Teaching Lit To Adolescents

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian would be an amazing novel to teach in a secondary classroom. Sherman Alexie’s style of writing makes this coming of age story relatable and suitable for any secondary level classroom, but I would teach it somewhere between 8 th and 10 th grade. The book discusses serious issues that middle and high school age students are dealing with, such as trying to fit in and finding their personal identity. However, Alexie manages to do so in a language that is partially funny and interesting for students to read. The drawings included in the book add an interesting layer to the way Alexie portrays himself through Arnold Spirit, Jr. The character is a semi-autobiographical representation of himself, and that makes the representation of this awkward, teenage boy very authentic. If I were to teach this book, I would focus on character development throughout the novel. I think this book would be interesting to read before a graph...

After reading The Education of Margot Sanchez, I do not think that I would use this in my future classrooms. I appreciate the idea of a coming of age story with an appropriate mixture of romance and the other themes present in the story such as finding your true individual identity and staying true to who you are. I also really appreciate the book’s Latinx culture and heritage, especially centered around the story of a Hispanic-American family. However, the book’s language is simple but simultaneously stuffed with curse words. Although I consider myself to have a more relaxed opinion of teenagers’ use of curse words at school and in my classroom, I cannot justify assigning this book. There are other books with similar cultural themes and coming of age storylines that have a more effective lexicon for high school students. I don’t necessarily think the curse words in the book by themselves are the issue, but the book has parts, even whole pages, that are boring and do not accomplish mu...

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang Overview: American Born Chinese is a graphic novel surrounding the story of Jin Wang, a Chinese-American boy struggling to fit in at his new school. The book has three different main stories within it. Jin Wang’s story is the primary one. There is also the story of The Monkey King and the story of Danny and Chin-Kee. All of the stories in the book carry the central idea that these individuals must fulfill their destinies while remaining true to themselves and not conforming to their (sometimes harsh) peers and communities. Biography: Gene Luen Yang was born in California. His parents were both from Taiwan, though his mother spent some of her childhood in Hong Kong. His parents emigrated to America and met at San Jose State University. When he was younger, Yang wanted to be an animator for Disney. He attended the University of California, Berkeley where he majored in computer science and minored in creative writ...