Title: Young Adult Literature in the Classroom--Or Is It?
Abstract:uch has been written in the past tew years about the importance of meeting the reading needs, interests, and abilities of young people in middle and senior high schools. Accompanying such writing has ...uch has been written in the past tew years about the importance of meeting the reading needs, interests, and abilities of young people in middle and senior high schools. Accompanying such writing has been the suggestion that young adult literature is suitable for the classroom and, indeed, would serve the students well in meeting these needs. Many writers including John H.Bushman and Kay P Bushman (1993, 1997), Alleen Pace Nilsen and Kenneth L. Donelson (1993), Rebecca Lukens and Ruth K. J. Cline (1995), Arthea J. S. Reed (1994), and Jean Brown and Elaine Stephens (1995) have argued well that in order to help young adults through the difficult time of being adolescents, teachers must provide literature that speaks to the issues facing our students: problems in their physical, intellectual, moral, and reading development. It would seem that the classical literature (the canon) of which most, if not all, was written for the educated adult community, does not provide the answers that young people are seeking. What are the special needs and expectations of adolescents? What are the major developmental tasks that confront teenagers? Erik Erikson (1984) suggests that the major task of adolescence is the formulation, or reformulation, of personal identity. Middle and high school students are primarily engaged in the task of answering the question, Who am I? James Marcia (1980) describes a series of stages or classifications of identity that could be adopted by teens as they grow into adulthood. Robert Havighurst (1972) outlines developmental tasks for healthy individuals that include a series of tasks thatRead More
Publication Year: 1997
Publication Date: 1997-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 22
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