Young Adult Literature Through A Youth Lens

 When I read about teaching high school students to analyze portrayals of adolescence in YA literature through a Youth Lens in Sarigianides, Petrone, and Lewis this week, I could not help but think about my own students and the backgrounds and experiences they bring to the classroom. My school has a relatively small but rather diverse population of English learners, ranging in age from 14 to 20 years old.  Last year among my learners I had a handful of Somali students who had been attending school in the United States since kindergarten, and a teen from Pakistan who had never attended school before enrolling in my high school mid-school year. I have a student from Argentina who’s made the varsity soccer team, and two sisters from Afghanistan who help support their family by bagging groceries late into the night after the school day ends. I have never asked my students to describe a “typical adolescent.” I am curious to see how they would define this category and where they would see themselves in relation to it. I would love to capture their ideas using the body biography activity described in chapter two. That sounds like such an engaging way to begin exploring the topic of adolescence and representation. Sarigianides also relates that the students in the class she profiled kept a record of their evolving understanding of adolescence and the Youth Lens. I can see how valuable this would be to do with my students as well. 

My students are very comfortable with calling out racism and gender stereotypes when they see them, and I like the idea of presenting adolescence as a construct in comparison to other biased thinking that they are already aware of. That feels like a logical stepping stone to build on previous knowledge that they have. This is one more lens for them to use to critically evaluate texts, and I agree with the teacher Rachel’s belief that giving students the tools and practice in identifying stereotypes in literature will give them a valuable tool that they can apply to their lives, and as Sarigianides states, “positions youth themselves as social activists able to change dominant ideas in the world that unfairly depicts them” (p. 22). That is such an empowering perspective to have as teachers and to build in our students! 

Sarigianides et al. share four confident characterizations (stereotypes) about adolescents and questions to ask for each when examining a text for bias. These characteristics have to do with age, focus on peer relationships, hormones, and a slow coming of age process. When examining Adam Silvera’s (2017) They Both Die at the End using these questions, we can see that he does focus on the age of the protagonists, Rufus and Mateo, but it is relevant to the plot because their lives are ending prematurely. The question of peer focus is interesting to me because when I first read the book I wondered why so many characters in it were dead (Rufus’s family, Mateo’s mom, Lidia’s boyfriend). Upon reflection I decided that the author made a choice to have Rufus be orphaned and Mateo to be basically an orphan (his father is in a coma throughout the book) so that the plot could focus on the teens spending their last day together. I am sure that living families would have been challenging to ignore. Despite the fact that the teens focus on their new and short lived relationship, they are not solely focused on peer relationships. They visit Mateo’s mother’s gravesite. They visit Mateo’s father in the hospital, Mateo visits his friend and leaves money for her to help support her daughter, his young goddaughter. Rufus recalls his family positively as well. I don’t think the teens in the book are portrayed as full of raging hormones. Lidia has a daughter and that is not portrayed in a judgemental way. The protagonists are not afforded the luxury of a leisurely coming of age. Obviously, their early deaths preclude that. The story focuses on their growth as human beings in the course of a day. Mateo came out of his shell and lived his last day less fearfully, and Rufus stopped being a person he didn’t like. Looking at YA literature through a Youth Lens is a necessary tool in a high school English classroom. I look forward to sharing it with my own students.