Adolescents Rewrite their Worlds

Using Literature to Illustrate Writing Forms

Contributions by Donna-Marie Cole-Malott, Jason Griffith, Jason Moser, Mary Napoli associate professor of ed Edited by Vivian Yenika-Agbaw, Teresa Sychterz

Publication date:

08 February 2015

Length of book:

182 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

236x161mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781475813227

Adolescents Rewrite their Worlds: Using Literature to Illustrate Writing Forms offers alternative ways teachers can engage young adolescents with the writing process using literature. The contributors discuss the values of writing in twenty-first-century classrooms and global societies, remarking that writing is first a personal exploration that is informed by cultural practices. Therefore culture is quite central in how we approach, explore, and express through any medium. The chapters consider ways to motivate students to become critically-conscious and active writers who are aware of their surrounding world, and the competing multiple discourses in which they are positioned. This requires intimate knowledge of audience, purpose, and genre and/or writing forms. We provide practical advice for teachers who wish to guide their students toward these goals. Additional features of this book include:

  • Authors/Contributors’ professional experiences of teaching writing using literature
  • Practical pedagogical practices that may transform the way teachers teach writing and use literature
  • Interviews with authors that give insight into their writing process
  • Writing practices for twenty-first-century adolescents using new literacies




Adolescents Rewrite their Worlds: Using Literature to Illustrate Writing Forms is definitely every middle school teacher's "go-to book" for reading and writing instruction. The contributors respect and understand that integrating digital literacies and multimodal projects into the language arts curriculum motivates and engages adolescents to read and write culturally authentic texts. Student choice and collaboration bring the meaning and social interactions that adolescents crave to projects such as writing graphic novels, creating film adaptations of texts, using Photo Story, and illustrator studies that marry technology with traditional writing tasks, always keeping the learner at the center. A book for the 21st century and beyond, the authors tap into what's important to students and suggest teaching and learning projects that can prepare students for the critical thinking and problem solving they need to be productive participants in our ever-changing global society. This is truly a must-have professional book for every middle school teacher!