This article offers teachers a critical framework for use and adaptation in organizing class discussions focused on notions of freedom in young adult literature. The authors open by discussing the notion of freedom, including concepts related to negative and positive freedom and to arguments advocating critical discussion of common assumptions…

Known for her commitment to excellence in education, Sharon Draper was named National Teacher of the Year in 1997. In 1994 her first novel, "Tears of a Tiger", was published, and since then she has written more than fifteen books for middle and high school readers. "Tears of a Tiger" received the John Steptoe Award for New Talent, and her novels…

There is a concentrated number of potential women entrepreneurs of diverse races among faculty in the United States' Historically Black Colleges and Universities (known as HBCUs and are called 'Black Colleges' herein). This study describes the potential for developing university technology transfer in these Black Colleges as a strategy for…

In the wake of criticism for not including more British writers in the 2005 nominations for the prestigious Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel by the Crime Writers Association (CWA), the organization recruited a new sponsor, replaced the Gold Dagger with a richer prize, and restricted nominees to books written in English. As a consolation…

This paper explores the subversion of the bildungsroman in the young adult novel, "Surrender" (Penguin, Camberwell, 2005), by the Australian author, Sonya Hartnett. It is suggested that, in reinscribing the traditional bildungsroman within a Gothic discourse, this novel reveals the effect on subjectivity that the horrors of postmodernity…

While literacy research in the area of multimodality includes a range of communication modes, the combination of the visual and verbal modes is arguably the most common multimodal text form used in classroom contexts from posters, charts and information texts to picture books and graphic novels. Assessment of students' understanding of visual and…

Recent images of President Obama's mother-in-law, Mrs. Marian Robinson, caring for her granddaughters in the White House are a powerful reminder of the prominence that grandmothers have had in African American communities. The significance of the grandmother figure can also be seen in award-winning literature for young adolescents such as in Rita…

This study examines LGBT-inclusive and queering discourses in five recent award-winning LGBT-themed young adult books. The analysis brought scenes of violence and sex/love scenes to the fore. Violent scenes offered readers messages that LGBT people are either the victims of violence-fueled hatred and fear, or, in some cases, showed a gay person…

Integrating sophisticated graphical analysis skills as they learn science is essential for K-12 students and emphasized in current standards. In this study, we iteratively designed a Graphing Integration Inventory (GII) over a three-year period, while also supporting students to develop their capabilities to use graphs to learn science content in…

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…

Subjects such as death, divorce, and homosexuality appeared in few children's books two decades ago, but today children may be given a steady diet of books on different issues every time in their lives that something happens, such as the first day of school, the birth of a new sibling, or the death of a pet. Heather Quarles' award-winning novel "A…

Analyzing Meg Medina's young adult novel "Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass" (2013) through the lens of multidisciplinary research on school bullying provides a case study in using young adult literature (YAL) to stimulate high school discussions about bullying. Strategies for using anti-bullying YAL and recommendations of additional…

A survey of books for young people reveals that some of the best (and even award-winning) novels deal with the controversial issue of religion. Although most of these books deal with religion only in the background, some clearly present this issue in the forefront. One book, Cynthia Rylant's "A Fine White Dust" (1986), traces a religious…

In 1957, a civil rights organization called Fellowship of Reconciliation created a comic book to teach America's youth about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Entitled "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story," the comic book was enormously successful. John Lewis, a young civil rights activist at the time, recalled that the book was…

Lois Lowry's award-winning novel, "The Giver," chronicles the strength of Jonas, an adolescent boy of 12 who lives in a utopian society. In the Community everyone is equal, and there is only a gray routine of existence. But Jonas is singled out by "The Giver," a wise old man who teaches Jonas the range of human emotions, and…