DR. BICKMORE'S YA WEDNESDAY

ProjectLIT: A Book Club That’s FIRE by Martha Guarisco

5/23/2018

Summer is coming! Will your students be reading? Are you reading yourself? Perhaps most importantly, how are you planning the reading opportunities for all of the students you will meet next year? These are important questions. I believe that we need to think intentionally about our reading and the reading of our students. I read intentional in at least three ways. First, I read a great deal of young adult fiction. It is my profession. As a result, I think about it, I critique it, I write about it, I wonder about the impact it has in the life of adolescents. Given all of that, I still read quite selectively. Primarily, I read older, realistic young adult fiction. To stay current, I rely on the reviews of others so that I don't miss the best of YA sci-fi, fantasy, or middle grades book. Thankfully, every so often these individuals write for this blog.

Second, I read American detective fiction. Now, that summer is here, I will soon make a pilgrimage to the public library to catch up one the most recent books by Robert Crais, Walter Mosely, Lee Child, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Linda Barnes, Bill Pronzini, Marcia Mueller, Janet Evanovich, and yes, even though Sue Grafton has passed on, I still have to read Y is for Yesterday. I will lament with many others that her alphabet will end with Y.

Third, I still read the classics and the books of Nobel and Pulitzer prize winning authors. I don't see an end to my "to be read" list. In fact, as I finish this introduction, I am listening to the PBS show, The Great American Read. I am thrilled with all of the children's and young adult books on the list. I love that I have read so many. Yet, there are some that I need to to my list. The list is exciting, but, in my opinion, it has gaps. It doesn't have a book by William Faulkner, Saul Bellow, or Cormac McCarthy.

Well, enough about my reading habits. Martha Guarisco, a teacher from Baton Rouge, introduces us to a reading activity that might be implemented in your classroom or school.

ProjectLIT: A Book Club That’s FIRE by Martha Guarisco

It’s still dark outside, 5:15 in the morning on the last Monday of the school year. To-do tasks, loose and prepped by their warm-up laps during my fitful sleep, line up at the day’s starting line, side-eyeing each other, checking out the competition. In the first heat: books to organize, grades to record, essay feedback to share, parents to email, checklists to complete.

They’ll have to bounce on their toes a while longer, though, because first, I need to print out a copy of the cover of the latest ProjectLIT book selection for the upcoming school year, Like Vanessa by Tami Charles. I promised Ella, one of my reluctant readers, she could hang it up this time. Besides, the sprinting will come soon enough.

ProjectLIT has, in some ways, been a game changer this year, a reminder that while it’s easy to get bogged down in the nuts and bolts of curricular demands, what matters most is connecting readers to books. Jarad Amato started ProjectLIT in his Nashville school two years ago, focusing his work on establishing a book club to address book deserts. Since encouraging other teachers to join in, there are now 230 chapters across the country. 230 groups of students reading and discussing diverse, contemporary young adult literature. 230 enthusiastic chapter leaders eager to share their experiences with like-minded professionals.

Each of my ProjectLIT book club meetings has looked a little different. Kwame Alexander’s Booked and Alan Gratz’s Refugee were whole-class novels, so discussion took place throughout our reading.. Students who’d somehow missed out on R.J. Palacio’s Wonder before coming to middle school were encouraged to read it independently before seeing the movie and competing in a BreakoutEDU game. Students waited, impatiently, to get their hands on one of the 10 copies I ordered of Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes, which we celebrated by creating a poster for first responders in our area. Many students realized they enjoy graphic novels (and history!) through reading John Lewis’ March, for which we created a trivia game. In one of our Twitter chats, another chapter leader encouraged me to try Jason Reynold’s Ghost as a read-aloud, and students unanimously picked Patina as a followup. Last week, part of our book challenge included a sunflower seed spitting contest.

My involvement in ProjectLIT has served as powerful reminder not to forget the fun while I plan for students’ literary experiences. It’s also given students ways to show leadership: planning for snacks, decorating our meeting space, designing flyers, creating trivia questions, announcing our meetings, scoring trivia contest entries. 60 of my 90 6th graders participated in leading a book club meeting at some point this year.

And we’re hoping to grow next year. We’ve ordered book trucks so we can share books with other grade levels. Students are eager to read the 2018-19 book selections over the summer so we can make good choices about which ones to tackle in our book club. We’d like to invite other community members to participate, too.

Interested in learning more about ProjectLIT? Or curious about the last selections to be announced? Check us out on Twitter: @ProjectLITBR @ProjectLITComm @marthastickle

Don't forget. There is still time to come to the 2018 Summit on the research and teaching of young adult literature. I am sure we will be discussing great project like this one. Don't forget to come be #VegasStrong and #YACritical

Until next week!

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Two New Books! Young Adult Literature and the Digital World and Toward a More Visual Literacy

5/16/2018

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As an editorial team, Jennifer, Shelbie, and I couldn't be prouder of the work that has gone into producing these two timely volumes. The Digital world is here. How we consider its space and place in the English Language Arts Classroom is an important topic of discussion. We were very lucky to find a group of scholars and teachers who are imagining this world in combination with Young Adult Literature. Below we introduce you to the each book along with a brief abstract of each chapter. To further peak your interest, in some instances we show the cover of a YA title featured in the chapter. In addition, we introduce you to the authors of these fine chapters. We hope you share this space over and over again.

Plus, right now there is a Giveaway! Win a copy of Young Adult Literature and the Digital World or Toward a More Visual Literacy! Click here for the details!

Jennifer S. Dail is a professor of English education in the Department
of English at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. She
also directs the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project (KMWP), a National
Writing Project site serving teachers Pre-K through college in all content
areas. She has received multiple grant awards supporting the work of KMWP, including an Improving Teacher Quality grant. Prior to joining the faculty at Kennesaw State University in 2006, she taught English education courses at
the University of Alabama and taught middle and high school English. Dail has served as coeditor of SIGNAL Journal. She is also an active member of National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the National Writing Project
(NWP).

Shelbie Witte is the Kim and Chuck Watson Endowed Chair in Education
and associate professor of adolescent literacy and English education at Oklahoma State University, where she directs the Oklahoma State University Writing Project and leads the Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Research.
Her research focuses on the intersection of twenty-first-century literacies and pedagogy, particularly at the middle level. She is coeditor, along with Sara Kajder, of NCTE’s Voices from the Middle.

Steven T. Bickmore is associate professor of English education in the Department of Teaching & Learning in the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He taught high school English in the Jordan School District in the Salt Lake City area from 1980 to 2008. In addition to teaching English courses, including Advanced Placement courses, he taught
Latin and humanities. His many teacher awards and recognitions included an NEH/Reader’s Digest Teacher Scholar Award (a full-year paid research sabbatical) for the 1989–1990 school year, and he was a winner of the prestigious Milken Educator Award in 1999. He is a cofounder and coeditor of Study and
Scrutiny: Research in Young Adult Literature.

Young Adult Literature and the Digital World

PART I: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND DIGITAL SPACES TO ENCOUNTER THE WORLD

Chapter 1.
Emojis 👀, #Hashtags, and Texting 📱, Oh My!: Remixing Shakespeare in the ELA Classroom

Michelle M. Falter is a former middle and high school English teacher and is currently assistant professor of English education at North Carolina State University. Her scholarship focuses on English teacher education; young adult literature; emotion in the teaching of literature and writing in the secondary classroom; and participatory, dialogic, and critical, feminist pedagogies that help educators coconstruct knowledge with their students. She is also the coeditor of the book Teaching outside the Box but inside the Standards: Making Room for Dialogue (2016), with Bob Fecho and Xiaoli Hong.

Crystal L. Beach is a high school English teacher and a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia in the Department of Language and Literacy Education. Her interests include new literacies, identity, multimodalities, popular culture, and technologies in the secondary English classroom. She writes about these topics to offer educators ways to consider how they might create a more meaningful pedagogy for their unique students. Currently, she is working on a project that focuses on sports literacies and representations of female athletes’ bodies.

Abstract: In this chapter, we explore how ELA teachers can better bridge the canonical with the digital world adolescents fully embrace. Although some English educators and scholars argue that Shakespeare is irrelevant to the lives of teens today (Gallo, 2001; Roberts, 2008; Spangler, 2009), other scholars argue that the universality of classic and canonical texts and authors like Shakespeare stands the test of time and should continue to be taught in classrooms (Jago, 2001; Lomonico, 2012). Despite the very split views on Shakespeare’s relevance today, we feel that Shakespeare isn’t going away anytime soon, and we don’t think his works necessarily should. Therefore, we make an argument for a middle ground -- a bridge between the traditional, classic, canonical text and the digital, multimodal, participatory world of the 21st century. This middle ground, we argue, can be found in Random House publishing company’s new series called OMG Shakespeare! that takes four Shakespeare plays to the modern era by remixing them into a story using all the tools of today’s digital text-message society.

