As a high school teacher, Ricki Ginsberg realized that a truly
student-centered classroom requires student input.
To foster a more ethical, community-based approach to curriculum design
and instruction, she worked with her students to reimagine and co-design
existing, grade-level courses, and in doing so, they integrated young
adult literature as central to the curriculum and course design.
In this book, Ginsberg, along with more than a dozen teacher
contributors, shares course design possibilities for teachers seeking to
disrupt and reimagine traditional structures with the inclusion of YA
literature.
With communities of practice as a guiding framework, Challenging
Traditional Classroom Spaces with YA Literature explores how teachers
might work with students to build a community that defines their
purposes together, how they might investigate new possibilities for
existing or traditional courses by harnessing the potential of YA
literature, how they might use critical freedom to co-develop YA
electives, and how they can lead literate lives together as a community
of practice that is engaged with their local and global communities.
Grounded in NCTE's Preparing Teachers with Knowledge of Children's and
Young Adult Literature position statement, this book offers both big
ideas, such as overarching structural decisions and pedagogical
positioning, as well as a wealth of flexible and adaptable practical
strategies and ideas that can be implemented directly in secondary
classrooms with varied contexts and purposes.
