Introduction
Being aware that many of my students will come into my future classroom as reluctant readers, it is enlightening to explore young adult literature, a field which offers learning experiences that students will be able to relate to. It gives insight into the changing world of young adults, which teachers can apply in the classroom to get students involved with literature and thus, help them to become independent readers. After completing this course, I can assure myself that my understanding of literature has been reinforced and Dr. Jones has increased my drive to keep reading.
Have I Gained Better Acquaintance with Contemporary YA Literature?
After reading a myriad of award-winning young adult novels this semester, I have come to realize how much I enjoy Terry Truman’s work. Last fall, I had the opportunity to read Truman’s Stuck in Neutral. I absolutely loved the text and had to read the companion novel, Cruise Control. I am so glad I now have a more complete portrait of Shawn’s family and how they dealt with his disability.
One thing that draws me to Trueman is that he weaves valuable life lessons about truly accepting others in his work. I believe by using these texts, we can make our students aware that there is more depth to each and every individual. I think his work is excellent to celebrate diversity in our classrooms and to teach our students what acceptance truly looks like. I often take for granted having a voice and being able to interact with my friends and family. It’s hard to understand how important these things are until you’re forced to view life without them. Trueman gave me a glimpse into what this life may be like.
; In addition, I love Deborah Ellis and her Breadwinner Trilogy. Despite the fact that her books are quite simple, she writes about war-torn Afghanistan
After reading these works of young adult literature, I firmly believe that I was able to create personal meanings and connections to texts. Rosenblatt (1982) views reading as an interaction, or transaction, “a two-way process”, between the reader and the text through which meaning occurs (p. 268). Through our class blog and wiki, I was encouraged to examine my personal associations and reactions during my transaction with the literary work. I became personally engaged with texts and attuned to how I was reading the book.
After presenting my lesson on Parvana’s Journey and reading my assigned chapter from Groenke and Scherff (2010), I began to consider the four dimensions of critical literacy and how they might apply to each book as I read. I began to see the larger sociopolitical contexts shaping not only the characters and experiences in the books, but mine as well. Adding the critical literacy approach enhanced my understandings of how I came to have the reactions and associations to the texts as I did.
Have I Developed an Understanding of How to Utilize YA Literature and Strategic Teaching Practices to Support Secondary School
The awakening of interest in young adult literature has left me overwhelmed by a desire to read more young adult novels, something that was missing during my adolescence. After completing this course and managing to grab some award-winning books, I have realized that I have missed a valuable adolescent experience that would have expanded my vision of the world at that time. Consequently, this also brings me to the realization of the important implications of the teaching of young adult literature for our students.
I believe that young adult literature offers an excellent means of engaging adolescents in reading for pleasure, as well as exploring content area concepts in a fashion that is likely to maximize students’ comprehension. Various comprehension strategies can be used to learn key content area concepts and literary elements which are illuminated in young adult literature. We should use young adult literature in our classrooms because it offers students a high level of engagement that influences comprehension and reading achievement (Bean, 2000).
In addition, using multiple texts including young adult novels helps expand student’s abilities to synthesize concepts across a broad range of resources, including textbooks, and the internet. I believe making connections across various texts have the potential to influence students’ learning and performance in reading comprehension.
In a world that spins faster and faster every day, studying the traditional literary canon no longer prepares our students to be the critical thinkers we desire them to be (Seglem, 2006). Although students must be able to analyze traditional texts, the reality of today’s world revolves around digital media and technology. “If teachers want to mold literate students, it has become critical that educators broaden the definition of literacy. One way to do this is by embracing the very media that so successfully garners our student’s attention. Embedding media…will not only teach students critical thinking skills, but will also allow teachers to use the media to teach and motivate students in the areas of reading and writing”(Seglem, 2006, p.77)
Have I Developed an Understanding of How to Utilize Digital Teaching and Learning Practices to Support Secondary School
I can confidently say that I have gained knowledge and competence with regards to the learning goals outlined in the “Semester Synthesis Self-Reflection” handout due in part, to keeping an individual blog and responding on the class wiki. Using these digital tools as a forum for my thinking has allowed me to reflect on what I was reading and discovering throughout the course of the semester.
I also believe my individual blog and the class wiki have helped me understand the importance of audience and have developed my metacognition. Through comments left on my blog posts and on the class wiki by Dr. Jones and my classmates, our conversations helped guide my writing and course learning.
In addition to the individual blog and responding on the class wiki, I believe I was successful in meeting the learning goals through the creation, presentation, and publication of my digital reader response project (iMovie). Utilizing this software allowed me to delve deeper into Deborah Ellis’ text and construct my own knowledge through higher-level thinking, while tapping into my multiple intelligences. I was challenged to think and reflect meta-cognitively. I was also learning how to use a multimodal text (Albers, 2006) as the basis for my writing and learning how to properly choose images and music to add new layers of meaning to the message I wanted to convey to my audience.
Although there are many encouraging benefits to using this digital writing tool, I believe there are a few limitations to utilizing this material as well. Since the technology was new to me, there were times when I felt very overwhelmed and it was easy for the technology to overshadow the intended meaning of my piece. We need to have a balance between the technological aspects of our pieces and the content presented in them (Hicks, 2009). I soon realized that I had to use the technology to emphasize and support my piece’s intended message.
Conclusion
I am indebted to you Dr. Jones for playing a tremendous role this semester and allowing me to grow in my pursuit of knowledge and learning. Your course was vital in shaping me into a better educator. As I continue in the Literacy department, I hope to build on what I have learned to support my future students.
References
Albers, P. (2006). Imagining the possibilities in multimodal curriculum design. English
Education, 38 (2), 75-101.
Bean, T.W. (2000). Reading
P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading research:
Volume III (pp. 629-644). Mahwah , NJ : Lawrence
Ellis, D. (2001). The breadwinner. Toronto
Ellis, D. (2002). Parvana’s journey. Toronto
Groenke, S. L. & Scherff, L. (2010). Teaching YA lit through differentiated instruction. Urbana , IL
Hicks, T. (2009). The Digital Writing Workshop. Portsmouth , NH
Trueman, T. (2004). Cruise Control. New York
Trueman, T. (2000). Stuck in Neutral. New York
Rosenblatt, L.M (1982). The literary transaction: Evocation and response. Theory into Practice, 21(4), 268-277.
Seglem, R (2006). YA lit, music and movies: Creating reel interest in the language arts classroom. The ALAN Review, 33 (3), 76-80.
