thesis young adult literature

ENG 350 Young Adult Literature Class Guide

• Writing a Thesis Statement
• Source Types
• Searching Google Search and Google Scholar
• Searching Discovery
• Search Terms
• Search Stategies
• Using Sources Effectively
• Citing with MLA Style
• ILL Request Form This link opens in a new window
• Research Guides

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Introduction

Welcome! This page is designed to help you with your Young Adult Literature research paper. Use this page to learn more about:

• Brainstorming a thesis topic
• Identifying source types
• Searching Google and Google Scholar
• Using library databases to find secondary sources
• Using your sources effectively
• Citing your sources

If you have any questions about any aspect of your research assignment, please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] .

Selecting a Topic

Coming up with a thesis statement for a critical literary paper can be difficult, but these strategies should help you in the process. Take some time to brainstorm and look back at readings from the course. Consider the topics that interested you during the class and explore those more fully.

Your assignment reads:

For the research essay, you will choose a controversial topic related to, or within YA literature (for example: book banning; sexuality; violence; gay/lesbian/queer content; birth control; teen suicide; teens and drugs) and discuss it in depth.

Start by selecting your topic of interest in YA literature and identify course texts that fall into those categories. You may also bring other titles in to argue your topic. If you're having focusing your topic, try some of the exercises below:

• Purdue OWL's Introduction to Prewriting This site will provide you with a list of questions to ask yourself while you flesh out your potential focus.
• Develop a Topic from University of Indiana Libraries

If you're still having trouble, think about looking into the subject terms for your course texts to see what topics are covered within them. For example, in the subject terms for  Monster  by Walter Dean Myers, you'll find such subject terms as "self-perception," "prisons—fiction," "African Americans—fiction," and more.

If you'd like to see the subject terms, select the image of the cover of the book you're interested in to get started:

The Graveyard Book

One of Us Is Lying

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Writing Your Thesis Statement

Once you know what you would like to discuss within the primary work, try to write your thesis down in one or two sentences. Thesis sentences should be clear, concise, and specific. The Bridgewater College Writing Center has this to say about thesis statements:

In general, academic writing requires a thesis statement. A thesis statement is often considered to be part of an argumentative text, any paper that takes a position on something, that is, a paper that makes a claim. One way to think about the thesis statement is that if you boiled your whole case down to a single statement, that statement would be your thesis. A thesis statement typically identifies your topic and embodies your attitude toward your topic. Most writing assignments will require you to take a position on a topic, and most college professors expect to find a clear statement of that position, almost always in your introductory paragraph. 

For more information on writing thesis statements, see the Bridgewater College Writing Center page on thesis statements .

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The Value of Young Adult Literature

By michael cart for yalsa, adopted by yalsa’s board of directors, january 2008.

Abstract: This White Paper will discuss the nature and evolution of young adult literature with particular emphasis on its current condition and its value to its intended readership. In discussing its increased viability as a body of critically lauded literature, it will also discuss its importance in meeting the life needs of young adults and its increasing value in enhancing adolescent literacy. It will conclude by affirming the Young Adult Library Services Association’s commitment to evaluating, promoting, and supporting the most widespread availability possible of this literature to American youth.

Background: The term “young adult literature” is inherently amorphous, for its constituent terms “young adult” and “literature” are dynamic, changing as culture and society — which provide their context — change. When the term first found common usage in the late 1960’s, it referred to realistic fiction that was set in the real (as opposed to imagined), contemporary world and addressed problems, issues, and life circumstances of interest to young readers aged approximately 12-18. Such titles were issued by the children’s book divisions of American publishers and were marketed to institutions – libraries and schools – that served such populations. While some of this remains true today, much else has changed. In recent years, for example, the size of this population group has changed dramatically. Between 1990 and 2000 the number of persons between 12 and 19 soared to 32 million, a growth rate of seventeen percent that significantly outpaced the growth of the rest of the population. The size of this population segment has also increased as the conventional definition of “young adult” has expanded to include those as young as ten and, since the late 1990s, as old as twenty-five.

“Literature,” which traditionally meant fiction, has also expanded to include new forms of literary – or narrative — nonfiction and new forms of poetry, including novels and book-length works of nonfiction in verse. The increasing importance of visual communication has begun to expand this definition to include the pictorial, as well, especially when offered in combination with text as in the case of picture books, comics, and graphic novels and nonfiction.

As a result of these newly expansive terms, the numbers of books being published for this audience have similarly increased, perhaps by as much as 25 percent, based on the number of titles being reviewed by a leading journal. Similarly, industry analyst Albert Greco states that the sale of young adult books increased by 23 percent from 1999 to 2005.

