Should Young Adult fiction be included in middle school curriculum or should we strictly adhere to the canon?

This is a topic that sparks a lot of interest in the field of Language Arts. Many teachers have opinions on whether English classrooms should teach strictly the classics or if they should focus more on contemporary texts that discuss issues more relevant to modern day adolescence.

In my opinion, the point of an English teacher is to create life long readers. In order to accomplish this, we have to get our students engrossed in literature. While I love the canon, I do see the importance of introducing different genres of fiction into the classroom. If teachers select texts that deal with issues relevant to today's teens (social networking, eating disorders, substance abuse, college, poverty, disease, suicide, technology, etc), I think we as educators stand a better chance of having our students identify with the text, and thus sparking an interest in books.

Although I will continue to read the classics myself, when I begin planning my own curriculum I will include as much adolescent literature as state standards will allow. I want students to be able to relate to the diverse stories and characters that I select, and I think it will be much more difficult to generate interest if the novels I choose focus only on Literature written by dead, white men over a hundred years ago.

Student Collaboration: A waste of time?

A topic recently discussed in one of my M.ed classes was how best to teach literature in the classroom. Since high school, I always enjoyed the traditional lecture approach and I advocated this in my discussion. I know this method of teaching may not be useful for all students, but I find it to be very helpful in Honors classes and for above-average achiever because it prepares them for the basic structure of college-level classes. However, I found that I was greatly outnumbered by my classmates. They spoke about the importance of student led discussions, collaborative learning, and the benefit of having students learn from each other.

That evening, our assigned reading focused on the significance of implementing reading groups in to Language Arts Curriculum. I learned from the text that reading groups should be carefully selected by the teacher and should include readers at all levels. High achievers will be able to assist their group with making sense of the text and having a relevant discussion around the readings. In an informal setting such as this, lower level readers will not feel as intimidated to ask questions because they are a part of a small learning community and collaboration is expected. Students work together to deconstruct the text while also actively teaching and learning from one anothers literary interpretations.

This classroom discussion and assigned reading was very influential on my future teaching practices. I now understand that creating many small reading communities in the classroom academically and socially benefit the students in ways that a lecture-based classroom would not.

Introduction

Hello,

My name is Corrie and I am a pre-service teacher getting my Masters in Education and Initial Licensure from the University of Minnesota. I completed my undergrad at the UofM and received a B.A. in Psychology and English Literature in 2009. Now that I'm a Graduate Student in the College of Education and Human Development, I have decided to focus on the content area of Language Arts and upon graduation, I hope to teach in a middle school classroom.

Here are 2 links that I think would be helpful to students in a middle school Language Arts classroom.

1. This website provides useful test taking tips that students can utilize when studying for English exams:

http://www2.uic.edu/stud_orgs/prof/ftc/testtips.html

2.  This website provides students with English grammar rules. This is an excellent resource for students to use when writing papers:

http://www.grammarbook.com/english_rules.asp