Young Adult Lit and Multicultural Learning

Susan Landt provides a unique insight to using Young Adult Literature that is very similar to mine.  I really love her idea of literature being a “kaleidoscope” because I think it is a great metaphor for what literature really should be.  Literature should provide readers with the opportunity to develop a different view of the world around them with each piece of literature that they read.  Her main idea is to use multicultural young adult literature in order to teach adolescents and young adults about different cultural societies.  She quotes an article by Ford, Howard, Tyson & Harris by saying “Providing a multitude of perspectives through literature at this point in students’ development is an effective way to help facilitate their engagement is self and understanding.”  I think this is her main argument.  She is trying to argue that it is important to introduce adolescents and young adults to multicultural literature at a younger age so that they can develop an understanding of different cultures before they develop any kind of prejudice against those cultures.  I agree with this argument, but I question waiting until the adolescent age.  I believe that children develop prejudices at a young age because they are introduced to whatever prejudices their families have and by waiting to expose them to other cultures we allow them to solidify and justify their prejudices.  I have to counter my argument though by saying that it is possible that younger children are not developmentally prepared to learn about different cultures.  I agree with her idea that there are many different multicultural young adult pieces and I think that they are an excellent way to expose young adults to various cultures.  In this class alone we have learned about so many different cultures spanning from Caucasian to African American growing up in Harlem to the wealthy and the poverty ridden, and even to some people who struggle with mental illness and disorders.  Young Adult Literature is an entertaining way to allow young students to develop an insight to different cultures that they may have never been exposed to.  Her article really exposed me to the idea that I can use YA literature in my classroom to teach very serious subjects to my students.  I have really been interested in using Young Adult Literature in my classroom but have struggled figuring out exactly how to incorporate it.  Landt revealed to me that I can use Young Adult Literature to teach my students about different cultures which I think is an extremely valuable lesson for young students.  When I graduated high school I had only been exposed to very few different cultures and coming to college has allowed me to be exposed to more cultures.  I think that we can learn a lot from different cultures but in order to learn about them we must first be exposed to them.  Exposing students to different cultures allows them to learn more than I did earlier than I did that way it won’t be so difficult for them to open their eyes to the different challenges and privileges that certain cultures have.  Using Young Adult Literature to teach students about cultures is a fantastic way to let them learn about different cultures around the world.

BAD BOY

Bad Boy, by Walter Dean Myers is a very difficult book for me to read.  I think part of my troubles originated in the very first chapter.  It was confusing, there were too many characters and it all seemed jumbled and unorganized to me.  Because I struggled so much with the first chapter I never had much desire for the remainder of the story.  Some of it of course was interesting, but there was nothing in this novel that kept me from putting it down, in fact it was the opposite for me; anything made me put it down.  Another possible reason for my uninterested reading of this novel could have been the time difference.  While I knew that it was a personal recollection of his life the entire time I had a hard time reading it that way.  Instead I read it as a more historical novel and at this point in the semester that is not what I want to be reading.  I did however think that it was interesting to get an insight to what social life was like in the 1940s and 50s.  I noticed the parental punishment was often beatings and I could sort of relate to that.  I AM NOT INCLUDING THIS IN MY BLOG BECAUSE I WANT PEOPLE TO THINK THAT MY PARENTS ABUSED ME OR ANYTHING.  When I was a child, if we did something wrong it was not out of the ordinary to get a hard swat on the ass.  While some people might try to argue that this is abuse or unnecessary I don’t think so.  I think that it was an effective way of getting me and my little brother to mind because we were smart enough to know that if we didn’t want to feel that pain again we had better not do whatever got use that beating again.  Some of the instances in the book though were a little graphic and brutal I do think though.  I thought it was really interesting to read about a young African American boy who grew up in Harlem fighting and reading.  Fighting and reading?  They seem like two completely unrelated things.  I just found it very interesting that Myers was such a profound student but was also violent and aggressive.  I think part of the reason that I enjoyed this aspect of the book was because it was one of the most relatable aspects for me.  When I was young I went through some pretty life altering events that happened in quick succession and it led to a violent streak from me.  I was constantly in fights in elementary school but I was also a great student, I always did my work and I was mostly ahead of my class.  I’m not saying that fighters can’t be readers or vice versa but I am saying that I don’t think it is all that common.  I have a hard time analyzing this book because I know that it is a personal memoir but I cant help but think that there were different perspectives and views that were left out of this story.  Overall I give it a C on the grade scale.  I struggled so much with it and it never really caught my attention.  It definitely didn’t take the place of any of my favorite books.  I do think that it would be a fun story to read as a historic text in a classroom setting but I don’t know that I would suggest it for pure enjoyment.

