This book offers revolutionary approaches to in-class discussions about young adult literature. It shows teachers how to think more widely than the themes of a book to consider how they might operate as prayers of lament, yearning, anger, confession, thankfulness, reconciliation, joy, obedience, pilgrimage, contemplation, and equanimity. It also offers a variety of ways for classroom discussion to consider a representative sentence or two from a young adult novel, and from that allow students to connect to linked passages in the rest of the novel. These approaches for classroom discussion are drawn from a variety of contemplative traditions, including Jewish and Christian faith traditions and include florilegium, lectio divina, PaRDeS, Ignatian Imagination, havruta, and marginalia. Drawing from a range of in-class experiences, the authors explain each approach in the context of twelve popular and critically interesting young adult novels including The Hate U Give, Long Way Down, Speak, The Poet X, The Fault in our Stars, Brown Girl Dreaming, and others. This book will transform discussions that are disconnected from the book, lacking in relevance, or missing the energy that drives good conversation into meaningful and energetic class discussions that students and teachers alike will value.
William Boerman-Cornell has co-authored two previous books about using graphic novels to teach middle school and high school. A former high school English teacher, Boerman-Cornell is a professor of Education at Trinity Christian College near Chicago. Deborah Vriend Van Duinen has served as the director of The NEA Big Read, a community-wide reading discussion program in Holland, Michigan that has pioneered college and community cooperative reading approaches. She is an Associate Professor of Education at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Xu Bian brings expertise as an Assistant Professor of Chinese to a consideration of international and inter-cultural literary interpretation. The author of several peer-reviewed studies, Bian teaches at Seattle Pacific University in Washington state. Kris Gritter has published over twenty peer-reviewed articles and chapters about adolescent literacy and is the award-winning editor of a column in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Gritter is a professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Seattle Pacific University in Washington state.
Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: New Ways to Interpret and Discuss Young Adult Literature Chapter 1: Prayers of Lament in Internment Chapter 2: Yearning in The Hate U Give Chapter 3: Speak and Long Way Down Graphic Novels for Prayers of Anger Chapter 4: Confession in Goodbye Days. Chapter 6: Thankfulness in The War that Saved My Life Chapter 7: The Poet X and Louisiana's Way Home as Prayers of Reconciliation Chapter 8: Using Havruta to Consider Orbiting Jupiter and Beast Player as Prayers of Obedience Chapter 9: Prayers of Contemplation in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Chapter 10: Finding Joy in The Fault in Our Stars through Floralegium Chapter 11: The Inquisitor's Tale: Using PaRDeS to Explore Pilgrimage Conclusion: Closing our Discussion and the Books References About the Author