Chapter 2.
When Stories Transcend Books: Ideas for Teaching Transmedia Stories in the ELA Classroom

Rikki Roccanti Overstreet is a doctoral candidate in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in English education at Florida State University. With a master’s degree in post-1900 literary and cultural studies, she is interested in how literature and literacy evolve with time, technology, politics, and culture,and how such changes shape adolescent readers and affect the ELA classroom.
In conjunction with this interest, she studies young adult literature, transmedia stories, and twenty-first-century literacies.

Abstract: this chapter address the environment transmedia storytelling by discussing what transmedia stories are, why teachers should use them in the classroom, when teachers should use such stories, and ways to specifically implement these texts into a curriculum. Woven into this discussion will be practical applications, specific examples of transmedia texts, and theoretical frameworks to support educators’ use of transmedia stories in the classroom. The goal of these discussions is to increase educators’ knowledge of what transmedia is and facilitate a discussion about its use in education in the hopes of increasing teacher confidence to use such texts.

Chapter 3.
Book Clubs to Book Trailers: Remixing Reader Response with Digital, Mobile, and Multimodal Literacies

Lesley Roessing taught middle school for twenty years. She now serves as founding director of the Coastal Savannah Writing Project and senior lecturer in the College of Education at Armstrong State University. Lesley
is the author of several professional books for teachers including The Write to Read: Response Journals That Increase Comprehension, Comma Quest: The Rules They Followed--The Sentences They Saved, No More “Us” and “Them”: Classroom Lessons & Activities to Promote Peer Respect, and Bridging the Gap: Reading Critically and Writing Meaningfully to Get to the Core, as well as articles for NCTE, NWP, ELMLE, and AMLE publications. She is also a columnist for AMLE Magazine.

Julie Warner is a former high school teacher and holds National Board Teaching Certification. She has a decade of experience implementing professional development for teachers across grade levels and subject areas in technology and literacy. She has also worked as a K–12 education policyadvisor in the US Senate and as an education research analyst at the US Department of Education. Prior to her federal service, Julie taught university faculty teaching courses in writing, linguistics, and Internet ethics. She also served as technology director of the Coastal Savannah Writing Project. She is the author of Adolescents’ New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones as well as articles for the Journal of Literacy Research and SIGNAL Journal.

Abstract: This chapter describes the practice of reading YA novels in book clubs and collaboratively creating book trailers (short, visual “teasers” that advertise books to prospective readers) for those books with iPads for mobile, multimodal, and networked literacy practice. The book trailer project makes a space for students to engage with print text in mobile, kinesthetic, and ultimately multimodal ways.

PART II: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND DIGITAL SPACES TO EVALUATE THE WORLD

Chapter 4.
We Too Are Connecticut: Digital Ubuntu with Matt de la Peña’s We Were Here

Bryan Ripley Crandall, PhD, is director of the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University (CWP-Fairfield) and assistant professor of literacy in the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions. His interests include writing instruction, young adult literature, refugee and immigrant youth, and community-based scholarship.

For this chapter Bryan brought together a team of teachers.

Kate Bedard currently teaches English at Bassick High School in Bridgeport,Connecticut, where she advocates for urban youth, storytelling, and creativity.

Paula Fortuna teaches world literature at the Center for Global Studies in Norwalk, Connecticut. Her students explore their place in the world through the processes of analyzing and creating a wide variety of texts. As a world traveler herself, she celebrates diversity, multiculturalism, perspectives, and
international integrity. She is a teacher-fellow of CWP-Fairfield.

Kim Herzog teaches English at Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut. She is the faculty advisor of award-winning literary magazines and is the teacher-leader of her school’s technological efforts. In 2015–2016, she was her district’s Teacher of the Year and was a state semifinalist for Connecticut Teacher of the Year.

Shaun Mitchell teaches African-American literature, playwriting, and AP literature at Central High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. When he is not teaching in the classroom, he directs and advises the Central Players, the drama program at his school. In 2016, he was a finalist for Connecticut Teacher of the Year. Shaun also is a lead instructor of several of the Young Adult Literacy Labs offered through CWP-Fairfield.

Jennifer von Wahlde teaches English at Darien High School in Connecticut and is a part-time communications instructor for Post University. Her passion for teaching is rooted in fostering creative expression and growth opportunities
for her students. She is a teacher-fellow who instructs in CWP Fairfield’s Young Adult Literacy Labs.

Megan Zabilansky is an English teacher at Joel Barlow High School in
Redding, Connecticut. She currently teaches AP Language and Composition, Writing to Speak: Words to Be Heard, and sophomore and junior general English. She is also a teacher-fellow of the CWP-Fairfield.

Abstract: In 2015, teachers from six urban, suburban, and rural high schools collaborated to provide writing opportunities for students for a Writing Our Lives – Digital Ubuntu conference at Fairfield University. Rethinking traditional classroom spaces them helped to celebrate youth voices and perspectives in a variety of digital genres. Through the use of Matt De La Peña’s young adult novel We Were Here , they asked their students to leave their mark on Connecticut. Funded through a 2014 LRNG Innovation Challenge grant, each school united projects through following an African philosophical concept of Ubuntu (Caraccciolo & Mungai, 2009; Swanson, 2007) and asked high school students to explore individual responsibilities to their larger communities.

Chapter 5.
Becoming a Global and Digital Citizen through the Power of Young Adult Literature

Kathryn Bailey is a secondary English teacher in the Henry County School System, currently teaching at Hampton High School in Hampton, Georgia. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in secondary English education from Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Abstract: This chapter is about harnessing the power of Young Adult Literature to promote students’ identification of social issues and injustices in order to find real-world solutions. Teachers will be encouraged to personalize instruction for students not only by making the content relevant to the world around them, but also by how they read their texts and advocate for change or awareness of their social issue.

PART III: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATUREAND DIGITAL SPACES TO ENGAGE IN THE WORLD

Chapter 6.
Participating in Literacy and the Outside World: Consuming, Composing, and Sharing Graphic Narratives

Brandon L. Sams is an assistant professor of English at Iowa State. His research interests include reading and writing pedagogy, critical reflection, and teacher identity development. His work has appeared in such venues as The ALAN Review, Journal of Language and Literacy Education (JoLLE), and English Teaching: Practice & Critique. He is currently focused on aesthetic and contemplative reading practices to interrupt and renew “schooled” reading practices shaped by the epistemologies of audit culture.

Mike P. Cook is an Assistant Professor at Auburn University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in English Education. He utilizes comics and graphic novels with pre-service and graduate-level ELA teachers and has done scholarship on using graphic novels to foster engagement, comprehension, and multimodal literacy. His scholarship has appeared in The ALAN Review, SIGNAL Journal, and Journal of Language and Literacy Education, among others.

Chapter Abstract: The purpose of this chapter is to describe the ways graphic narratives can be used with ELA students and pre-service teachers to foster multimodal literacy and to assist all students in becoming engaged, thoughtful participants in their digital and disciplinary worlds. Grounding our methods in a theoretical framework informed by digital literacy and multimodality, we offer, using our own classroom as a model, a unit centering the analysis, composition, and publishing of graphic texts. Our approach provides students opportunities to contribute to their digital, local, and global communities, positioning academic and out-of-school literacies as mutually enriching activities.

Chapter 7.
Remixing Literacy for Justice and Hope

Breanne Huston is the Co-Director of the Summer Institute for the Red Clay Writing Project. She has facilitated workshops and presentations on writing instruction in the secondary classroom for Red Clay’s Saturday Morning Series, for GCTE, and for NCTE. She is a 2018-2019 Conference on English Leadership Emerging Leaders fellow. She is currently a member of the Georgia Writing Project (GaWP), PhD candidate at The University of Georgia, and a secondary literacy coach.

Abstract: This chapter describes how teachers may think about using young adult novels, technology, and social media to provide critical opportunities within the ELA curriculum for students to think about the world and their place within in it. The author uses Sherman Alexie's novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian as an example text and describes literacy activities incorporating cameras, podcasts, and memes.

Chapter 8.
#iread #iwrite #iteach: Modeling the Use of Technology,Participatory Culture, and Critical Inquiry with YA Literature in the ELA Classroom

Steffany Comfort Maher is a new minted Ph.D in English education from Western Michigan University with a dissertation on critical inquiry approaches to teaching young adult literature. She is now an Assistant Professor of English Education at Indiana University Southeast. Her research interests include intersections between cultural studies, critical youth studies, young adult literature, and preservice teacher education. The mother of fourdaughters, Steffany is also interested in the reading practices of “adolescent” girls. In addition to her chapter in this book, she has published an article in English Journal entitled “Using To Kill a Mockingbird as a Conduit for Teaching about the School-to-Prison Pipeline.”

