Young Adult Literature in the Composition Classroom

Tamara Girardi is an assistant professor of English at HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, and her primary research interests are online pedagogy, creative writing studies, and young adult literature. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Abigail G. Scheg is the associate dean of faculty for the School of Business at Northcentral University. She researches, teaches, and publishes in the areas of composition, young adult literature, online pedagogy, and educational technology. She lives in Badin, Pennsylvania.

• Table of ContentsIntroduction (Tamara Girardi and Abigail G. Scheg)“It’s like swimming upstream”: Using Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl to Alleviate Anxieties and Grow Writers (Lacy Marschalk)Using Dystopian Texts to Promote Social Responsibility in the Composition Classroom (Melissa Ames)Of Myths and Thieves: Teaching the Literacy Narrative with The Book Thief (Mary McCulley)Love Always: The Perks of Being a Wallflower as a Rhetorical Text (Andrew Bourelle)“They should not … engage students in writing about vampires”: Reconciling ­First-Year Composition with Young Adult Literature(Mariam Kushkaki)Dystopian Literature in the ­Multi-Cultural College Composition Classroom: A Catalyst for ­Self-Reflection (Mary-Lynn Chambers and Kathleen B. Gray)Young Adult Literature and Otherness: Empathy as a Rhetorical Tool(Tara Stillions Whitehead and Richard James Whitehead)Identity Performance in a Virtual World in Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (Kelly F. Franklin)Dreaming the Green Man: Toward a Pedagogy of the Resonant Mythological (Christi L. Cook and LeeAnn Olivier)Reading Young Adult Dystopian Fiction in the Indian Classroom(Padma Baliga and Namrata Harish)Teaching Creative Writing as Composition: Kekla Magoon’s How It Went Down, Social Justice Texts and Expanding Student Narratives of Difference Through Use of Engaged Pedagogy and Significant Learning Goals (Jenny Ferguson)“I can’t always be Lois Lane…⁠. I want to be Superman too”: Twilight, Gender Studies and Encouraging Analysis in the College Composition Classroom (Jenny L. Howe)Writing in the Afterworlds (Michele D. Castleman)Performing Resistance in the Epic Theater of The Hunger Games(Kelly F. Franklin)Writing About Death: Young Adult Literature’s Emphasis on Death and Its Place in the Composition Classroom (Matthew D. Fazio)Curious Students in the Composition Classroom: The Impact of Neurology Ideology in Young Adult Literature (Danielle Brownsberger)Chinese Folklore and Popular Culture in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese (Tiffany M.B. Anderson)About the ContributorsIndex