Though once dismissed as a genre consisting of little more than problem novels and romances, young adult literature has, since the mid-1990’s, come of age as literature – literature that welcomes artistic innovation, experimentation, and risk-taking.

Evidence of this is the establishment of the Michael L. Printz Award, which YALSA presents annually to the author of the best young adult book of the year, “best” being defined solely in terms of literary merit. Further evidence is the extraordinary number of critically acclaimed adult authors who have begun writing for young adults – authors like Michael Chabon, Isabel Allende, Dale Peck, Julia Alvarez, T. C. Boyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, and a host of others. As a result of these and other innovations young adult literature has become one of the most dynamic, creatively exciting areas of publishing.

Position: YALSA is acknowledging this growing diversity by expanding the number of book-related awards and lists it presents and publishes. Audio books and graphic novels are only two of the new areas that YALSA is targeting. Meanwhile it continues to promote excellence in the field through such established prizes as the Printz, ALEX, and Margaret A. Edwards Awards and such recommended lists as Best Books for Young Adults and Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers.

YALSA also acknowledges that whether one defines young adult literature narrowly or broadly, much of its value cannot be quantified but is to be found in how it addresses the needs of its readers. Often described as “developmental,” these needs recognize that young adults are beings in evolution, in search of self and identity; beings who are constantly growing and changing, morphing from the condition of childhood to that of adulthood. That period of passage called “young adulthood” is a unique part of life, distinguished by unique needs that are – at minimum — physical, intellectual, emotional, and societal in nature.

By addressing these needs, young adult literature is made valuable not only by its artistry but also by its relevance to the lives of its readers. And by addressing not only their needs but also their interests, the literature becomes a powerful inducement for them to read, another compelling reason to value it, especially at a time when adolescent literacy has become a critically important issue. The Alliance for Excellent Education has declared a “literacy crisis among middle and high school students” in the wake of research from the National Assessment of Educational Progress that finds 65 percent of graduating high school seniors and 71 percent of America’s eighth graders are reading below grade level.

As literacy has become another developmental need of young adults, organizations like the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English have begun to recognize the imperative need for “a wide variety of reading material that they (young adults) can and want to read” (IRA), books that “should be self-selected and of high interest to the reader” (NCTE), young adult books, in short.

As a literature of relevance that meets developmental needs – including literacy skills — young adult literature also becomes a developmental asset , which YALSA’s New Directions For Library Service To Young Adults defines as “a factor promoting positive teenage development.” The independent, nonprofit Search Institute offers a framework of forty such developmental assets.

YALSA finds another of the chief values of young adult literature in its capacity to offer readers an opportunity to see themselves reflected in its pages. Young adulthood is, intrinsically, a period of tension. On the one hand young adults have an all-consuming need to belong. But on the other, they are also inherently solipsistic, regarding themselves as being unique, which – for them — is not cause for celebration but, rather, for despair. For to be unique is to be unlike one’s peers, to be “other,” in fact. And to be “other” is to not belong but, instead, to be outcast. Thus, to see oneself in the pages of a young adult book is to receive the reassurance that one is not alone after all, not other, not alien but, instead, a viable part of a larger community of beings who share a common humanity. Another value of young adult literature is its capacity for fostering understanding, empathy, and compassion by offering vividly realized portraits of the lives – exterior and interior – of individuals who are un likethe reader. In this way young adult literature invites its readership to embrace the humanity it shares with those who – if not for the encounter in reading – might forever remain strangers or – worse — irredeemably “other.”

Still another value of young adult literature is its capacity for telling its readers the truth, however disagreeable that may sometimes be, for in this way it equips readers for dealing with the realities of impending adulthood and for assuming the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

By giving readers such a frame of reference, it also helps them to find role models, to make sense of the world they inhabit, to develop a personal philosophy of being, to determine what is right and, equally, what is wrong, to cultivate a personal sensibility. To, in other words, become civilized.

Conclusion: For all of these reasons the Young Adult Library Services Association values young adult literature, believes it is an indispensable part of public and school library collections, and regards it as essential to healthy youth development and the corollary development of healthy communities in which both youth and libraries can thrive.

• Alliance for Excellent Education. Press Center, http://all4ed.org/press_room . Accessed 9/28/07.
• Cart, Michael. “Teens and the Future of Reading.” American Libraries. October 2007.
• Cart, Michael. “Young Adult Literature: The State of a Restless Art” in Passions and Pleasures by Michael Cart. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2007
• International Reading Association. “Adolescent Literacy” www.reading.org/resources/issues/positions_adolescent.html Accessed 9/28/07.
• Magazine Publishers of America. Teen Market Profile. www.magazine.org/content/files/teenprofile04.pdf (PDF file). Accessed 9/28/07.
• NCTE. “A Call To Action.” www.ncte.org Accessed 9/28/07.
• Patrick Jones for the Young Adult Library Services Association. New Directions for Library Service to Young Adults. Edited by Linda Waddle. Chicago: ALA, 2002.
• Search Institute. www.search-institute.org .