Abstract: Combining critical inquiry with the examination and creation of remixes and mashups is an opportunity for students to connect popular culture with critical pedagogy. In this chapter, Steffany shares methods ELA teachers are using to empower students to playfully and critically inquire into culture; to analyze stories, contexts, themes, and issues in young adult literature and other forms of popular culture such as memes, advertisements, and subvertisements; to engage meaningfully with technology in the English classroom through creating a participatory culture; and to share ideas and make a difference in their local communities and in the world.

Toward a More Visual LIteracy

PART I: CLASSROOM CONTEXTS: HELPING STUDENTS VISUALIZE DIGITALLY

Chapter 1.
“It’s about More Than Words:” Reading All American Boys in a Social Digital Reading Environment

Sara B. Kajder, PhD, is a member of the English Education faculty at the University of Georgia. Her research and pedagogical writing explore questions related to our uptake of digital tools in support of readers and writers, teacher practices with digital tools and social media, and implications for teacher education. She is the author of several practitioner books, including the 2012 James Britton Award winning Adolescents and Digital Literacies. Dr. Kajder received the 2016 Divergent Award for Excellence in 21stCentury Literacies and the 2017 National Technology Leadership Fellowship in English Education. She currently coedits the NCTE’s journal Voices from the Middle with Shelbie Witte.

Abstract: This chapter unpacks a five-week project conducted in the spring of 2016 which engaged two classes
of eighth grade readers in a collaborative exploration of All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. What
makes the project stand apart are three main elements. First, all of the reading and annotation was done using Glose, a multi-platform digital reading environment which supports multimodal annotation along with more traditional text-based response, highlighting, etc. Second, the two classes were separated geographically by 625 miles, but shared demographics including food-unstable homes facing significant poverty, diversity of enrollment, and the reality that each class roster was loaded with readers who were performing at least two years beneath grade level (by district assessments). And, thirdly, it presented an opportunity for students to use their avatar within Glose to project an entirely new and different reading identity, one which invited them to talk with agency about how a book meant, and what it (and their understanding) could do. This was a social reading experiment that completely transcended the goals we set for it as classes of readers and as teachers who read.

Chapter 2.
Flipping the Teaching of Young Adult Literature with Preservice Teachers

Bio: Dr. Amy Piotrowski is an assistant professor of secondary education and English education at Utah State University-Uintah Basin. She teaches undergraduate courses in English education and secondary education as well as graduate courses in literacy education. Her scholarly interests focus on 21st century literacies, digital literacies, young adult literature, and teacher education. Before becoming a teacher educator, Dr. Piotrowski taught middle school and high school English in Houston, Texas.

Abstract: My chapter, "Flipping the Teaching of Young Adult Literature With Preservice Teachers" is about preservice teachers in an English education course on young adult literature. My preservice teachers were introduced to flipped learning and then made a flipped lesson on a young adult novel that they had read. Two preservice teachers in this course made very different flipped lessons, demonstrating that flipped learning can be a useful teaching method for a variety of approaches to teaching literature to secondary students.

Chapter 3.
Socratic Learning Conversations: Ancient Practice Meets New Technology

Matt Copeland is an author, presenter, and instructional coach who works with educators to build capacity in using Socratic Circles in K–12 classrooms and beyond. A former English teacher and department head, he has been recognized as the 2006 Distinguished Kansan of the Year in Education, a 2005 Milken National Educator, and a 2003 Kansas Master Teacher. He is a frequent presenter at local, regional, and national conferences and has published several books, essays, and poems on the teaching of English.

Jenny Cameron Paulsen is an instructional coach at Holmes Junior High School in Cedar Falls, Iowa. A junior high and high school English and history teacher for twenty-three years, she is a past-president of the Iowa Council of Teachers of English and an ardent advocate for the Iowa Writing Project. A graduate of Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, She is passionate about spreading hope, conversational learning, genealogy, archery, and knitting. She lives on a farm with her husband and teenage son.

PART II: SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT: CONNECTING YOUTH BEYOND SCHOOL

Chapter 4.
Responding to Young Adult Literature through Civic Engagement

Kristen Hawley Turner, PhD, is associate professor of English education and contemporary literacies at Fordham University. Her research focuses on the intersections between technology and literacy, and she works with teachers across content areas to implement effective literacy instruction and incorporate technology in meaningful ways. She is the coauthor of Connected Reading: Teaching Adolescent Readers in a Digital World and Argument in the Real World: Teaching Students to Read and Write Digital Texts. She is also a teacher consultant for the National Writing Project and director of the Fordham Digital Literacies Collaborative.

Dawn Reed is an English teacher at Okemos High School in Okemos, Michigan. Dawn is also codirector of the Red Cedar Writing Project at Michigan State University. Dawn earned her master’s degree in writing and rhetoric with a specialization in critical studies in literacy and pedagogy from Michigan State University. She conducts PD for teachers focused on technology integration and the teaching of writing. She is coauthor of Research Writing Rewired: Lessons That Ground Students’ Digital Learning and Real Writing: Modernizing the Old School Essay, and she has published in various journals, books, and websites.

Abstract: Digital media has infiltrated every aspect of life. Teens, in particular, embrace Internet use, and their digital habits bring opportunities and challenges for teachers of literacy. On the one hand, students are able to connect with others, beyond the walls of the classroom, in order to share - and develop - their views of the world. They can, in fact, contribute in meaningful ways to society at large. On the other hand, teens need to develop skills of participation. They need to connect their academic lives to their social ones in productive ways, and they do not necessarily develop the critical practices they need without the support of adult mentors. This need can be met by rethinking the role of literature, particularly young adult literature (YAL), in English Language Arts classrooms. This chapter explores YAL as a springboard to civic engagement, showcasing classrooms that engage students in participatory action.

Chapter 5.
Social Media, Gaming, and Jay Gatsby: Integrating Youth Motifs with Youth Literacies in High School English

Alison Heron-Hruby is assistant professor of English education at Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky, and a former middle and high school English teacher. Her research focuses on multimodal literacies, reading comprehension, and the teaching of writing. She has published in Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Reading and Writing Quarterly, and English Journal.

Dakoda Trenary recently graduated from Morehead State University with a Bachelor of Arts in English, concentrated in secondary education, and is an instructor of English at Rowan County Senior High School in Morehead, Kentucky.

Abstract: This chapter demonstrates the value in having students use social media and gaming platforms as mediating tools for reading comprehension. The guiding question for our chapter is relatedly: How can (and why should) high school teachers re-mix literary interpretation to include youth’s preferred multiliteracies? Samples of multimedia student work delineate the unique and important contributions a group of high school students made to their class unit on the The Great Gatsby.

Chapter 6.
Infusing Young Adult Literature into the Virtual Classroom

Brooke Eisenbach is assistant professor of middle and secondary education at Lesley University. She was a middle school English and young adult literature teacher for nine years, and an English I virtual school teacher for two years. She is an active member of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and American Educational Research Association (AERA), anda state representative for Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN). She is a member of NCTE’s Standing Committee against Censorship. She is a former recipient of the Florida Council of Teachers of English Teacher of the Year and the NCTE Outstanding Middle Level Educator in the English Language Arts awards.

Paula Greathouse is assistant professor of secondary English education at Tennessee Tech University. She was a secondary English and reading teacher for sixteen years. She is an active member of the NCTE, Literacy Research Association (LRA), AERA, and a state representative for ALAN. She sitson NCTE’s Standing Committee against Censorship, LGBT Advisory Committee, and Gender and Equities Committee. She is a former recipient of the Florida Council of Teachers of English High School Teacher of the Year Award and the NCTE Teacher of Excellence Award.

Jennifer Farnham is a teacher for Florida Virtual School, an online K–12
public school where she teaches film/theater and social media. She was a middle school language arts teacher for three years and a high school English teacher for ten years. She is passionate about incorporating independent reading in the classroom along with innovative technology and social justice.

Abstract: Virtual education is expanding. With this ever-growing form of education comes challenge and opportunity. Teachers must find ways of meeting the academic, as well as social and emotional needs of students. It is important to encourage virtual adolescent learners in their critical reading and engagement with the world of YAL through today’s virtual channels in an effort to help them see the importance of reading in their lives and allow students to grow and develop as avid readers and connoisseurs of YAL. This chapter provides readers strategies for integrating contemporary YAL into the virtual classroom, along with suggested YAL titles focused on the role of technology within the lives of today's adolescent learner.

PART III: CRITICAL INQUIRY: DIGGING DEEPER WITH YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE

Chapter 7.
Emerging Media, Evolving Engagement: Expanding Teachers’ Repertoires of Young Adult Literary Study and Response

Anna Smith is an Assistant Professor of Secondary Education at Illinois State University. She is the co-author of Developing Writers: Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age, and a co-editor of the Handbook of Writing, Literacies, and Education in Digital Cultures. Her research on writing development, transliteracies, educational technologies, and the intersection of teaching and learning can be found in Theory into Practice, Journal of Literacy Research, Education Sciences, English Journal, and Literacy. Her scholarly work is buttressed with 19 years of work in public schools as a teacher, district-level teaching specialist, and teacher educator. You can find her online on her website, Developing Writers, or on Twitter at @anna_phd.

