Wadham, Rachel L., and Jonathan W. Ostenson. Integrating Young Adult Literature through the Common Core Standards. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2013. ISBN: 978-1-61069-118-5
Note: The Oregon State Library also has the related book, Integrating Children's Literature through the Common Core State Standards.
Publisher's Description
This book advocates for a stronger role for young-adult literature in ELA classrooms, compellingly documenting how this body of work meets both the needs of adolescent students and the demands of the common core for complex texts and tasks.
The first part of the book addresses the widely adopted common core state standards by examining closely the standards' model of text complexity and demonstrating how young adult literature can fill the requirements of this model. The second part provides theoretical discussions and analysis of the standards as well as concrete applications of young adult literature within the classroom in order to give school professionals a comprehensive understanding of how young adult literature and the standards can work together. The book empowers schools and teachers to make intelligent, informed decisions about texts and instructional practices that benefit their students.
Finally, the authors explore a powerful teaching approach that integrates current understandings about learning, young adult literature, and the common core standards in a way that will facilitate greater learning and understanding in English classrooms.
Highlights
• Presents a thorough exploration and critique of the CCSS model for text complexity, including analysis of the quantitative and quantitative measures as well as the reader and text dimensions
• Supplies a fully explicated model for using qualitative elements to evaluate the complexity of literary texts, a subject inadequately addressed in the common core documents and other literature
• Comprehensively analyzes 15 recent young adult titles, demonstrating how to effectively apply the CCSS model
• Provides an explication of inquiry learning, a teaching approach well-suited to integrating young-adult literature and the common core expectations, including a detailed model unit plan
• Includes numerous resources and text lists to help teachers plan meaningful learning units using inquiry approaches and young adult literature
Sample Topics
Adolescent Readers
Common Core State Standards
Inquiry Learning
Instructional Tasks
Instructional Text Selection
Qualitative Measures of Text Complexity
Quantitative Measures of Text Complexity
Readability
Unit Planning
Young Adult Literature