Wintergirls

This was such an interesting book! I will admit that I have not completely finished it yet, but I have read a large amount of it and have loved it so far.  I think that Anderson is a great Young Adult author.  I just read Speak for another class not long ago and I think that she does a great job of providing adolescents with real life, serious issues.  In Wintergirls the issue is that of eating disorders, anorexia and bulimia to be specific.  I think it is interesting that the book begins with one of the girls already being dead.  It kind of reminds me of Jay Asher’s 13 Reasons Why because the plot line begins sort of the same way.  In Asher’s book Hannah, a girl from school, has already committed suicide and is going to explain why through her tapes which is similar to Wintergirls starting with Cassie being dead and Lia retelling their story.  Upon my first reading there were a few very interesting aspects that I noticed.  First of all, I thought it was genius that Anderson wrote words then crossed them out in the novel.  For example, on page 148 of my version the texts reads “My mother Dr. Marrigan…” but there is a distinct line through the middle of “My mother.”  I think this is an interesting method because it distances that narrator from the people that she has relationships with, but it also allows readers to understand the relationship that the narrator has with those people.  Another interesting aspect is the subtle inclusion of caloric value of foods.  At first I didn’t notice.  I thought that the numbers might have related to a later page, or to the discussion leading section of the book so I took a look ahead to see what the reference was to only to realize there was no reference.  I quickly realized that Lia was counting calories so as to not intake too many within a given time.  This book, like many others that we have read for this class, presents a very real situation for young adult readers.  I believe that as we grow we become fixated on different things, and I believe that body image is one of those things.  As we grow and develop our bodies change drastically and becoming obsessed with body image is a very real possibility.  I would make the assumption that if anyone went into a high school they would find students who had some sort of eating disorder, although it may not be diagnosed and the student may not even realize that they suffer from such a disorder.  Anderson does a great job of presenting such a racy topic that I think this book would be great to use in class.  I do think it would be useful to give a warning before reading the book maybe by telling students what it is about and allowing them to discuss their discomforts in private if they have any so as not to accidentally bring out emotions in students that they may not want to let out.  As I said I think this is a great book and I think it would be interesting to use in a class.  With that being restated I give this book a B+ on the grade scale.  While I really enjoyed it, it just didn’t match up to some of my favorite books that I would give an A to.

