Is it important to teach Young Adult dystopian fiction in school?

By -

 Is it important to teach Young Adult (YA) dystopian fiction in school?

 

·      Why is/isn’t it important for these books to be taught?

·      What are some of the popular/important YA dystopian books that should be considered for school curriculum?

·      What are some YA books that have dystopian elements to them, but do not fall strictly under the dystopian genre?

·      Why are these books so popular?

·      Several popular YA dystopian books have been made into feature films. How could these movies be used in the classroom to help improve lessons? 

·      How can these books be used to help students’ asses and better understand the world today?

·      What are some characteristics/qualities that are present throughout books in the YA dystopian genre?

·      Are there any YA dystopian series that can be used to teach a semester/year-long lesson?

·      Are there some YA dystopian books that are better than others when it comes to selecting what to use in the classroom? If yes, what are some of the ‘better books’?

·      Why are more YA dystopian books not being taught in schools already?

 

Considering I’ve read widely in this genre, I don’t think I know much about how important it is to teach dystopian books in school. I have my own opinion on these books, like many other people do, but I’ve never sought out research as to why dystopian books should or should not be taught in school.

 

I selected this topic for several reasons. The first, I love this genre. I think there is a stigma around books when people learn they are for Young Adults, and that because they are intended for a younger audience they become less significant in the eyes of someone who does not understand why YA books are so important, and how, in many ways, they are so much better than adults books. Because of this stigma, I think Young Adult books are an untapped resource that schools across the country and the world are missing out on.

 

There are several incredible books that are related to this topic. I’m sure the first one that comes to most people’s mind is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. But there are so many more: Verify and The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau, Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, Legend by Marie Lu, Scythe by Neal Shusterman, and many more.

 

In conjunction with the above mentioned books, I will use articles from databases that discuss other popular YA dystopian books, how some of them can be used to teach lessons about social justice, as well as other articles that discuss how some of the events that occur in YA dystopian books are not only fiction.

 

My preliminary claim is that it is important for these books to be taught in schools they can be used to teach important, relevant lessons, that students will find them more entertaining than some of the books currently taught in schools.

Comments

  1. Chelsea KNovember 9, 2020 at 10:24 AM

    “Are there some YA dystopian books that are better than others when it comes to selecting what to use in the classroom? If yes, what are some of the ‘better books’?”

    So I actually took an entire Utopian/Dystopian (funny how those can be interchangeable depending on the person) fiction class at my last college. While I remember really enjoying the course and it’s texts as a collective, one title in particular has stuck with me. "Herland," in case you haven’t read it, imagines a society with no men. Their civilization is discovered by a group of male explorers and the events that unfold provide a perfect foil for our own society. This is the value and importance, at least as far as I’m concerned, of teaching dystopian fiction. It allows us to evaluate aspects of our society from different perspectives, almost like a third party observer.
    Now, this is important to me as an educator because I firmly believe that the purpose of education (particularly the study of literature and history) is to prepare the next generation for participation in a democratic society. Being able to look out our own socio-cultural shortcomings is essential to that aim. Dystopian fiction allows us to give our students the opportunity to think about and evaluate the ways in which our society can be improved. Or, at the very least, identify ways in which society doesn’t work or is unjust.
    While I thoroughly enjoyed "Herland" it might prove a bit advanced for any grade level below 12 because it's a bit dated. But I remember last semester you had compiled a pretty fantastic list pairing older texts with newer works of fiction as a way to integrate teaching the old with the new. Personally, I think "Herland" would make a great textual candidate for one of your out-of-the-box pairings.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe...
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm...
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C...
Read more