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Home > Graduate School > ETD > Theses > 1216

A Tale of Two Generations: Re-Establishing Young Adult Literature in the Contemporary Classroom

Erin Michelle Allen , Southern Illinois University Carbondale Follow

Date of Award

Degree name.

Master of Arts

First Advisor

Brunner, Edward

This thesis explores the history and current condition of contemporary young adult literature. It looks at why the genre has been marginalized, especially in relation to education and scholarly critique. Chapter one places Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter alongside the contemporary fiction of Hilary Jordan, When She Woke. The discussion of Jordan's work points out the importance of the contemporary work and how it can be used to enhance learning and appreciation for it's canonical predecessor. Chapter two looks at the ghost story as written for the younger range of young adult literature, the crossover novel, and adult literature. Lisa McMann's Cryer's Cross explores how death and ghosts affect those left behind after a trauma and is targeted to a young adult audience. Laura Kasischke's novel The Raising addresses ghostly existences when a college student is supposedly killed by her boyfriend. This book bridges the gap between young adult literature and adult literature. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold looks at death and loss from the vantage point of the dead and it's subtlety puts it in the group of adult literature. All three novels help their targeted audiences in differing ways and allows for self-exploration of beliefs and values.

Since December 10, 2013

This thesis is only available for download to the SIUC community. Current SIUC affiliates may also access this paper off campus by searching Dissertations & Theses @ Southern Illinois University Carbondale from ProQuest. Others should contact the interlibrary loan department of your local library or contact ProQuest's Dissertation Express service .

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Young adults literature'

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Shang, Siyi, and Nuonuo Li. "Adolescents’ and Young Adults’ Transition Experiences when Transferring from Pediatrics to Adult Care : A descriptive literature review." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för vårdvetenskap, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-36803.

Clemens, Lisbeth. "Images of masculinity : ideology and narrative structure in realistic novels for young adults." Thesis, McGill University, 2005. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=85898.

Anggraini, Theresia Enny. "The Characteristics of Child-to-Adult Crossover Literature." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1440027648.

Deans, Sharon. "Teen Gothic : sex, death and autonomy in young adult Gothic literature." Thesis, University of Stirling, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/15908.

Lee, Li-Feng. "The responses of Taiwanese adolescent girls to selected American short stories for young adults." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1173205682.

Malisch, Sherrie Lee. "Kids take charge : reflections on an emergent motif in school stories for young adults." Mémoire, Université de Sherbrooke, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11143/9895.

Mellano, Silvia. "Letteratura per Young Adults a tema LGBTQ+ Proposta di traduzione del libro a fumetti "Gender Queer: A Memoir"." Bachelor's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2022.

Rota, Marta. "Poison Ivy: un processo, due fazioni, otto voci narranti. Proposta di traduzione di un romanzo americano per young adults sul bullismo." Master's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2016. http://amslaurea.unibo.it/12084/.

Cahill, Rebecca E. "The relationship between political environment and size of a library's collection of GLBTQ fiction for young adults." Connect to this title online, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1901/124.

Jesus, Adriana Pereira de. "A construção do romance policial em O caso da estranha fotografia, Berenice Detetive e Droga de Americana!" Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, 2009. http://tede.mackenzie.br/jspui/handle/tede/2271.

Wiggill, Magrita Nicolene. "Francois Bloemhof se Slinger-slinger : 'n leserkundige evaluering met verwysing na Afrikaanslesende tieners / Magrita Nicolene Wiggill." Thesis, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10394/3691.

Jones, Caroline E. Tarr C. Anita. "Female sexuality in young adult literature." Normal, Ill. : Illinois State University, 2006. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=1225117161&SrchMode=1&sid=4&Fmt=2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1177689304&clientId=43838.

Hinton-Johnson, KaaVonia Mechelle. "Expanding the power of literature African American literary theory & young adult literature /." Columbus, OH : Ohio State University, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1054833658.

Lash, Holly L. "Evaluating Young Adult Literature through Transactional Theory." Ohio Dominican University Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oduhonors1449497760.

Verbruggen, Frances Augusta Ramos. "Representations of Immigrants in Young Adult Literature." Thesis, Portland State University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10979318.