Robyn Seglem is an Associate Professor of Middle Level English Language Arts and Literacy at Illinois State University. Researching on technology’s role in literacy, adolescent literacy, and content area literacy, her work has been published in Teachers College Record, the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, English Journal, Voices from the Middle, and the Journal of Language and Literacy Education. She teaches literacy courses to middle and secondary preservice and graduate teachers from 20 content areas. She is a nationally board certified teacher, and taught for nine years in middle and high school language arts.

Abstract: Drawn from both university and school-based professional development courses focused on young adult (YA) literature, this chapter includes activities for teachers to begin and/or deepen their engagement in new forms of literary and media study with YA literature. Organized around three forms of traditional literary study—close reading, reader response, and social semiotics—that are evolving in the advent of new media, this chapter provides teachers ways to take up practices learned from youths’ engagements with YA literature and new media to better prepare themselves to contribute to their students’ learning of the same.

Chapter 8.
Seeing the World Differently: Remixing Young Adult Literature through Critical Lenses

Jennifer S. Dail is a professor of English education in the Departmentof English at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. She also directs the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project (KMWP), a National Writing Project (NWP) site serving teachers Pre-K through college in all content areas. She has received multiple grant awards supporting the work of KMWP, including an Improving Teacher Quality grant.

Aneté Vásquez is associate professor of curriculum and instruction at Kennesaw State University. She teaches courses in English/language arts and general education in the Department of Secondary and Middle Grade Education. Her research interests include all aspects of the clinical preparation of teachers, particularly in the area of preparing teacher candidates to work with diverse learners.

Abstract: This chapter examines and reports on how students take up critical literacy lenses in analyzing literature. It then use remix as a concept in responding to literature and how that up-taking of remix demonstrates the five characteristics of the participatory culture framework as described by Jenkins, Kelley, Clinton, McWilliams, and Pitts-Wiley (2013).

Chapter 9.
“Song of Myself ”: A Digital Unit of Study Remixed

Fawn Canady is a visiting professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in literacy education. Her research interests include visual culture and multimodal composition. An active member of the Southern Nevada Writing Project, she engages in writing, youth, and community. Prior, Fawn was a high school English teacher at a career and technical academy, and project facilitatorfor the Clark County School District, supporting new teachers and mentors. She was also an online instructional designer in professional development education.

Chyllis E. Scott is assistant professor of literacy at UNLV. She graduated from Texas A&M University with a PhD in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in literacy education. Prior to earning her doctorate, Dr. Scott was a classroom teacher, English as a Second Language teacher and department head, codirector of Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) and gifted and talented education programs, and a school-wide reading specialist. Her primary research interests include adolescent literacy

Kymberly Martin is a high school English teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada, and an adjunct professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Literacy. She teaches honors and AP courses. Kym has worked as a project facilitator for the Clark County School District developing professional development (PD) for new teachers and mentors. She has also designed PD around projectbased learning. Kym has worked with UNLV researchers to pursue meaningful, creative, and identity-affirming curriculum for high school students.

Abstract: In Chapter 9, Whitman’s celebrated poem, Song of Myself, served as an invitation to explore the social and “essential self” through a Digital Self-Portrait: a media representation of identity reflected in and through online technology. The project consisted of a student-directed genre study (e.g., social media, digital video, online comics), explorations of modes, peer workshops, and literature circles around young adult literature (YAL) choices. YAL created an entry point into conversations about complex issues surrounding technology, social relationships and identity. Throughout this unit, students used their digital media savvy to probe socially embedded codes and explore identity. This is their story.

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YA Graphic Mysteries by Robert Prickett and Casey Cothran

5/9/2018

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One of the best perks of running this blog is the opportunity to learn from all of the guest contributors. I love it when Robert Prickett is on the list. I learn new information from him every time. He is an expert on the YA graphic novel. This time he has teamed up with his colleague from Winthrop University, Casey Cothran. I would be the first one to acknowledge, that in most cases, my students in a YA course know more about graphic novels than I do. I am always learning (I don't what to look stupid; which, as I age and get further removed from some aspects of popular culture, happens all of the time.). So, thanks Robert and Casey. This is a great post and I have a longer too read list. This a post that you should share with others. Take a minute and share the URL.

Before you get too far into graphic mysteries, take some time to check Robert's previous posts. He has one on YAL that is connected to Politics and Activism and a second on Female Coming of Age in the Graphic Novel.

YA Graphic Mysteries

You may be thinking … Graphic mysteries?! For young adults?! Just how graphic is graphic?! However, today we’re discussing comic books and graphic novels. (Which, to be honest, may very well include a graphic murder or two.) But why is it important to think about the graphic mystery text in relation to YA readers? Mystery can be a controversial genre, as it often deals with issues of violence, human cruelty, injustice, and suffering. Nevertheless, many argue that, despite its dark moments, the mystery story allows the reader opportunities both to solve complex puzzles and also to regain faith in the idea that answers to difficult questions do exist.

Furthermore, when combined with the graphic novel format, the mystery might be said to inspire “double-detective* work” on the part of the reader. (And aren’t we always trying to encourage YA readers to think deeply?) In a typical mystery, the reader is constantly on the alert. She is paying attention to physical clues, to mysterious past events, and to character behavior, as well as to the tone and language of the story she is reading. Ultimately, she is working to solve the riddle of the crisis before the detective does! Additionally, one might note that the reader of the comic book also does special work in an effort to follow the plot of the graphic text. He is paying attention to both the written words on the page and to the graphic imagery. It is the pictures in the comic book that communicate major events of the plot, the feelings of characters, and the tone of the story. Ultimately, when one combines the mystery narrative with the medium of the comic book, the critical thinking requirements are amplified. In their efforts to solve mystery puzzles, readers of these texts are inspired to investigate the interaction between text and image, the coloring of a panel, or the discrepancies that may exist between character dialogue and blocks of narration. They have to become reader-detectives.

And how much fun is that? It’s a lot of fun. So, here are a variety of graphic (and great) mysteries for you to investigate on your own. FYI: Book title links are to Amazon; author/illustrator links are to personal webpages or social media accounts. (Please note: we purposefully have focused on YA-friendly graphic novel mysteries in the list below. There are some classic graphic novel mysteries like Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Blacksad, and The Fade Out which are appropriate for older adolescents and adults.)

Angel City: Town without Pity written by Janet Harvey and illustrated by Megan Levens and Nick Filardi

A “classic” Hollywood noir, presented with style, this story follows Dolores Dare, a former starry-eyed ingénue turned enforcer, whose past and present collide when an old friend is found murdered.

Bad Machinery series written and illustrated by John Allison

Two groups of sleuths: three girls, three boys compete (and sometimes collaborate) to solve mysteries around Keane End, Tackleford and Griswalds Grammar School. Very humorous. Very British.

Batman: The Long Halloween written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by Tim Sale

This collected graphic novel (of the original 13 issue series) follows Batman as he tries to catch a serial killer. Can Batman catch the murderer, who is killing only on holidays, before the killer strikes again?

Black Dahlia (Treasury of XXth Century Murder) written and illustrated by Rick Geary

Named a 2017 YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens, Nonfiction, this graphic novel recounts the life and death of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short , who would become known in 1947 as “Black Dahlia”.

Bungo Stray Dogs written by Kafka Asagiri and illustrated by Sango Harukawa

This manga centers around gifted detectives with supernatural powers who form the “Armed Detective Agency” solving mysteries and carrying out missions for the mafia.

Chew written by John Layman and illustrated by Rob Guillory

Tony Chu is a detective. Tony Chu is Cibopathic – meaning he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. Tony Chu is a good detective as long as he doesn’t mind chewing a corpse or two.

The Mystery Society written by Steve Niles and illustrated by Fiona Staples

Anastasia Collins and Nick Hammond are the Mystery Society. They are rich, resourceful, refined, determined to uncover the paranormal secrets of the world’s underbelly . . . and in need of new recruits: a ghoul named Secret Skull, two twin girls from Area 51, and a robot with the brain of Jules Verne round out the gang.

Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie written by Anthony Del Col and illustrated by Werther Dell’edera

Teenage brothers, Frank and Joe Hardy, are accused of murdering their father. They must prove their innocence by teaming up with Nancy Drew to solve the mystery. This is a re-imagining of the classic teen detectives.

