Research Topic

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For my research topic, I chose the question; “How does YA literature help adolescent readers find their community?” Smaller questions chosen would be; “Are these impacts more positive or negative?”, “Are these results shown more in family or social communities?”, “Can YA lit influence adolescents to be someone they’re not?” and “Does this influence come from the author or the main characters themselves?” I chose these questions because it interests me that a story, true or false and even a human being can have such a huge impact on how people choose to behave, think and express themselves. Surprisingly, I never thought about if a book has allowed me to find myself or act a certain way, but I do know that majority of YA novels are written by adults who write books based off of their experiences as an adolescent as well. That fact alone is what makes this topic so interesting to me. A few books that I’ve chosen that relate to this topic are The Hate U Give, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe and lastly, Feed. I have chosen these for the simple fact that the main topics of these novels are about standing up for what is right, being different, family issues and the different rules in different societies - those are also topics that every adolescent reader can relate to. Resources I plan to use are academic resources, articles and maybe even polls that millennials have voted on. My argument will be, YA literature can have huge impacts on adolescents’ lives and the community they chose to put their selves in. I also plan on arguing my opinion of why it is so important for novels like these to be taught in English courses. Overall, I feel that I have chosen a very interesting yet simple topic to research on and I don’t think there will be many challenges to find the information that I need. 

Comments

  1. Ally DunlapNovember 11, 2019 at 11:15 AM

    Kiara, I think this is a great topic to research. I think many times young adult novels allow adolescents to feel more comfortable in the community they are in. The Hate U Give is a great example of this. Do you think that the three books you chose all portray the positive sides of this or do some have negative aspects?

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