This study was conducted to determine how immigrants and the immigration experience are represented in current young adult (YA) literature. In the study, I asked the following questions: Who are the immigrant characters in recent YA books? Why do they come? How do they experience immigration? How are they perceived or treated by others? A content analysis methodology was used to examine, from a critical literacy viewpoint, recent young adult novels with immigration themes. Data were analyzed by identifying and interpreting patterns in themes across 22 YA novels with immigrant protagonists or other important characters, published between 2013 and 2017. Data indicated that the protagonists in the study reflected current immigration trends fairly accurately, came to the United States primarily to escape violence or persecution in their home countries, experienced a variety of challenges, tended to hold onto their home country cultures, and were often the objects of racism, but also found kindness and friendship in the United States. Teachers who desire to include authentic immigrant literature in their classroom libraries should consider from whose perspectives the books have been written, and learn about the authors’ backgrounds and the messages that authors want to convey through the books that they write. In addition, immigrants can be encouraged to write children’s and young adult books, sharing their experiences and contributing to the supply of realistic immigrant literature with complex and authentic immigrant characters.

Horton, Nancy Spence. "Young Adult Literature and Censorship: A Content Analysis of Seventy-Eight Young Adult Books." Thesis, North Texas State University, 1986. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc331381/.

Cubero, Josefin. "Upplevelsen av transitionen från barn- till vuxensjukvård : En litteraturöversikt om unga vuxna med kroniska sjukdomar." Thesis, Hälsohögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, HHJ, Avd. för omvårdnad, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-44306.

Hyltse, Natalie. "Literally Depressed : Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature." Thesis, Luleå tekniska universitet, Institutionen för ekonomi, teknik och samhälle, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-79551.

Young, Kathyrn M. "Withdrawn from Curriculum: Feminism and Young Adult Literature." Ohio University Honors Tutorial College / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1307377432.

Santos, Cátia Susana Amaral dos. "Book cover trends in American young adult literature." Master's thesis, Universidade de Aveiro, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10773/12888.

Kiser, Kelsey R. "Young Adult Literature and Empathy in Appalachian Adolescents." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2017. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3325.

Miskin, Kristana. "A transnational study : young adult literature exchanged between the U.S. and Germany /." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2008. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2651.pdf.

Paulin, Lotta. "Den didaktiska fiktionen : Konstruktion av förebilder ur ett barn- och ungdomslitterärt perspektiv 1400–1750." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för litteraturvetenskap och idéhistoria, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-74273.

Garcia, Rocio Janet. "BUILDING A STRONG CHICANA IDENTITY: YOUNG ADULT CHICANA LITERATURE." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/778.

Pedlow, Jessica. "Connecting Adolescents to Adolescent Literature: A Study of Eighth Graders’ Lived Experiences and Literature’s Responses." Honors in the Major Thesis, University of Central Florida, 2004. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETH/id/722.

Löwe, Corina. "Von Jungen Pionieren und Gangstern : Der Kinder- und Jugendkriminalroman in der DDR." Doctoral thesis, Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för baltiska språk, finska och tyska, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-60269.

Mackarey, Amelia. "Representation and Imagination of the Holocaust in Young Adult Literature." Honors in the Major Thesis, University of Central Florida, 2014. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETH/id/1613.

Jacobs, Sue L. "Artistic response of incarcerated male youth to young adult literature /." Search for this dissertation online, 2003. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ksu/main.

Goodson, Lori Ann Atkins. "Protagonists in young adult literature and their reflection of society /." Search for this dissertation online, 2004. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ksu/main.

Nelson, Kyra McKinzie. "Lexical Trends in Young Adult Literature: A Corpus-Based Approach." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2016. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5805.

Jewkes, Cary Rich. "Changing the Narrative: The Educational Power of Reading Young Adult Literature." ScholarWorks @ UVM, 2019. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/1029.

Schoch, Nate L. "Bibliotherapy and underrepresented issues in young adult literature a reference guide /." Menomonie, WI : University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2005. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2005/2005schochn.pdf.

Malo-Juvera, Victor. "The Effect of Young Adult Literature on Adolescents' Rape Myth Acceptance." FIU Digital Commons, 2012. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/564.

Riddell, Sarah Colleen. "Gender in young adult literature : Harry Potter and The Hunger Games." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/58723.

Heuschele, Margaret, and n/a. "The Construction of Youth in Australian Young Adult Literature 1980-2000." University of Canberra. Creative Communication, 2007. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20081029.171132.

Tan, Susan. "Between times : growing into future's history in young adult dystopian literature." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2015. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.708554.

Smith, Jennifer. "The information behaviour of authors of children's and young adult literature." Thesis, Aberystwyth University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2160/9b8f1496-436b-4791-a0a5-2241c2dea250.

Jones, Claire. "An Intersectional Feminist Perspective of Emmett Till in Young Adult Literature." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2018. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3413.