Scooby Apocalypse written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, and illustrated by Howard Porter, Dale Eaglesham, Wellington Alves, and Scott Hanna

The classic gang is back (or rather in the post-apocalyptic future): Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby Doo still fight crime – but “the apocalypse has happened” and “the old rules about logic do not apply.” Like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, check out this re-imagining of classic mystery sleuths.

I am Princess X written by Cherie Priest and illustrated by Kali Ciesemier

This is a particularly unique text; it combines a traditional mystery novel with graphic segments, so it is not quite a “graphic novel” or a “traditional novel,” but it is excellent nonetheless. Two best friends create a comic book princess together. A few years later, one of the girls, Libby, dies in a car crash. The surviving friend, May, now sixteen discovers a sticker with a remarkable likeness to Princess X, the princess created many years ago. Soon, May sees the Princess everywhere.

Stephen King wrote in Under the Dome, “Murder is like potato chips: you can’t stop with just one.” We’d agree and argue that “Graphic mysteries are like potato chips: you can’t stop with just one.” Enjoy!

*For a deeper scholarly analysis of the idea of the double-detective, see our forthcoming article, “The Double Detective: Compounding Complexity in The Fade Out, a Noir Graphic Novel” in Clues: A Journal of Detection, 36.2 (Winter 2018).

Until next time.

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Sarah has a Book Event!

5/7/2018

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Remember, Sarah? See was highlighted a little over a week ago, because she is giving away books and Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday is helping. In you are in the Chicago area, you might consider trekking over to Glen Ellyn.

To get to know Sarah a little bit better, she has answered some interview questions.

If you want a chance to talk with Sarah, come helps us be #VegasStrong and #YACritcal at the 2018 Summit. She will be discussing her work and doing some breakout sessions.

Until next time.

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Brendan Kiely has a New Book and Laurie Halse Anderson is Going to be with him to Talk about Tradition.

5/3/2018

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Brendan Kiely is a happy guy! He should be. He has a new book out. I don't think I have ever seen Brendan when he hasn't been brimming with enthusiasm. Well, he should be, his books are fantastic. I know, I know you might have heard of a little book that made a splash a couple of years ago--All American Boys. Well, if that is the only book of his that you know you are missing out. The primary thing you need to know about Brendan, is that he is not afraid to speak truth to power. His debut novel, The Gospel of Winter is compelling and powerful. His writing gets more powerful as he moves along. I feel in hard for his third novel, The Last True Love Story. As I was reading about it, I kept thinking, I am going to write about this book. It is fantastic. Music is a dominate theme that helps establish character, setting, and connects ideas family across time and space. So, I did. My son, Isaac Bickmore, a music educator at the University of Central Missouri, teamed up with me and we wrote a chapter about project based learning and alternate assessments using music as a base. The chapter is entitled "A Music and ELA Project: Connections through Brendan Kiely's The Last True Love Story" I was published in Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the Content Areas: Social Science and the Humanities edited by Greathouse, Kaywell and Eisenbach.

Back to Brendan.

The new book, Tradition, is another book that deals with male aggression and rape. It tackles the subject with the same literary strength as Speak, Inexcusable, and Wrecked. These are the first few that come to mind, but there are many others and Kiely's effort is fine addition.

Brendan has been on tour with the new book--unfortunately, he isn't coming to Las Vegas. He is, however, going to be Fairless Hills, PA with Laurie Halse Anderson on May 4, 2018--Today! Wouldn't you just love to be in this conversation? I certainly would. If you are in the area, you ought to make your way over to that particular Barnes and Noble bookstore.

While you are there don't just buy a copy of Tradition, pick up the rest of his works.

Brendan has been kind enough to answer a few interview questions. Take a few minutes and get some added insight into the workings of this gifted author.

Until next time.

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Engaging Teens with History through YA Literature by Jo Schaffer

4/28/2018

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Jo Shaffer, co-founder of Teen Author Bootcamp, has a novel! Georgia McBride's Month9Books debuts Jo's book Stanely & Hazel. This book is a shockingly gritty "histopian" that offers readers an honest look at our history, religious beliefs, and extremism through the eyes of two teens from different worlds who could have easily walked away when faced with an unspeakable crime.

Jo's book, is out this week. Please check out Stanely & Hazel. In addition to writing an essay about history and YA for Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday Blog, Jo will be participating in the 2018 Summit on the Teaching and Research of Young Adult Literature. She was also kind enough to answer some interview questions that will be posted at the bottom of the post. She will join a group of established and emerging authors who will be participating in the summit through conversations, reading, and presenting. You can find a list at this link. I am so excited about the opportunity to discuss the state of research around YA literature with such bright and engaging authors. Their contributions will add a great dimension to the conversations that academics, graduate students, teachers, and librarians are all ready bringing to the table.

Click on the image to get the book!

The image links to her webpage.

Take it Away Jo.

In the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, after a vicious attack on a student that involves legends about the founding of the school, the kids at Hogwarts are suddenly interested in history. Normally, they fall asleep to the droning of boring facts and dates by the ghost teacher, Professor Binns. He is surprised and annoyed when the kids pepper him with questions that don’t involve a mathematical recitation of the facts. His quick dismissal of their interest sends the kids back into their academic stupor.

As someone who loves history, I’ve always been struck by this scene. The students’ interest in history is related to the sudden relevance of it to their present. The teacher missed an opportunity to use the storytelling power of history.

History is more than facts and dates. It's the story of us in all of our beautiful and terrible reality. It contains the power to educate, to make us feel, and to meditate on the human condition.

Our current culture is obsessed with what is new, hot and “on trend”. With the many distractions of popular culture, and our relative freedom and affluence, it’s easy to disregard the lessons of the past. We seem to forget that consequences exist for every attitude, social movement, or action we choose. We need reminders. Literature has played an important role in exploring the past as well as the future. Writers and storytellers should be students of history if they really want to engage their readers. And unlike Professor Binns: make history relevant to readers.

For the YA writer, this can be easier said than done. Dystopian novels are a way to use history to engage YA readers. Books like Hunger Games and Divergent often read like “future history” books warning us of what could happen. They aren’t t just fantasies of an impossible future, but rather reflect actual philosophies and movements that have led to the tyranny and horrifying travesties of the past. They serve as cautionary tales for rising generations and show us where our good and bad intentions can take us. Racism, sexism, classism, fascism and xenophobia have emerged in every culture and society throughout history. Ironically, often these things are born of society’s efforts to fix inequality and eliminate pain and suffering until the solutions take on a sinister life of their own.

Imaginary futures are deeply rooted in the past. We look back on history and wonder how atrocities like the Holocaust could even happen in a civilized society. We wrongly think they are disturbing flukes of the past and not things we would ever allow. But to avoid repeating history we need to understand how things start. People don’t just throw fellow citizens into gas chambers at the slightest provocation. It starts small. Little prejudices, being suspicious of differences, small intolerances, demonizing, unkind thoughts and words. Bias throws gas on the fire through stereotyping, mocking and eventually full on character assassination of an entire people. The parallels to our current cultural situation are obvious.

Dystopian novels can be, sometimes unconsciously, dismissed as “fantasy.” But, novels set in actual history where real events took place, can invite YA readers to contemplate human history and meditate on Winston Churchill’s words, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

As I developed the setting, for my YA novel, Stanley and Hazel, I wanted to really delve into this idea. One of the most alarming books I’ve read is Edwin Black’s War Against the Weak. Everyone knows about the horror of Nazi Germany and Hitler’s gas chambers, but many people don’t realize they had their origins on American soil. Black shows in devastating historical detail how Eugenics and the forced sterilization of over 50,000 Americans would eventually become the monster of the Holocaust. Even more disturbing, is that this point of view was shared by The United States Supreme Court, presidents, civic leaders and sadly, even some religious clergy. Eugenics sought to cleanse America of all people deemed “unfit”, “moronic” or undesirable.

The rhetoric of the current rise of white supremacy and the alt-right echoes the past too closely for my comfort. I knew I had to put this into the book. History, even if fictionalized, can show us the patterns and thinking errors that lead to injustice and terror. But, at the same time, no one, especially teen readers, want to be preached at while they are trying to enjoy a novel. Story comes first, history lessons second. It’s important to do research, but to only share what is relevant to the story. There is no need to be obvious. The reader, even if young, is not stupid.

My house has been grand central station for teenagers and troubled youth. Many have lived with me for periods of time. They have taught me to treat them as people first, and teenagers second. Teens are not dumb. They are open to thoughts and feelings that adults may have shut out long ago. YA books can be fun and entertaining, but not all stories need to be rolled in rainbow sprinkles. Much of what is being written for young adults these days, deal with the heavy issues that they face every day. Realities like drugs, sex, depression and abuse. They can handle it. They have to because it is relevant to the world they live in. We owe them honesty about our history and can trust them to wrestle with the complexities. Even more, we owe them literature that can prompt these questions and be ready for the conversations.

Read the Interview Below!

