart, insightful, and engaging books that are specifically written for adolescents. Hayn, Kaplan, and their contributors address a wide range of topics: how to avoid common obstacles to using YAL; selecting quality YAL for classrooms while balancing these with curriculum requirements; engaging disenfranchised readers; pairing YAL with technology as an innovative way to teach curriculum standards across all content areas. Contributors also discuss more theoretical subjects, such as the absence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young adult literature in secondary classrooms; and contemporary YAL that responds to the changing expectations of digital generation readers who want to blur the boundaries between page and screen. Chapters include: (1) Young Adult Literature: Defining the Role of Research (Judith A. Hayn and Amanda L. Nolen); (2) The Changing Face of Young Adult Literature: What Teachers and Researchers Need to Know to Enhance Their Practice and Inquiry (Jeffrey S. Kaplan); (3) Literacy Teacher Education and the Teaching of Adolescent Literature: Perspectives on Research and Practice (Susan E. Elliott-Johns); (4) Identifying Obstacles and Garnering Support: Young Adult Literature in the English Language Arts Classroom (Kelly Byrne Bull); (5) Using Young Adult Literature to Motivate and Engage the Disengaged (Michelle J. Kelley, Nance S. Wilson, and Melanie D. Koss); (6) Dystopian Novels: What Imagined Futures Tell Young Readers about the Present and Future (Crag Hill); (7) Out of the Closet and into the Open: LGBTQ Young Adult Literature in the Language Arts Classroom (Laura Renzi, Mark Letcher, and Kristen Miraglia); (8) Multicultural Literature: Finding the Balance (Judith A. Hayn and Melissa Comer); (9) Updating Young Adult Literature Reading Lists While Retaining Quality Titles (Lisa Hazlett); (10) Crossing Boundaries: Genre-Blurring in Books for Young Adults (Barbara A. Ward, Terrell A. Young, and Deanna Day); (11) The Bestselling Adult Novelist and Young Adult Fiction (Steven T. Bickmore); (12) Beyond the Language Arts Classroom: The Dynamic Intersection of Young Adult Literature and Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (Colleen Sheehy and Karina R. Clemmons); (13) Reading with Blurred Boundaries: The Influence of Digital and Visual Culture on Young Adult Novels (Linda T. Parsons and Melanie Hundley); and (14) YAL in Cyberspace: How Teachers are Following Their Students into New Literature (James Blasingame)