Padilla, Perez Carol Isabel. "Navigating Borders: Identity Formation and Latina Representation in Young Adult Literature." The Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1499859833963717.

Hare, Heather N. "Healing with Word: How Young Adult Literature Affects Incarcerated Adolescent Males." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1509535179731481.

Shen, Fu-Yuan. "Narrative strategies in Robert Cormier's young adult novels." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1135277215.

Pilcher, Toni E. "Mormon Characters in Young Adult Novels." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2012. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3004.

Shen, Fu-Yuan. "Narrative strategies in Robert Cormier’s young adult novels." The Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1135277215.

Page, Sue, and n/a. "Australian young adult keen readers:choices they make, and creators' views regarding the young adult market." University of Canberra. Creative Communication, 2005. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20061024.143742.

Reber, Lauren Lewis. "Negotiating hope and honesty : a rhetorical criticism of young adult dystopian literature /." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2005. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd720.pdf.

Clarke, Adrienne L. "Making literature meaningful, exploring cultural identity in realistic young adult multicultural fiction." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ31187.pdf.

Nave, Joshua. "When Honor Falls: A Study of Japanese Honor in Young Adult Literature." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2021. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/612.

Cordier, Nicole M. "Aliens in our Own Bodies; Representations of Epilepsy in Young Adult Literature." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1571264824902148.

Miskin, Kristana. "A Transnational Study: Young Adult Literature Exchanged Between the US and Germany." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2008. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/1612.

Hodge, Diana Victoria, and dhodge@utas edu au. "Victorianisms in twentieth century young adult fiction." Deakin University. School of Communication and Creative Arts, 2006. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20060525.151043.

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Representation & Construction of Disabilities in Young Adult Literature

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Honors Program Theses and Projects

Searching for identity: connecting students to young adult literature in the classroom through language.

Samantha Correia , Bridgewater State University

Document Type

Young adult literature largely influences the cultures and the lives of young people; often these popular young adult novels become well-known as they are made into movies and are in high demand. These novels are not just for young adults; these texts can be read at any age and have accessible themes that many people can relate to. However, in this research, young adult literature will be discussed in terms of how these novels affect children, mostly from ages ten to eighteen, as many of the characters in these texts are a similar age to them. Young adult literature (YA lit) is not just any book that would be read in a secondary education classroom. Novels that are considered classics, like perhaps Lord of the Flies or Oliver Twist , might be about children, but they are either not written for children and therefore not considered young adult literature. While older classics of course have literary merit, and much can be learned from them, this research will focus primarily on more recently published young adult literature that is more currently relatable to adolescents’ lives and specifically written for teenagers. Literature does not have to be relatable, because the reader will most likely learn something either way. But for teenagers specifically, who often do not enjoy reading and are questioning their own sense of identity, YA lit can serve as a powerful tool for helping students understand themselves at a time in their lives when they are trying to figure out who they are.

Thesis Comittee

Dr. Joyce Rain Anderson, Thesis Advisor

Dr. Heidi Bean, Committee Member

Dr. Benjamin Carson, Committee Member

Copyright and Permissions

Original document was submitted as an Honors Program requirement. Copyright is held by the author.

Recommended Citation

Correia, Samantha. (2018). Searching for Identity: Connecting Students to Young Adult Literature in the Classroom Through Language. In BSU Honors Program Theses and Projects. Item 412. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/honors_proj/412

Copyright © 2018 Samantha Correia

Since September 29, 2020

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Young Adult

The phrase “young adult” reflects the history of changing perceptions of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood and how these ideas have shaped parenting, education, libraries, publishing, and marketing (Cart 1996; Eccleshare 1996; Campbell 2009). The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) denotes ages twelve to eighteen as composing “young adult” readers (YALSA 1994). Given the dominant conception that this period of growth is particularly important, understandings of what constitutes “good” young adult literature vary extensively, for there is a great deal at stake.

Readers often imagine young adult (YA) literature as texts that challenge the status quo. They believe that while children’s literature finds its roots in a cheerful, Wordsworthian Romanticism, YA literature is heir to the more revolutionary strain of Blakean Romanticism with characters who incisively expose society’s ills (Lesnik-Oberstein 1998). An examination of the phrase’s history, however, reveals a more complex Romantic inheritance that can illuminate contradictions within the various communities that coalesce around their interest in YA literature, and in their belief in sheltering these readers from or introducing them to a range of texts.

Oddly, “young adult” is not found in most dictionaries even though it is used in thousands of articles in academic, educational, and library journals in addition to the popular press. Patty Campbell (2003) documents the earliest “use of the term young adult for teen books… [in] 1937, although it didn’t come into general use until 1958.” This move followed organizational changes within the American Library Association, dividing the Association of Young People’s Librarians into the Children’s Library Association and the Young Adult Services Division in 1957 (Starr n.d.), but librarians had already begun creating special spaces and services for their teenaged readers as early as 1926 (Campbell 2003).

