ABSTRACT
Nancy Atwell described the process of becoming for young adults (YAs) to gain a sense of self and voice in early adolescence. Critical literacy and culturally responsive teaching provide approaches to connecting literature to society and life and can cross borders, boundaries, and histories in the making of YA literature. Teachers of YA literature can contribute to the cultural literacy of their students by the instructional decisions and intellectual conversations they advance in their role of "teachers as cultural workers," which Freire advocated to gain literacies. In the literary movements for access, representation, and inclusion, "Critics and academics questioned the criteria used to determine literary value, criteria that usually included vague notions of aesthetic excellence and universality. The movements in schools and academia for the recovery and inclusion of feminist narratives and multicultural texts in the literary canon gained greater attention in the 1970s and 1980s with various actions, debates, and demands influencing curricula, instruction, and publishing across the country.