Until next week. Remember, join the Summit come be #VegasStrong and #YACritical

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Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday is Joining in a Give Away!

4/27/2018

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Please spread the word! We are giving away 30 books! Sponsored by ethicalela.com and Steven T Bickmore's http://www.yawednesday.com/.
Are you a high school English teacher? Sarah Donovan love to give you a class set of Alone Together. Maybe you'll take a few for a book group and share the rest with your department.Maybe you'll give them all away for summer reading. You have until May 8th to enter, and all you have to do is buy a book and show me a copy of the receipt. Go to the link on my profile to read more about this giveaway!
https://sarahjdonovan.wordpress.com/promotions/
#bookgiveaway #bookstagram #alonetogether #debutnovel #yaliterature #versenovels #2ndaryela #englished #englishteachers #booklovers

Furthermore, Sarah Donovan will be reading and presenting at the 2018 Summit on the Teaching and Research of Young Adult Literature in Las Vegas. Come meet Sarah and help us be #VegasStrong and #YACritical

Come meet Sarah and the rest of these authors.
Click on the images!

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Bridging Curricular Silos Through Collaboration

4/24/2018

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This blog post takes the time to celebrate collaboration while pointing to the ways that Young Adult Literature can be used as a tool to bridge the subject silos of both Social Studies and English Language Arts classrooms.

Steve's Turn

The Academy can be lonely, isolating work. We have to create independent reputations and that requires at least some individual work and writing. At the same time, most of us understand that we need help from other to frame our ideas, to receive feedback, to do collaborative work on committees, to plan program curricula, and a variety of other projects. For example, as a relatively new assistant professor I was a coeditor of The ALAN Review. While we often had independent tasks, the work with Jackie Bach and Melanie Hundley was rewarding, grounding, and helped me frame how I thought critically about Young Adult Literature through my work with them and reading the work of other scholars in the field.

When I was a high school teacher, I saw the tight connection between the Social Studies (SS) and English Language Arts (ELA). However, I didn’t do much about it. I occasionally had a brief conversation with a social studies teacher, but we never brought it to a coordinated action. For example, for several years I taught A Tale of Two Cities to tenth graders while, at some point during the year, my colleague taught the French Revolution in a world history class to the same students. A perfectly natural pairing, right? Laziness? Or was it just that we never had such cross-curricular opportunities explained to us during our preparation? Maybe a bit of both. In teacher education most of us understand that most teachers are victims of the apprenticeship of observation. In short, regardless of our preparation, most of us revert to teaching the ways we were taught. Schooling remains the same.

Skip forward in my academic career.

After several years at Louisiana State University, we hired a new Assistant Professor of Social Studies education.

Enter Dr. Paul Binford.

Paul and I began working together on several department projects. Primarily we each had a responsibility to communicate with our corresponding subject departments, teaching subject specific methods classes to undergraduates, and working with a yearly cohort of graduates students in a fifth year teacher certification program. We began discussing where our pedagogical concerns overlapped and whether or not there were avenues of collaboration. Paul introduced me to historical simulations and a teaching technique called visual discovery. Both concepts belong in an ELA classroom. I know some ELA teachers are doing some form of simulation in terms of court room simulation with To Kill a Mockingbird or something similar. Even though I thought I often incorporated visuals into my teaching and writing prompts, nothing I had planned or discovered on my own lead me to the richness of Visual Discovery. I have been thinking about it ever since and trying in my own limited way to usher novice English teachers into using this strategy.

Three years ago we both left LSU, but we have continued to collaborate. (Would anyone be interested in a book that discussed how to teach state history through YA historical fiction or Non fiction?) Furthermore, Paul has been a contributor to the YA Wednesday blog. He discussed Chris Crowe's Mississippi Trial, 1955. Find it here. Later, he discussed Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. You can find that post here. So there you go, I know at least one Social Studies educator who thinks about Young Adult literature. As an added bonus, Dr. Binford will be presenting at the 2018 YA Summit in Las Vegas (Come be #Vegasstrong and #YACritical).

Dr. Binford and I have presented at Kennesaw State University at the KSU Conference on Literature for Children and Young Adults about how to bridge these curricula silos. We have published together and with Dr. Getchen Rumohr-Voskuil. We have been fortunate to present with Laurie Halse Anderson and then with Rich and Sandra Neil Wallace. You can find out about latest collaboration with Gretchen here. The title of the article in the Middle Grades Review is Crossing Selma's Bridge: Integrating Visual Discovery Strategy and Young Adult Literature to Promote Dialogue and Understanding. We hope you share it with both pre-service and inservice Social Studies and English Language Arts teachers.

This coming fall we will be present at 2018 NCTE Annual Convention in Houston, TX.

Our session title is: Crossing Selma’s Bridge with Visual Discovery Strategy and Young Adult Literature: Allowing Voices from the Past to Echo in the Present

The Panelist will include: Laurie Halse Anderson, Steven Bickmore, Paul Binford, Brendan Kiely, Luke Rumohr, Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil, Rich Wallace, and Sandra Neil Wallace.

We will be focusing on Anderson’s Seeds of America series, Wallace and Wallace’s Blood Brother, and Kiely and Reynolds’ All American Boys.

We hope you join us.

Now Paul's Turn

I first met Dr. Steve Bickmore during the “campus visit” phase of the interview process at Louisiana State University. As you can imagine mind my head was spinning, but one of my distinct recollections from that experience was that I would enjoy working with this guy. After arriving on campus in the fall of 2015, Steve served as my informal mentor, and he kindly inducted me into the professional world of higher education. I would also be remiss if not also acknowledging a mentor that both Steve and I shared—Dr. Jacqueline (or “Jackie”) Bach. Jackie regularly touched base as I transitioned to LSU, and she had a keen knack for alerting me to various deadlines, issues, and opportunities associated with the College of Education. Jackie also included me on several writing projects not only because I could make a meaningful contribution, but because she was looking ahead to my tenure needs.

Both Steve and I made the transition to higher education in mid-career, so--needless to say--it was a high stakes decision. The great thing about Steve was that he was approachable, self-effacing, and an open-book about the tenure and research process. My first year he spent countless hours (yes, countless!) answering my questions and responding to my requests for advice. Through this mentoring relationship and a common hobby--golf (the frustrations, vagaries, and all too few skilled shots on the links), we forged a friendship and began recognizing opportunities for cross-curricular collaboration.

In regards to YAL, Steve first opened the pages of possibility for me by suggesting that I read Roll of Thunder: Hear My Cry. Although a bit ambivalent at first, reading this Newbery Medal winning work of historical fiction convinced me that YAL had much to offer to both ELA and the Social Studies. As a result, I have read many more compelling YAL books—often at Steve’s suggestion, which shed light on the human experience: Chains, Death Coming Up the Hill, March, Muckers, Mississippi Trial, 1955, Out of the Dust, and, most recently, Bound by Ice. As a long-time ELA teacher, Steve instinctively considers pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading activities to enrich student understanding of a YAL book. These were not pedagogical moves that I was aware of until after dialoging with Steve; nor I suspect are they intuitive to most social studies teachers.

Bound by Ice: A True North Pole Survival Story, by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace, is a rich historical treatment of the U.S.S. Jeannette expedition (1879-1881). Bound by Ice describes the Arctic odyssey of Captain George W. De Long and his crew, which endured many months stuck in the ice, a portaging of life boats, materials, and supplies, the gales and swells of the open sea, and a traversing of the Siberian tundra. While reading Bound by Ice, I gradually became aware of a period of Arctic exploration (the 19th century in particular) seldom mentioned in the standard secondary textbooks. From 1818 to 1908, there were 92 expeditions (from nine different countries) to the Arctic in search of the elusive Northwest Passage, the northernmost point in Greenland, and, of course, the North Pole.

Why not provide historical background information about Arctic exploration, through a pre-reading activity, so students could contextualize the U.S. Jeanette expedition in Bound by Ice?

“Arctic Exploration 1818 to 1909: Fact or Myth,” is a pre-reading activity, in a game format! Using a slide presentation, the teacher projects a series of statements, augmented with images, about this period of exploration. Then, each student must decide whether he/she believes each statement on the “question slide” is a fact or myth? Each student records their “fact or myth?” decision on a record sheet. This is shortly followed by the “answer slide” with the correct answer—“Fact!” or “Myth!” along with some additional historical information related to that slide’s topic. If the student correctly deduced the answer, they place a check-mark on their record sheet. Regardless, all students use this record sheet to note the historical information provided. For example, here is a two-slide combination on one of the “fact or myth?” topics from this activity:

Question Slide:

Mode of Travel

While a large majority of the Arctic expeditions were ship based, there were four expeditions during this period conducted by balloon.
Fact or Myth?