“Young adult” is not in the Oxford English Dictionary , but Random House Dictionary defines it as “a teenager (used especially by publishers and librarians).” Improbably, their editors skip the phrase’s adjectival form entirely. Although they gesture toward the textual world—reminding readers that people who work with books use this word—they never remark upon it in the context of YA literature. They also define it as “a person in the early years of adulthood,” a definition that only points to the very end of the age continuum, excluding most of the readership addressed by Random House’s YA imprint, Delacorte. It does incorporate the more expansive understanding of “young adult” that includes the MTV demographic of readers as old as twenty-five, however (Cart 2001).

The dominant way of imagining and marketing YA literature is shaped primarily by the age of the work’s intended reader. Yet “crossover” novels such as Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy (1995–2000) and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1997–2007)—read by children, adolescents, and adults—challenge the categorization based solely on age. Further complicating the often dualistic category of crossover literature, YA literature comfortably houses award-winning “adult” texts such as Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003); children’s books like Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (1992; see Aronson 2001); texts that have won awards in children’s and young adult fiction, such as Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion (2002); as well as literature imagined as young adult, such as Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007).

Importantly, defining “young adult” according to what readers between the ages of twelve and eighteen (or twenty-five) would enjoy or benefit from reveals assumptions about adolescent readers that pre-date the “beginning” of YA literature in the 1960s. Sarah Trimmer appears to be the first to have used the concept of a young adult readership in her periodical, The Guardian of Education (1802–6), although she uses the terms “young person” or “young people” (Chambers 1985a; Eccleshare 1996). Trimmer, a deeply religious writer and publisher, loomed large on the intellectual landscape of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Ruwe 2001), and upon her death, more than one person publicly urged Britain to memorialize her in Saint Paul’s Cathedral (Myers 1990). Trimmer designed The Guardian to help adults choose “safe and good” books for children and young persons “from the most respectable sources” (Trimmer 1802). Her primary concern was helping readers avoid books influenced by contemporary philosophy, and promoting those that would shape well-behaved, submissive, and God-fearing youth.

Relying on some of the new theories of child development, Trimmer makes what is likely the first distinction between child and young adult readers, explaining how she

shall endeavour to separate [texts] into two distinct classes, viz. Books for Children_, and Books_ for Young Persons … [and shall] take the liberty of adopting the idea of our forefathers, by supposing all young gentlemen and ladies to be Children_, till they are_ fourteen and young persons till they are at least twenty-one_; and shall class books we examine as they shall appear to us to be suitable to these different stages of human life. (Trimmer 1802)_

Although Trimmer’s understanding of young people is remarkably contemporary in its perception of young adulthood as lasting until “at least twenty-one,” and also in how it is conceptualizing young adult readers, The Guardian ’s recommended reading is literature that might be enjoyed by adolescents but was not necessarily written with them in mind. (See Trites [1996, 2000] on the distinction between adolescent and YA literature; see Immel’s index [1990] for the list of texts Trimmer recommended to her adolescent readers.) Undeniably, determining whether or not a work is written expressly for young adults is a significant variable in defining contemporary YA literature.

Contrary to Trimmer’s understanding that good literature should fashion young readers into deeply moral people, contemporary YA literature ostensibly shuns that didactic impulse. And while Trimmer’s periodical provided children and young people with models of near impossible virtue in order to shape more upright adults, today’s YA literature could hardly be said to advance this agenda—indeed, the “adult” in “young adult” is often code for its euphemistic meaning of mature content. Yet, as many have pointed out, the problem novel in the 1970s, a staple genre within YA literature, was freighted with deeply didactic impulses (Cart 1996; Trites 2000). Undeniably, the conventional association between YA literature’s beginnings and realism privileges both verisimilitude and a strong sense of moral purpose (see Cart 1996; Tribunella 2007; Campbell 2009; Nilsen and Donelson 2009). For if we take Raymond Williams’s (1983a) important articulation of realism as “a description of facing up to things as they really are, and not as we imagine or would like them to be,” then we arrive at a dominant theme in much of contemporary YA literature. While Trimmer’s understanding of “things as they really are” is grounded in readings that reflect a prerevolutionary world order and a divine transcendental signified, the foundational texts of YA literature, such as S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders (1967), Paul Zindel’s The Pigman (1968), and Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War (1974), are anchored in an equally fervent—though more subtly articulated—commitment to “‘facing facts’” (Williams 1983a).

