YA in practice

Buehler is advocating for and providing examples of going beyond bringing YA lit into the ELA classroom at a superficial level by utilizing a unique and relevant YA pedagogy. In doing so, she mentions how it is possible and necessary to use YA texts to bring together personal, academic, and social relevance into one space. Buehler makes some assertions about YA lit that I already believe to be true: YA lit is accessible to our students because it is relevant to their lives, when teachers put books in the hands of students that students can relate to those students feel valued and heard, YA lit can be used in complex ways that encourage students to work collaboratively to make meaning.

If students are going to be open and honest and have the types of difficult conversations that YA lit often inspires, then teachers must create a classroom community that allows for this to safely take place. Buehler asserts that some markers of a classroom community are "belief that the work is important, discussions that blend personal response and literary analysis, a sense among students that they are known and valued, and collective investment in a shared experience" (p. 53). Our students have likely had teachers along the way who have made disparaging comments about YA lit. I have colleagues who dismiss it as "kid reading" in the presence of students. In order to make a YA pedagogy work in our classrooms, we have to show students that we value this type of reading, and we also have to show them the value in the skills they're cultivating while reading these texts. Successful YA pedagogy marries the skills of personal response and literary analysis in a way that allows students to grow as human beings in the context of a large and complicated world and as students who have to take a standardized test at the end of the year. Students will see the authenticity of school tasks if they see the ways those tasks can connect to their lives outside of school. YA lit can be a vehicle for that connection. In chapter four, Buehler focuses on the teacher as matchmaker, but our job is not only to match individual students with individual texts, but rather to have a breadth of knowledge of YA lit so that we can make pedagogical decisions about what books belong in the hands of individuals, what books work well in the small group setting, and what books make sense as a whole class novel. The shared experience happens throughout all three of those contexts where students are working collaboratively to make meaning together.

With Buehler's guidance I know that in order for me to be the matchmaker that my students deserve:
1. I've got to continue reading YA voraciously. This means at times putting my students reading preferences above my own. It also means thinking about the gaps there are in my collection. Who is represented? Who isn't?
2. I've got to be aware of what my students are reading. I need a system in place for students to regularly share what they are reading, and I need to keep physical track of this information.
3. I've got to know WHAT specifically my students love about the books they love. I can't assume they love books for the same reasons that I do. I need a way of working this meaning out with students especially with their individual choices.

Currently, YA lives in two main spaces in my ninth grade curriculum. In unit one, we read a whole class YA novel while dipping our toes into the terminology, skills, and process needed for literary analysis. This past year my classes read The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner, and I made this choice because of the social, religious, and geographical context of the novel and its relevance to my students and their context. In addition to reading, discussing, and analytical writing, students are also using the text as a model and using their newfound knowledge of an author's craft to write their own extended pieces of fiction. This is something I started doing for the first time last year, and I loved the way it turned out. We turned Fridays into fiction Fridays where we workshopped our pieces and shared out with the whole group. It was the kind of teaching that makes your heart happy.

In unit two, students choose YA novels that all deal with heavy and relevant social issues. Students who make the same novel choice are then grouped together in a hybrid book club/research group. Over the course of the unit, students identify one of the main social issues at play in their novel, and from there each student develops a research topic that is related to the general topic of the group. For example, if the group topic was racism, an individual student may choose to look at police brutality or racial profiling and stereotypes. The group puts together a research presentation that connects all of the student's individual topics. This unit combines literary and inquiry skills to ensure that in their quest to meet the standard they learn how to think critically. This type of teaching is when I feel most effective- When my students are learning how to be better and more informed citizens.

Chapter five was PACKED full of so many ideas that would make these units more successful and feel more complete. These units, especially when revamped and reworked with these suggestions in mind can give students the agency and autonomy that Buehler suggests a YA pedagogy invokes.

I'll leave y'all with a quote that will carry me into my planning for the upcoming school year; "Tasks in a YA pedagogy are designed to make students aware that there are different dimensions of reading and that readers take different approaches to books in different contexts at different times. Reading is sometimes personal, sometimes social, and sometimes analytical (p. 108).