Answer Slide:

Fact!
There were 4 balloon-based, 25 land-based, and 63 ship-based Arctic explorations.
In essence, this pre-reading activity is a presentation, using guided notes (the record sheet), with a game overlay. It takes about 30 minutes to complete and your students will love it! More importantly, they will be reading Bound by Ice in historical context.

For this “Fact or Myth?” activity and a during reading activity—a side-by-side comparison and Venn Diagram of a passage from Bound by Ice with a journal entry about the same event go to this link: https://ringoftruth.org/social-studies-links/young-adult-literature-and-social-studies.

Thanks for following the blog. Until next week.

This blog will also be co-posted on Dr. Binford's blog for Social Studies educations--Ring of Truth.

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Get Kids Talking About YA Books by Jennifer Paulsen

4/11/2018

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It is such a busy week. I am swamped as I get ready to go to AERA in New York City! To keep me focused, one of my daughters posted this image from the Facebook page LeVar Burton for kids. The image features a quote from Judy Blume. She is clearly one of the rock stars in Children's and YA Literature. I love libraries! I have for as long as I remember. My mother took me, I walked to the book mobile, and we had field trips to the big library when I was in the the sixth grade. When I moved to Las Vegas after the 7th grade, one of the first places of refuge I found was a little local branch in the shopping center on the northwest corner of Alta and Decatur--long since gone. I found my first Louis L'Amour novel, The Sackett Brand, in that branch.

Jennifer's post today inspired me to talk about books once again. So, this morning I took fifteen minutes to do what I am asking all of you to do. I visited our curriculum library, the TDRL, (Teacher Development and
Resources Library) and took some pictures of the books I found--both new and old. I added books to my TBR list. I found some old friends--some from a long time ago. I don't have time or the space to book talk them all. The pictures will have to tell the story. Now, get thee to a library and find those old, familiar friends and the new ones that are siting on the shelf.

After the slide show, Jennifer takes over. Remember, she is one of the people who will be presenting at the YA Summit in Las Vegas this June. Scan down past the wonderful keynotes and view the bios of all of the fantastic presenters. Las Vegas teacher and librarians, Follow Frank Sinatra's advice: "Start spreading the word!" Well, I am leaving to New York. You need to make it to Vegas!

Get Kids Talking About YA Books by Jennifer Paulsen

There is strong support for teacher book talks, a practice I learned about from Nancie Atwell’s In the Middle and later in Penny Kittle’s Book Love. While I am totally in favor of the teacher book talk, one of the best ways to get kids reading is to get them talking about books. “To foster a love of books, children need opportunities to talk about them. Studies suggest that informal conversations around books, such as book talks or book chats, enhance children’s motivation to read” (Neuman, n.p.). Readers of any age often choose to read books people recommend, especially if the recommendation is personalized to what the reader likes. But for those students with limited reading experience, how do they even know what they like? How can we increase the likelihood they will find a good match, repeatedly, while increasing their knowledge of books they might like? Let them do what they want to do anyway: talk to their peers, of course!

Here are four practices to frame student talk about books in your classroom, without using formal speech or discussion structures or increasing your paperload.

The TBR List: If you are a reader, you probably have a TBR (to be read) pile or two in your house. Students need some sort of record-keeping system for remembering books they’ve heard about that they might want to read. The last couple pages of our class notebook contain the TBR list. Any time we are talking about books in some way, that page is open and ready to record our reading intentions. When students ask me for a recommendation, my first question is always, “What’s on your TBR list?” The systematic use of a TBR list to track interesting titles helps students learn to have a reading plan. While there are terrific apps or sites to use like Goodreads, and I do use it as well, the trusty old notebook is my standby. Updating this list is a routine I emphasize strongly throughout the year. Sometimes, I have kids pair up and compare TBR lists, talking about similarities and differences and adding titles. Take a look at the following student TBR lists to see what a couple 8th grade students are interested in reading. Check marks and crossout indicate books the student has read.

Buzzing: I first learned about this simple strategy in Matt Copeland’s book Socratic Circles, though the original source of the activity comes from Stephen Brookfield and Stephen Preskill’s Discussion as a Way of Teaching. This strategy can be used as an icebreaker before more formal discussions, as a sharing tool following a notebook response, or any time you want kids to get up and move around the room while talking to multiple partners. Mondays after independent reading time is an opportune time to start the week by sharing what kids are reading. You can give them verbal prompts to meet specific learning targets, you can have them talk from a list of prompts prepared in advance, or you can let the conversations flow naturally about whatever book they are currently reading or just finished. Copeland recommends that topics be “open-ended and allow students to think critically and speak persuasively about the material” (42). Example topics I’ve used before are:

why I chose the book or how it found me
my favorite moment in the book so far
what is keeping me reading/ holding my interest
who should read it next and why

We usually change partners three or four times at one minute intervals. Then they record any books they heard about that they want to read on their TBR List.

Book Discovery Box: This strategy evolved after a book pass session. You can read more about the Book Pass strategy (sometimes called speed-dating) in one of the most useful books I own: Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles by Harvey Daniels and Nancy Steineke. I discovered that about ten or so books, depending on size, fit nicely in the lid of a copy paper box. After we finished our book pass, a student asked if we could leave the book boxes on the tables and switch them around every couple of days. The closer the students' proximity is to books, the more likely they will read, so I readily agreed. Pretty soon, I started planting books I thought students would like in the box at their tables for them to discover. Often other students would say, “Hey, I think this book is here for you. Put it on your TBR!” And conversation ensued. Students would wander around to other book boxes in the room when they arrived and talk about books until the bell. I loved that they started realizing what others like to read and taking ownership of finding books for others' TBR lists as well as their own.

Books We Love Shelf: I discovered this strategy while watching Nancie Atwell discuss her classroom setup on the DVD Reading in the MIddle: Workshop Essentials. She stressed the importance of giving students ownership over a shelf in the classroom, so it starts the year empty and students fill it with their favorites. I gave it a try. I taught students about “their” shelf and showed them the tiny heart stickers I bought for them to put on the spine to indicate it belonged on the Books We Love Shelf. As the year progressed, students realized that all the best, peer-recommended books were in one place in the classroom. This convenience narrowed the field and vastly improved selection time. A student only had to linger in front of the shelf for a minute or two before a student would slip up and make recommendations. And then another student would pop over to suggest another book. And someone else would offer another suggestion. Once a student made a choice, I had her record the other recommendations in her TBR list. Many passionate and persuasive conversations happened in front of this shelf over the last few years.

These four strategies promoted a strong reading community, buzzing with actively engaged readers talking about high quality young adult literature. Isn’t that what we’re shooting for?

Bio: Jenny Cameron Paulsen is an instructional technology coach, former English teacher, and future social studies teacher at Holmes Junior High in Cedar Falls. She is Past-President & NCTE Liaison for the Iowa Council of Teachers of English and a state representative for ALAN. When she doesn’t have her nose firmly pressed into a book, you might want to check her pulse and breathing! Her passions are history & genealogy. She loves working with discussion techniques and censorship issues in the classroom. You can find her fleeting and occasional thoughts about teaching, learning, and YA at http://2020teachervision.blogspot.com or on Twitter @jennypaulsen555.

Resources

Atwell, Nancie. In the Middle: a Lifetime of Learning about Writing, Reading, and Adolescents. Heinemann, 2015.

Atwell, Nancie. Reading in the Middle Workshop Essentials. DVD. Heinemann, 2011.

Brookfield, Stephen D., and Stephen Preskill. Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms. Wiley, 2012.

Copeland, Matt. Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School. Stenhouse Publishers, 2005.

Daniels, Harvey, and Nancy Steineke. Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles. Heinemann, 2004.

Kittle, Penny. Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers. Heinemann, 2013.

Neuman, Susan B. “The Importance of a Classroom Library.” Retrieved 7 Apr 2018.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/paperbacks/downloads/library.pdf

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What’s in a Border? Using YA Lit to Challenge Dominant Narratives in U.S-Mexico Border Crossing by Briana Asmus

4/6/2018

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After my (Steve’s) freshman year in high school, my best friend asked me if I wanted to go work on his uncle’s farm. I said yes. Thus began three summers of intense farm work that framed much of how I viewed the world and interacted with other people. I learned how to work hard. I learned the difference between a pair of pliers and a wrench; and more importantly, the difference between a wrench and an “effen” wrench.

I also learned that I was going to college. After the first summer, I knew that college provided a variety of different work options that went beyond dark, early mornings, cold water, mud, and heavy lifting. In addition, much of what I learned, I learn alongside undocumented Mexican laborers who worked hard and kindly taught us the tricks of how to move pipe through sugar beets, potatoes, and grain. In the rural farm land outside of Nampa, Idaho quite different from Las Vegas, there were 400 people moving pipe. About ten of us were high school students. Most of the rest, were Mexicans who traveled back and forth between Mexico and Idaho for six to eight months at a time. There were not taking the work from adolescent, most of those adolescent, at the time, wouldn’t take the work. Most of the other adolescents we meet at church, at drive-ins, or other activities thought that we were crazy for doing the type of work we did. I also learned not to judge others just because they were different or their language was different. They were kind, funny, and tried to be inclusive. For two of those years, my buddy, David, and I lived in the same labor camps that were provided for the other workers. The sound of Spanish became familiar and even though I didn’t learn to speak it during those summers. When I began to study Spanish intensely, it was familiar and came easily.

not Steve

not Steve. And, yes the grain keeps growing until it is at least waist high.