S. E. Hinton (1967b) calls for a young adult literature fashioned against romance—those novels about the “horse-and-the-girl-who-loved-it” as well as the “fairyland of proms and double dates.” Instead, she insists that texts address the real “violence of teen-agers’ lives… [such as] the beating-up at a local drive-in” or the “reality” of “the behind-the-scenes politicking that goes on in big schools, [and] the cruel social system” that defines popularity. She demands this realism because of her belief that young people “know their parents aren’t superhuman,… that justice doesn’t always win out, and that sometimes the bad guys win.” Her understanding of fiction has an implicit moral imperative: to “face facts,” certainly, but also to show that “some people don’t sell out, and that everyone can’t be bought.” Jerry Renault, the protagonist of The Chocolate War , could be held up as an example of Hinton’s latter claim. (Anita Tarr’s [2002] vital rejoinder to this dominant reading extends Hinton’s insistence on the importance of exposing the real violence of teenagers’ lives. For Tarr reveals that Jerry does not make a conscious choice to “disturb the universe,” and asserts that academics’ and teachers’ attention to his “decision” to resist the chocolate sale shifts critical focus away from the novel’s deeply troubling and virulent misogyny—another “fact” readers need to face.)

Many contemporary YA writers, even those not allied with realist works, are also committed to this politics of realism, which often addresses ethical concerns. M. T. Anderson’s Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing novels (2006, 2008) present eighteenth-century American society in new and ominous ways, ingeniously illuminating the horrors of slavery, and melding rich historical realism with new imaginary perspectives. Octavian Nothing pushes readers to contemplate what it means to be human, and has stirred debate about the nature of youth and what they should be reading. Other significant YA texts also advance a realist agenda ineluctably bound up with a sense of the moral possibilities of literature. Francesca Lia Block’s magical realist fiction reminds readers of the transformative potential of love and art in stories that address topics such as sexual abuse and AIDS, all the while challenging heteronormativity by consistently providing readers with gay characters. Other, more realist writers advance similar agendas and illuminate the limits of Block’s more utopian yearnings. Jacqueline Woodson makes alarmingly clear that race still clouds how people see other humans in If You Come Softly (1998) and reveals the particular challenges facing biracial youth in The House You Pass on the Way (1999), as well as presenting a range of sexual identities and experiences for her characters. Walter Dean Myers’s Monster (1999) scrutinizes flaws in the American judicial system while also trenchantly examining contemporary constructions of masculinity. And Catherine Atkins’s When Jeff Comes Home (1999) considers sexual violence against boys and men, crucially illuminating effects of trauma as well as the intensely gendered ways we conceptualize victims of sexual violence (Pattee 2004). Other texts that examine rape, such as Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (1999), work to show young readers that adults are not “superhuman,” to use Hinton’s phrase, but significantly depict them as human and humane—unlike the remote, distasteful, and sometimes sadistic adults presented in The Chocolate War . If sex and death are the two primary concepts from which we shelter children (Mills 2000), and then introduce young adults to in texts that reflect their burgeoning maturity, Jenny Downham’s Before I Die (2007) considers both. Yet her novel and Cynthia Kadohata’s Kira-Kira (2004) are as much about living fully as they are moving examinations of young people succumbing to terminal illnesses. Aidan Chambers’s masterful Postcards from No Man’s Land (1999) also addresses death, but pushes readers to contemplate the possibility of euthanasia for an aged protagonist, as well as challenging them to think about the Dutch and British legacies of World War II, teenagers’ fascination with Anne Frank, and bisexuality.

Novels such as these reflect the breadth of the best of contemporary YA literature, but some would prefer these—and a host of others—to be censored. The disagreements reveal interesting ideas about young adults that recall the phrase’s dual Romantic roots: YA readers are innocents in need of further shelter or last-minute instruction, or are readers who need to “face the facts” about the world, ideally becoming more enlightened, democratic world citizens. While contemporary YA writers have largely used literature to advance Western notions of adolescence as a time to question the power structure, rebel, or embrace one’s “individuality,” scholars should not forget this term’s occluded Romantic inheritance of narrower reading practices and antirevolutionary sentiment. The rich field of YA literature is indebted to a number of revolutions, including but not limited to the social movements of the 1960s and the backlash that followed them; it is also heir to the French Revolution and reactions against the Enlightenment philosophies that brought it about. Both legacies reflect people’s comprehension of literature’s ability to shape, define, expand, and alter experience. Given the considerable changes in mind and body that mark adolescence, and our belief in the significance of this liminal state between childhood and adulthood, it is no wonder that YA literature is viewed—positively or negatively—as potent and transformative.

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Pairing Young Adult Books With Classic Literature

Reading contemporary books alongside classics can help high school students better grasp the nuances and themes embedded in literature.