Feed

Reading Anderson’s Feed was kind of hard for me.  I have never been a huge fan of dystopian novels.  They just do not really appeal to me personally I think because I struggle relating to them.  I have never lived in a life like the one that is described in most dystopian novels so I have a really difficult time relating to them.  I do though understand that dystopian novels are very popular with readers today.  For this reason I was able to analyze Feed as a novel that I would teach in a class in the future.  This novel really plays on the idea of an unhealthy governmental take over.  These people are imprisoned by their “feeds” which only allow them to think to a certain extent.  It is almost as if they live part of a life because of the effect that the governmental “feeds” have on them.  As the story progresses and the characters lose their “feeds” they are forced to live full lives which is difficult because of how they have lived their whole lives.  The way that adolescents are portrayed in this novel is very interesting.  It is interesting because it is a dystopian novel so the teens are completely different from teens today.  While the teens are different because they are part computer they are the same because of their actions.  They question authority, they fall in love, they struggle with everyday things that a lot of teens struggle with.  I think that this would be a fun book to teach in a high school class.  I think students would really enjoy it because dystopia is such a topic of interest in society especially with the rise in technology that continuously changes our environment.  This book does pose a number of challenges though.  I think one of the biggest challenges that a teacher will face when implementing this novel in the classroom will be with explicit language and how parents will respond.  There are so many curse words in this novel that I think parents will really struggle with allowing their children to read it.  I think this is an argument that parents should rethink though because I think that students would argue that the novel really portrays their language and dialect.  High school students use offensive language and I would argue that it is their way of trying to find themselves.  Also, when parental supervision lacks I think that kids tend to act differently.  Overall I think if a teacher really wanted to implement this book they would be able to, but it would take some dedication and great preparation.  I give this book a B on a grade scale because I do not enjoy dystopian novels but I was able to analyze it as if I would like to teach it to a class.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is one of my favorite books ever.  I grew up in a situation similar to Sherman’s, and Jr.’s.  I grew up on a reservation, but I was never enrolled so I never really fit in, and once I started Jr. High School in a different town where the main race was Caucasian I didn’t fit in because I was from the reservation.  When Jr. describes himself as a “part time Indian,” I have a pretty good idea of what he means.  I think this text was written for a very particular audience, youth who have felt othered.  For youth who have felt like Jr. did in the novel it is a very relatable work.  Much of what Alexie wrote is exactly what young people feel when they move schools or encounter many other ordinary difficulties.  I think that Rowdy’s character develops incredibly throughout the story.  When Jr. first moves schools Rowdy is not a very good friend.  He resents Jr.’s choice to leave even though deep down it seems like he just wants to go with Jr.  Eventually though he forgives Jr. and opens up to him about why he was really upset and how he hopes that Jr. goes on to succeed in his life.  The way that Alexie developed Rowdy’s character was very similar to how I have seen people develop.  When I was younger and older kids would leave the reservation they would be resented, but now they are almost praised for trying to make more of themselves.  I do think that this novel leaves out adolescents who have never been through a change in their lives such as moving or divorce or other experiences similar to these.  I think this text does put young people in a very real life situation.  Often times youth in areas of poverty struggle to leave which is exactly what happens in this novel.  Also, it shows how young people in new schools are treated by students who have already established their relationships.  I think it is a novel that most high school can appreciate even if they have never gone through a life changing event like Jr. did in this novel.  I think this is a very teachable novel.  In fact I recently designed a 5-day unit using this book to teach students the importance of identity.  By showing students how true to his identity Jr. stays even with the hardships that he faces we can show them how important it is to stay true to themselves.  I used activities in which my students reflected on their own identities in order to see the importance of staying true to themselves.  I give this book an A+ on the grading scale.  I relate to this book in so many ways that I can completely submerge myself into it.  I love reading this book, even though I have read it over and over again which is out of the ordinary for me.  Normally I read a book once and then don’t read it again because I cannot stay focused when I know what is coming.  This is a great book that I will continue to enjoy for the rest of my life.

Looking For Alaska--Part 1

I am so happy to be reading “Looking for Alaska” again!  I read it once in high school, but that was a long time ago.  As I read it is all coming back to me, and it was so hard to stop at the first half but I had other homework to attend to.  Anyway, I really think this book is great for a number of reasons.  I love the vagueness that lies within the characters.  None of them really know each other that well, but for some reason or another they are all great friends.  I think this book, in terms of literature, is pretty average.  It mostly follows normal plot development thus far, though I am not sure what happens in the second half.  I think it is interesting that John Green doesn’t give much background information on the characters.  He allows them to develop as themselves with no historical influence on the reader.  I think this job does a decent job of including the different types of young adults.  It deals with the smart kids, the racial minorities, the rich/jock kids, the stoners at least on a basic level.  One thing I am surprised by is that there is no homosexual character.  I don’t know exactly how I would have put that character in this story but I think it would have been one more idea that the author could have tied in somehow.  I think this is another story that positions adolescents in reality.  These kids are doing things that I think a lot of young adults do; drinking, smoking, having sex, playing pranks.  I do think though that the level at which they do these things is a bit dramatic.  I don’t think, in today’s society at least, that so many high school students are smoking that the campus has to patrol for them.  I also don’t think they are drinking wine in excess like the characters have to this point in the story.  I just think that the author might have tried to make them a little to rebellious.  I can clearly see why parents would challenge this book.  It almost argues that all high school students are drinking and having sex and smoking while I think that there are far fewer students taking part in this than the author makes it seem in this story.  Also, there is some very graphic language.  There are a great number of instances where profanity is used in the first half of this book and I can see why parents would not want their children reading this book.  I do think though that the dialogue in this story is very real.  I think that young adults do talk much like the characters in this book regardless of how their parents want them to talk.  I’m not sure how I would incorporate this book into the classroom yet because I am not sure of the conclusion, but I think it would be interesting to try.  I give this book an A.  I give it this grade for a number of reasons, but the number one reason is that because it kept me up at night when I should have been sleeping simply because I needed to know what was going to happen next.

