Jennifer Buehler knows young adult literature. A teacher educator,
former high school teacher, and host of ReadWriteThink.org's Text
Messages podcast, she has shared her enthusiasm for this vibrant
literature with thousands of teachers and adolescents.
She knows that middle and high school students run the gamut as readers,
from nonreaders to struggling readers to reluctant readers to dutiful
readers to enthusiastic readers. And in a culture where technological
distractions are constant, finding a way to engage all of these
different kinds of readers is challenging, no matter the form of
delivery. More and more, literacy educators are turning to YA lit as a
way to transform all teens into enthusiastic readers. If we want to meet
the needs of all students as readers, we have to offer books they
can--and want to--read. Today's YA lit provides the books that speak to
the world of teens even as they draw them out into the larger world.
But we have to do more than put YA titles in front of students and teach
these books as we've traditionally taught more canonical works. Instead,
we can implement a YA pedagogy--one that revolves around student
motivation while upholding the goals of rigor and complexity. Buehler
explores the three core elements of a YA pedagogy with proven success in
practice:
- A classroom that cultivates reading community
- A teacher who serves as book matchmaker and guide
- And tasks that foster complexity, agency, and autonomy in teen readers
With a supporting explication of NCTE's Policy Research Brief Reading
Instruction for All Students and lively vignettes of teachers and
students reading with passion and purpose, this book is designed to help
teachers develop their own version of YA pedagogy and a vision for
teaching YA lit in the middle and secondary classroom.
