The Importance of Young Adult Literature

When Terry Evans began her presentation last week by reading a children's book, I thought she was joking. We are college students, not elementary school children. After she finished reading, I thought, "What was the point of that?" Later in the presentation, when she began reading the first few pages of a young adult literature book, I was hooked. I immediately wrote the title and author of the book she read because I wanted to read it myself. I began to realize the power of reading aloud to people. I would argue that reading children's books aloud to people is not always effective, but when she read the young adult book aloud to us, I thought that was effective. I think it varies depending on the audience you are speaking to. Reading aloud to students was a powerful tool that I will implement in my classroom. I also think showing students the book trailer is a good tool for exciting students about a text.

I agreed with Terry that we, as educators, need to create a "community of readers." We need to pick literature that students can relate to so they see themselves reflected in the text. Students also need to have the choice to pick literature they read. At practicum, one of the my teachers gave the students a class period to pick a book they were going to read in the upcoming unit. They did not have total free reign. She had thirty books that the students previewed and then from those books, they wrote down their top five choices. I think this is better than forcing students to always read the same text that the teacher chose.

I really appreciated Terry's comment about not being a "literary snob." I admit that I can be a "literary snob" at times, but I am trying to break away from that. This summer, I found the book Twilight at a garage sale for a quarter. I had seen the first two movies, and I thought they were okay, but I did not understand what was so amazing about the series. I decided to buy the book because it was so cheap and I read it. I wanted to see what was so attractive about vampires to teenagers. The book is not amazing, but it was not the worst book I ever read either. As Terry said, if students get excited about reading, teachers should not discourage that, even if the text is not brilliantly written. At least students are excited about a book! I think it is important for teachers to read the young adult literature that students are reading. We can also give suggestions to students if we keep up with the most popular young adult literature too. Here is a link to the best young adult literature in 2010, according to the Young Adult Library Services Association. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/bestbooksya/bbya2010.cfm

I thoroughly enjoyed Terry's presentation last week and I will definetly try and keep up with the popular young adult literature because it is extremely important for teachers to provide titles for young adult readers who want to read current literature that relates to their lives.