This research was a 12-week-long study of six participants attending the same alternative high school in a suburban district in the northeast of the United States. Rosenblatt's Reader Response Theory and interpretative qualitative methodology were used to examine participants' reactions to reading self-selected young adult (YA) literature during…

Linked text sets (LTS) offer a promising approach to bring together adolescent students and complex texts, such as those required by the Common Core State Standards, using strategic scaffolding. LTS include a variety of print and media texts that address a guiding question that is meaningful to students such as, "Why is growing up so…

This article examines how Black girlhood is constructed through fiction. The following research question guided this study: How do writers represent the heterogeneity of urban teenage girls in school-sanctioned African American young adult literature? Five popular narratives that exemplify the contemporary lives of urban African American female…

Taking a critical, research-oriented perspective, this exploration of the theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical connections between the reading and teaching of young adult literature and adolescent identity development centers around three key questions: (1) Who are the teens reading young adult literature?; (2) Why should teachers teach young…

Young adults deserve our best as parents, educators and community members. The Michael L. Printz award winning books, instituted by the Young Adult Library Association, form a recent grouping of current literature. Novels worthy of the Printz Award explore physical, emotional, and social themes important in the lives of young adults. This library…

In this article, three authors collaborate in a powerful defense of teaching LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) literature for the good of all students. Curwood, one of three authors, discusses how one of the key ways that schools condone homophobia is by failing to include LGBTQ literature in the curriculum. Schliesman…

The reading students are required to do for school bears little semblance to the reading they do outside of school. Students today are reading the same texts in school that students read a generation ago, but the varieties of text used outside of school are much different. One result is that many students are unmotivated to become readers.…

This article features some of the programs offered in the Reno conference. Two of the preconferences at Reno will focus on children's literature. Judy Freeman will talk about some of the current and future trends for books for younger readers. She will share a plethora of some of the best picture books and chapter books. Ruth Cox Clark will take…