Thirteen Reasons Why

I love this book! As I have been reading through I have gotten more and more invested. It does a really good job of pulling on my emotions. Each time another tape comes on I think it's going to be Clay's tape, and each time it isn't Clay's tape I wonder what he did. It got me thinking, have I ever done anything that I thought was miniscule that would have ended up on someone's tapes. I also question why she left tapes. It just seems strange that she would've left such detailed tapes but not had a funeral. I'm only about halfway through the book so I'm hoping I will find some resolve soon. I think this would be a good book to teach to high school, but I also think it would be very difficult. It would be good because it is a pretty easy read and the content is very real world and real life. It would be hard though, for a number of reasons. There is some language that is questionable, not that I think high school students don't know the language and probably use it, but parents are always a battle when it comes to books like this one. Also, it is a very raw story. I feel like there is no sugarcoating, no sweetening up the story to make it less depressing. I think it would be hard to get students to appreciate the severity of the story. I do think it would be good though because I think it could make students be more conscious of the things that they say. In giving this book a grade I would give it an A. I have really liked the story line, I have appreciated the realness of everything, I have wanted to keep reading it even when I have other pressing homework.

Passport

Spencer Nee

Ashley Boyd—English 325 YA Lit

September 18,2014

Passport—Blog 3

I loved “Passport”!  It was so well written that I couldn’t tell how it was going to end.  I wanted to look ahead the whole time because I didn’t want the narrator to go to boot camp.  I felt like by considering his divorced parent’s homes as two different kingdoms added to the plot.  It made it sound more war like, it convinced me that the story was going to end with him at boot camp miserable.  I also appreciate the parenthetical dialogue that the author included.  I think the story was simple enough that I would have understood the point of what the characters were saying, but the clarity made it more enjoyable.  This is my favorite type of plot because the peak of it is at the end of the story so there is no come down.  I think it makes it more fun to leave what happens after the peak up to the reader.  I found it strange that the narrator had such a feeling of lust for his father’s new girlfriend.  That just seemed strange and unnecessary to me.  The only reason it helped the story was because she was close to the narrators age which seems stereotypical of post-divorce wealthy middle-aged men.  I just don’t know why it was important to include his feelings for her, but it must have been because every word in a short story is important.

I think that this text really portrayed an interesting aspect of adolescents.  Young adults are expected to decide their future at such a confusing time in their lives and I think the author did a great job of showing an option that I think is a good option.  I have this theory that we can learn as much through travelling and being immersed in other cultures as we can in a classroom.  I also think that there is so much that changes in young adults between their last day of high school and a year later.  That year gives adolescents a chance to grow and become the person that they want to be.  I think it would be beneficial if more young adults took a year off of school to travel and to learn about another part of the world.  We have our whole lives to work, so what’s the hurry to get to a job that is just enough to get us by?  I think adolescents would benefit from reading this story because it would show them that it is possible to travel and it isn’t necessary to go straight to college or any other post high school career.  I rate this short story with an A- because while I think it was an influential piece and enjoyable I think it lacks depth.  I think it is a very simple story about teen rebellion.

