ABSTRACT

With a focus on fostering democratic, equitable education for young people, Ginsberg and Glenn’s engaging text showcases a wide variety of innovative, critical classroom approaches that extend beyond traditional literary theories commonly used in K-12 and higher education classrooms and provides opportunities to explore young adult (YA) texts in new and essential ways. The chapters pair YA texts with critical practices and perspectives for culturally affirming and sustaining teaching and include resources, suggested titles, and classroom strategies. Following a consistent structure, each chapter provides foundational background on a key critical approach, applies the approach to a focal YA text, and connects the approach to classroom strategies designed to encourage students to think deeply and critically about texts, themselves, and the world. Offering a wealth of innovative pedagogical tools, this comprehensive volume offers opportunities for students and their teachers to explore key and emerging topics, including culture, (dis)ability, ethnicity, gender, immigration, race, sexual orientation, and social class.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

The Critical Power and Potential of Multicultural Young Adult Literature

chapter Chapter 1|11 pages

Positioning Theory

Exploring Power, Social Location, and Moral Choices of the American Dream in American Street

chapter Chapter 2|10 pages

The Social Mind

Using Drama to Walk through Racism in Out of Darkness

chapter Chapter 3|10 pages

Neoliberalism

A Framework for Critiquing Representations of the “Superspecial” Individual in Marcelo in the Real World

chapter Chapter 4|11 pages

The Dominant/Oppositional Gaze

The Power of Looking in Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass

chapter Chapter 5|10 pages

Multiethnic/Multicultural/Multiracial Alloys

Reading the “Mixed” Experience in Little & Lion

chapter Chapter 6|11 pages

Borders and Borderlands

Interrogating Real and Imagined Third Spaces Using If I Ever Get Out of Here

chapter Chapter 7|9 pages

Understanding Racial Melancholia

Analyzing Race-Related Losses and Opportunities for Mourning through American Born Chinese

chapter Chapter 8|10 pages

Interrogating Happiness

Unraveling Homophobia in the Lives of Queer Youth of Color with More Happy than Not

chapter Chapter 9|10 pages

Queer Reading Practices and Ideologies

Questioning and (Not) Knowing with Brooklyn, Burning

chapter Chapter 10|10 pages

Complicating the Coming Out Story

Unpacking Queer and (Anti)Normative Thinking in Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

chapter Chapter 11|9 pages

Theories of Space, Place, and Navigational Identity

Turning Inside Out and Back Again in the Exploration of Immigration

chapter Chapter 12|10 pages

Teaching #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName

Interrogating Historical Violence against Black Women in Copper Sun

chapter Chapter 13|10 pages

Critical Race English Education

Engaging with Hip-Hop, Resistance, and Remix in All American Boys and Viral YouTube Videos

chapter Chapter 14|11 pages

Critical Language Awareness

Unpacking Linguistic and Racial Ideologies in The Hate U Give

chapter Chapter 15|9 pages

Critical Comparative Content Analysis

Examining Violence, Politics, and Culture in Two Versions of I Am Malala

chapter Chapter 16|9 pages

Deconstructing the Superhero

Interrogating the Racialization of Bodies Using All-New, All-Different Avengers, Vol. I

chapter Chapter 17|9 pages

Arts-Based Approaches to Social Justice in Literature

Exploring the Intersections of Magical Realism and Identities in When the Moon Was Ours

chapter Chapter 18|11 pages

Afrofuturist Reading

Exploring Non-Western Depictions of Magical Worlds in Akata Witch

chapter |6 pages

Conclusion

Recognizing and Speaking to the Challenges that Come with Courageous Teaching