This is not a recent story. These three summers were in 1970, 1971, and after a one summer break working in an air conditioned retail store in 1972, we went back in 1973. Maybe it was as a final reminder to try hard when we entered college in August of 1973. In essence, America doesn’t need a wall. We need a better understanding of the difficulty and often of the monotony of blue collar labor, within our country and beyond. We need to understand why people come here for economic opportunity. Do they really take a host of jobs from American workers? Perhaps they are fleeing from oppressive and dangerous situations. Perhaps employers are willing to hire these workers because they will work for less money, do not ask questions, and do not complain about the conditions. Or, they do hire them because no one else shows up to take the job? In reality, there are a host of reasons people might come here. Including, the idea that perhaps many middle class and upper class Americans are interested in the drugs that have enriched cartels and paved avenues of drug trafficking. Would the cartels exist without an American appetite for drugs?

Below Briana Asmus introduces us to several YA novels that might offer the opportunity for a vicarious experience with immigrant realities.

Unfortunately, I moved these nightmares as well.

What’s in a Border? Using YA Lit to Challenge Dominant Narratives in U.S-Mexico Border Crossing by Briana Asmus

A few years ago, I took a position as a literacy consultant at a summer in a migrant education program near the lakeshore in West Michigan. Many of the kids we served had immigrated from Mexico, crossing the border in south Texas and becoming a part of the migrant farmworker stream. There were many families from Mexico, but there were also families from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Many had “crossed” undocumented, and a few had crossed alone-- a truth rarely spoken because of the stigma it carried, the danger it could put students in, and the trauma that frequently accompanies the journey.

Dominant narratives in Trump’s build-the-wall presidency would have us believe that “illegals” who cross the border are criminals, looking to exploit our resources, take our jobs, and take advantage of our social systems (among other things). In my experience, and as told by the stories in Illegal, The Border, and Enrique’s Journey, these deficit narratives are gross oversimplifications of deep-seated political and historical dynamics that persist outside of the characters, yet control their every move.

In Borderlands/La Frontera (1987), Gloria Anzaldua writes “The U.S-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds” (3). This “grating” may be the only common experience between people in stories of border crossing. In a place where everyone is forbidden, unwanted, and simply trying to live, there is not one single narrative, but rather a symphony of the voices of thousands who have run out of options. Bringing these voices into the classroom not only fosters empathy, but provides a necessary counter-narrative to what we hear on the news and in the media.

Bettina Respito’s Illegal adds the voice of a 15-year-old girl, Nora, to the symphony. Nora crosses the border (along with her mother), in search of her father, who leaves the family in search of an income in the States. Crossing the border as a (young) woman poses its own unique set of challenges. Gendered experiences of border crossing would be one theme to explore with students, in addition to themes of loss, resilience, family and faith. The imagery in Illegal is filled with recurring sensory details that form memory in the protagonist and the reader. Another way this text challenges dominant narratives is by providing a story that starts in a small-town in Mexico, largely untouched by narcos. In addition, much of the story takes place in Houston, demonstrating that problems don’t disappear once the border is crossed, in fact, it’s often quite the opposite.

The Border by Steve Schafer offers another perspective, this time from a teen and his three friends who attempt to cross together. It’s fast-paced, and will appeal to students who may struggle with getting “hooked” on a text-- escape from narcos is at the core of the story. The characters challenge stereotypes in different ways, via gender roles and representations of poverty. For the majority of the text, the group of friends encounter very real hardship in the form of gangs, bullets, snakes, and dehydration as they attempt to cross the desert into Arizona. One salient moment is when the protagonist realizes the border is merely some barbed wire between posts; more of a statement (you don’t belong here) than a physical structure. This would be an excellent opportunity for students to the messages behind current rhetoric.

Although not necessarily a YA text, I have to mention Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother. There is an adapted version of this text for young readers. Enrique’s Journey is the true story of an adolescent Honduran boy more than a decade in the making, who tried to cross the border six times before he is successful on the seventh in order to reunite with his mother. This text (or parts of it) can add an important missing piece to the narrative of border crossing; those living in Central America who need to ride “The Beast”, a relentless train through Mexico that takes the lives and limbs of the hundreds who ride atop its cars each year. These travelers face additional hardships, many of them a result of increased discrimination.

All three texts provide ways for students and teachers to conceptualize what it means for young people to cross, an event that’s not rooted in choice, but in survival. While there are plenty of common elements (la migra, dehydration, death, loss) each narrative provides readers with a face, and maybe not the face we expected to see going in.

Note: Since submitting this post to Dr. Bickmore, President Trump has announced his motion to send thousands of troops to “secure” the U.S./Mexico Border. It’s important to note that according to the Department of Homeland Security, border crossing arrests are at a 46-year low, while arrests on the interior for non-violent immigrants (whose only offence was being undocumented) have increased over forty percent (see this article for references). ICE has conducted several sweeps in Grand Rapids, Michigan where I teach. K-12 teachers tell me stories of kids “disappearing,” and some schools are creating safety plans in case of an ICE visit. I have started inviting immigration lawyers to be guest speakers in my seminars. The border is now everywhere.

Briana Asmus is Assistant Professor and Director for ESL and Bilingual Programs at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI. She can be contacted at bma004@aquinas.edu.

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ProjectLIT: A Book Club That’s FIRE by Martha Guarisco

ProjectLIT: A Book Club That’s FIRE by Martha Guarisco

Two New Books! Young Adult Literature and the Digital World and Toward a More Visual Literacy

Young Adult Literature and the Digital World

PART I: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND DIGITAL SPACES TO ENCOUNTER THE WORLD

PART II: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND DIGITAL SPACES TO EVALUATE THE WORLD

PART III: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATUREAND DIGITAL SPACES TO ENGAGE IN THE WORLD

Toward a More Visual LIteracy

PART I: CLASSROOM CONTEXTS: HELPING STUDENTS VISUALIZE DIGITALLY

PART II: SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT: CONNECTING YOUTH BEYOND SCHOOL

PART III: CRITICAL INQUIRY: DIGGING DEEPER WITH YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE

YA Graphic Mysteries by Robert Prickett and Casey Cothran

YA Graphic Mysteries

Sarah has a Book Event!

Brendan Kiely has a New Book and Laurie Halse Anderson is Going to be with him to Talk about Tradition.

Engaging Teens with History through YA Literature by Jo Schaffer

Take it Away Jo.

Read the Interview Below!

Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday is Joining in a Give Away!

Bridging Curricular Silos Through Collaboration

Steve's Turn

Now Paul's Turn

Question Slide:

Get Kids Talking About YA Books by Jennifer Paulsen

Get Kids Talking About YA Books by Jennifer Paulsen

Resources

Come to the YA Summit and be #LasVegasStrong and YA Critical
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What’s in a Border? Using YA Lit to Challenge Dominant Narratives in U.S-Mexico Border Crossing by Briana Asmus

What’s in a Border? Using YA Lit to Challenge Dominant Narratives in U.S-Mexico Border Crossing by Briana Asmus

Come be #VegasStrong and YA Critical

Author

Archives

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Blogs to Follow

Young Adult Literature and the Digital World

​PART I: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND DIGITAL SPACES TO ENCOUNTER THE WORLD

PART II: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND DIGITAL SPACES TO EVALUATE THE WORLD

PART III: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATUREAND DIGITAL SPACES TO ENGAGE IN THE WORLD

Toward a More Visual LIteracy

PART I: CLASSROOM CONTEXTS: HELPING STUDENTS VISUALIZE DIGITALLY

PART II: SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT: CONNECTING YOUTH BEYOND SCHOOL

PART III: CRITICAL INQUIRY: DIGGING DEEPER WITH YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE

YA Graphic Mysteries

Take it Away Jo.

Read the Interview Below!

Steve's Turn

Now Paul's Turn

Question Slide:

Get Kids Talking About YA Books by Jennifer Paulsen

Resources

Come to the YA Summit and be #LasVegasStrong and YA CriticalClick on the Image below!

Come be #VegasStrong and YA Critical

Author

Archives

Categories

Blogs to Follow

PART I: USING YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND DIGITAL SPACES TO ENCOUNTER THE WORLD

Come to the YA Summit and be #LasVegasStrong and YA Critical
Click on the Image below!