Between Shades of Gray

This book automatically caught my attention.  It was so exciting and detailed that I couldn’t help but be pulled in.  It is such an intense story that I have a hard time putting the book down once I start reading it.  While I’m not extremely far into the reading I’m curious as to how the storyline is going to play out.  It seems like the buildup is incredible in the first 100 pages or so, and I hope that this isn’t going to be an anticlimactic story.  It seems like the plot is going to rise into this huge life event, but I don’t expect it to come until late in the novel.  I think this would be a great book to use when teaching about other historical events like the Holocaust.  Most schools teach about the Holocaust, but it seems like few explore the history of the Soviet Union and the issues that they faced.  I think it would be a breath of fresh air for students, especially those who have already learned about the Holocaust and World War II.  Septeys does an awesome job of portraying the struggles that Lithuanians had to face when the Soviets forced them into labor camps, much like Weisel does in his novel Night.  I think it would be a nice escape for students so that they weren’t being taught the same thing over and over.

I also think this book puts adolescents into a very adult situation.  The kids in this novel are thrown into being adults the second they are ripped from their homes.  They don’t have an option to be children anymore, and if they don’t grow up quick, they are going to have even more problems in the future.  I don’t think this book would appeal to adolescents in the same way that Eleanor and Park did, but I do think that it would appeal to their interests.  It seems like high school age students are interested in history topics like the Holocaust, and this novel very much represents a history similar to that.  I’m not sure why it is that students are interested in that history, but in my experience they are.

Thus far in the book I would only give it a B on a grade scale.  While I do think it is very interesting and I think it is important to read it just isn’t as much fun to read as other Young Adult books that I have read.  I don’t want this post to make it seem like I do not like the book, but it isn’t my favorite in terms of pure enjoyment.

Eleanor and Park Blog 1

            When I first enrolled into English 325 and I saw the reading list I was nervous.  I have never been a strong reader, and I didn’t know what to expect when I saw some of the books on the list.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m open to mostly any kind of book, but I’m always a bit nervous to try something new.  When I bought Eleanor and Park at the WSU Bookie I was not looking forward to reading it.  I noticed that the cover had two kids sitting near each other, not looking at one another, with headphones on.  At least the headphones only formed an ampersand between the names instead of a heart.  And in fact, the headphones were the one thing on the cover that made me want to read the book because I’ve always been such a fan of music.  As I was reading through I realized that it was a bit different from some teen love stories.  Typically I think of a teen story as an awkward boy and a popular girl, or vice versa.  This was different in that Park just got by, and Eleanor was one of the weirdest girls any of the other characters had seen.  Neither of them was the popular kid, so I was a little bit confused as to how the story would play out.  I think it is easy to relate this novel to the story of Romeo and Juliet.  Two star-crossed lovers, in Eleanor and Park, who come from completely different backgrounds that find a way to fall in love.  As I progressed through the novel I felt like Rowell was trying to sort of break down stereotypes.  I loved the way that plot built between Eleanor and Richie.  It was clear that there was some extreme tension, but I think Rowell did a good job of keeping the severity of it hid.  I never expected Richie to be the jerk that was writing on Eleanor’s books, and it was really bothersome when I found out.

            I think this book places adolescents in a very real environment.  Rowell does a great job of depicting what are real life problems to adolescents.  I’m going to make the assumption that a lot of adults think of teenage problems as insignificant, or material, but there were some very real problems explored in this book.  I loved how Rowell explored divorce and angry controlling step-fathers.  I thought the step-father was a very stereotypical character, but it also intensified the storyline.  I think this novel would appeal to adolescents because it is very relatable.  They can relate to the various relationship problems throughout the book.  They know that all of the problems explored in this book are real problems, and I think it would successfully interest adolescents.  In fact I have already started to think about teaching this book in my class.

            On an A-F scale I would rate this book at a solid B+.  It pulled on my emotions, it made me questions social class, it scared me, it made me happy, and it made me sad.  It did not take the place in my heart that my favorite book has, but it was a very good book.