One of the most rewarding elements of teaching reading is when students come rushing into the class wanting to talk about the reading from the night before. I relish these moments. It took me a while to realize that these moments are few and far between when I assign classic literature on its own. But when I started asking students to read young adult (YA) literature independently while we worked through classical texts in class, the energy and excitement became palpable.

Pairing novels does not mean “doubling up” on the amount of reading students are required to do. Pairing essentially provides carefully selected reading materials that support the skills and lessons that the teacher is emphasizing in the classroom. In the classroom, this may look like reading a classical text, listening to an audiobook and following along, or selecting key passages to work through. Teachers and students use these to work through specific standards and skills in reading and writing. Then, students can apply those skills to a young adult novel or a more contemporary work to see how the skills play out in real-world, independent reading. 

Using YA Novels as an introduction to the Classics

Light summer reading can provide an opportunity for teachers to give material that previews themes or genres that students will embark on in class by assigning enjoyable “beach reads” for summer reading. When I taught middle school, we started the year with The Odyssey , by Homer. I assigned Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief , by Rick Riordan, as a summer read to preview the Olympians and give a basic introduction and understanding of the Greek mythology characters that students encounter in The Odyssey.

Another way to approach this is to give a selection of options about a character’s odyssey to provide a preview of the narrative structure of the ” hero’s journey .“ For instance, I could ask my students to select between J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit ; Hatchet , by Gary Paulsen; Into the Wild , by Jon Kraukauer; and The Maze Runner , by James Dashner. Teachers can consider creating a list of young adult titles that may work well with their first unit’s reading and give students some options of light summer reading to preview the themes or lessons they’ll encounter in the new year. The goal here is to allow the enjoyment of reading to be at the forefront without any major work attached to it and let the organic enjoyment of reading come through.  

Complementing, Not Complicating, classic texts 

When we set out to teach a text in the classroom, we understand that there is an element of rigor: We want to push our students to think deeply and stretch their cognitive abilities. However, the process of reading does not always have to include such cognitive stretches. The goal of pairing books is to teach with rigor and allow those skills to filter into more digestible texts. For this activity, I give students “note catchers,” graphic organizers that have specific tasks or questions to look for as they do a close reading. They complete it or “catch notes” as they go.

For instance, we read Lord of the Flies , by William Golding, and I pair it with The Hunger Games , by Suzanne Collins, which students read on their own. We listen to Lord of the Flies on audiobook, follow along in the text, and catch notes with a variety of activities that teach skills from the standards, then link it to the paired text.

We study the symbolism of the conch shell, glasses, and knife/spear in Lord of the Flies . I then ask my students to consider the symbols they encounter in The Hunger Games as they read independently. Often, they come back with things like the cornucopia, the Mockingjay, and fire, with some interpretations of what those symbols represent. The Divergent series also works well here. So while we are doing the heavy lifting of learning about and exploring symbolism in class, students can apply those rigorous lessons about survival, alliances, and power to a dystopian young adult novel on their own. 

Connecting Themes in Classical literature

For many students, the plot lines in the classics are unrelatable. The characters in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet are a bit unrealistic as they swoon over each other; Gus and Hazel in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars move at a pace that is more in line with the subtle flirting that today’s youth can relate to. However, the theme of tragic love is timeless and can be explored in different ways between the classic and the contemporary. 

In this unit, we work through the language and the depth of Shakespeare and the poetry of love and passion with in-class analysis and close-reading activities. Then, for individual reading, students compare and contrast the expressions of love, passion, and being a teenager in Green’s love story. When we pair these, we can explore how the expression of love has perhaps changed over time, but the theme of young love and tragedy remains timeless. 

Teachers can consider other timeless themes through the pairing of literature. For instance, you could explore oppression and how a character’s voice can be silenced in The Scarlet Letter , by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the young adult novel Speak , by Laurie Halse Anderson. It‘s easy for younger students to write off the oppressive voice of religion in The Scarlet Letter , but society still has a long way to go with acknowledging women’s voices around trauma and assault, a concept made more relatable with the teenage character in Speak .

You could also explore racial injustice by teaching To Kill a Mockingbird , by Harper Lee, in class and Monster , by Walter Dean Myers, as independent reading. The setting of Maycomb during Jim Crow and the Depression is a bit unrelatable to many students, despite previewing with research and activities; the setting of Monster in Harlem in the 1990s is closer.

When classics are paired with contemporary works of literature that are perhaps more engaging and easier to read or connect with, students may connect more with the material on their own, and the teacher can leave the heavy lifting of the classics in the classroom lessons.

Now it’s your chance to share: What’s been your experience with teaching contemporary novels and classic texts side by side? If the idea is new to you, what pairing are you most excited about and why? Reply in the comments below.