Response to Intervention (RTI) has the potential to have a positive impact on adolescent literacy by requiring content-area teachers to provide Tier 1 literacy instruction. This commentary suggests that content-area teachers can help their students improve their content knowledge and literacy skills by providing discipline-specific strategy…

This article reports the author's experiences using graphic novels with pre-service teachers in a young adult literature course. Drawing on critical response papers two students composed after reading "Pride of Baghdad," a graphic novel by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon, the author argues that when readers possess the background…

Learning to read--amazing as it is to small children and their parents--is one thing. Reading to learn, explains Susan Goldman of the University of Illinois at Chicago, is quite another. Are today's students able to use reading and writing to acquire knowledge, solve problems, and make decisions in academic, personal, and professional arenas? Do…

This paper describes two innovative experiences with ICT in teacher training by means of the development of two blogs about children's and young adults' literature. The study of both activities shows the usefulness of blogs in higher education and their contribution to the linguistic and literary training of future teachers. The results show that…

The purpose of this research was to study the impact of an adolescent literacy education course on content area education students' attitudes toward implementing adolescent literacy strategies within their content lessons. Longitudinal data were gathered over five years and then analyzed. The researcher documented changes in the attitudes of the…

This column provides an overview of the Common Core text exemplars and gives examples of ways teachers can group text exemplars and other trade books in ways that will support middle graders' understanding of complex texts. Building background by supplementing text exemplars with other titles is particularly emphasized. Suggestions for grouping…

This literary analysis examines constructions of normalcy and disability within contemporary young adult literature, including "Jerk," "California" (Friesen, 2008), "Marcelo in the Real World" (Stork, 2009), and "Five Flavors of Dumb" (John, 2010). As recent winners of the Schneider Family Book Award from the American Library Association, these…

As of 2008, about 23% of children in the United States were immigrants or the children of immigrants. This paper examines how immigrants are portrayed in books aimed at teenagers. From a sample of 20 young-adult novels we look at the demographics of both protagonist and author and examine how three main themes are addressed: (1) experiences prior…

Written primarily for other English teacher educators, this article explores one university professor's attempt to reflect on, review, and revise the content, pedagogy, and assessments utilized to teach a graduate course in adolescent literature to preservice and in-service teachers. The new and improved course is designed to simultaneously build…

Adolescents who struggle with reading most often encounter problems with comprehension, rather than the ability to read words. Comprehension is a dynamic process that requires the reader to use multiple strategies as meaning is constructed. To improve the reading comprehension of their students, teachers must be knowledgeable about what…

The principal purpose of assessment, regardless of teaching level, should be to guide instruction. Unlike evaluation, the goal of assessment is not to arrive at a grade for students. Rather, it is to inform the educator as to what needs to be addressed in the classroom. Assessment in a young adult literature (YAL) curriculum is no different. Its…

This article seeks to expand the possibilities of support that children's and young adult literature provides to activist-oriented educators. Joining our voices to others who have made significant contributions to this emphasis, our work examines a too-often-silenced aspect of activism: its intersection with spirituality. Using an inclusive…

In 2006, the author entered the crucible of trying to use graphic novels in her classroom to promote her students' artistic sensibilities. In this article, she discusses benefits and some problems--including access, content, and expense--of teaching graphic novels.

Multicultural and ethnic literature is essential to people of all backgrounds and ages. It enables individuals from minority cultures to "learn, know, celebrate, and promote their own cultures," and it enables people from mainstream cultures to better understand diverse people. Almost one-third of Americans (30.6 percent) were people of color in…

Determined to shift the balance by providing a venue for students' voices, Cordi and Masturzo reclaimed and remade a Web space to address bullying using digital storytelling (Ohler, 2009). Using "Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories", they guided their undergraduate students on a valuable journey of self-exploration, reflection, and…