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Juan Acevedo
EDSE 525
Oliphant-Ingham
30 November 2013
Integrating Young Adult Literature into the Classroom
Students today are reading less as opposed to students from years ago. Regardless of
what is being read, many students groan about being assigned a novel. This forced reading has
discouraged many from continuing to read, therefore causing a problem for many teachers.
Incorporating young adult literature into the modern-day classroom is a great solution to this
issue; however, many teachers feel that the use of young adult literature in a modern-day
classroom should be slim to none. Nevertheless, research shows that the incorporation of it into
the program is actually helpful for students, regardless of the age.
Katy Alvoli-Miller, a high school English teacher at Robert E. Lee High school (Staunton
Virginia), wrote an essay in which she discusses the use of such literature in her classroom. She
discusses that at a meeting with her fellow teachers, her peers were rather shocked when she
announced that her eleventh graders were reading young adult novels in place of the traditional
texts. Alvoli-Miller discusses how the Internet, and how readily available it is, has given new
meaning to readers individuality and how they view themselves in todays society. By using
young adult literature, Alvoli-Millers students are engaged because they are able to relate to
the contemporary themes in modern YA [young adult] literature. Topics that were once
considered taboo are now available to teens. Sexuality abuse, relationships, and dysfunctional
families are common (Alvoli-Miller 16). There is value in such in literature because it is able to
gently break the truth to young readers, regardless of how displeasing the reality may be. More
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common themes that can be found in young adult texts include coming of age stories, or
bildungsromans, the loss of innocence, and more importantly, the ever-lasting struggle to find an
identity in the world. Reading these works will allow young audiences to discover who they truly
are, all while helping them find role models, make sense of the world they inhabit, develop a
personal philosophy of being, determine what is right and, equally, what is wrong, and cultivate
a personal sensibility (16). While the traditional texts may have similar themes, as well,
decoding the text is ultimately harder for a large percentage of students. This consequently shuts
them down, so to speak, when being asked to read the classics.
One of Avis critically acclaimed young adult novels, Nothing but the Truth, features a
line from its protagonist Phillip Malloy in which he reflects about what he and his classmates are
doing in his English class. Phillip contemplates, And the stuff we have to read! Cant believe
how stupid and boring Jack London is! I mean, really. The Call of the Wild. Talk about dogs! Ma
says she had to read it when she was in school. There has to be better stuff to read for the ninth
grade somewhere. I thought high school was going to be different (Avi 4). This statement from
the mind of a ninth grader (albeit, fictional) shows the typical demeanor of high school students
around the nation. Young readers, and even some older ones, show no interest toward what is
referred to as the canon, or canonical texts. Prime examples of such works would include
Londons aforementioned novel, Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, Lees To Kill a Mockingbird,
any Shakesperean plays, etc. The contemporary student reads less as opposed to those in the past.
Consequently, educators main concern with the canon is that, much like Phillip, students are
immediately discouraged at the thought of having to read older works. Alvoli-Miller addresses
the issue by stating, By giving students literature they can relate to, teachers are giving all
students a chance to be successful readers in and out of the classroomstudents in my classroom
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are more likely to finish a novel that they are able to connect to (Alvoli-Miller 18). It is here
that incorporating young adult literature becomes crucial. This rapidly growing genre, which
covers ages ten to twenty-five and has grown to an incredible thirty-two million readers (18), is
acclimating to meet the interests of a broader audience, while still being able to adjoin to
canonical works. Pairing a contemporary young adult novel (a lead-in text) with a traditional one
(an anchor text) will allow teachers to ease in to the older works. Alvoli-Miller has even include
a chart that allows teachers to find a young adult novel to pair with some of the more common
anchor texts.
After integrating young adult literature into her curriculum, Alvoli-Miller noted that her
students have definitely shown an increase in their reading (she writes about specific student
who, at the beginning of the semester, would not read, but is now currently using her entire
paychecks to buy novels), and even in their lexical levels; however, she is using the young adult
genre to entirely replace the traditional texts read in high schools around America. While Alvoli-
Millers students have grown in leaps and bounds, under no circumstances should the canonical
novels be entirely replaced. Rather, the genre should be eased in to the classroom as opposed to
completely replacing other works. They are, after all, considered classics for a reason.
Like many students around the nation, I lost my passion for reading. I was an avid reader
at an early age, but the older I became, the busier I became. Reading for enjoyment soon turned
into assigned reading. Consequently, I became agitated when I had to read anything I did not
want to, and my passion for reading quickly faded. I will admit that I still held a modicum of that
desire to read, but time restraints did not allow me to visit the library as much as I would have
liked. It was not until I took Literature for Todays Teenagers that my love for reading was once
again rekindled. Even if the subject matter was not necessarily the most desirable, reading young
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adult literature allowed me to connect to more traditional works, thus making me want to pick up
just where I left off Thanks to this class and teachers like Alvoli-Miller, I realize the power and
appeal that young adult literature has. As a future educator, I certainly plan to incorporate the use
of young adult literature (without replacing the classics) in to my classroom, and hopefully other
teachers will, too.


















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Works Cited
Alvoli-Miller, Katy. Young Adult Literature in the 21
st
Century Classroom. Library Media
Connection 32.3 (2013): 16-18. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
Avi. Nothing but the Truth. New York: Scholastic Paperbacks, 2010. Print.