“Young adult literature provides a context for students to become conscious of their operating worldview and to examine critically alternative ways of understanding the world and social relations” Jacqueline Glasgow
Directions:
For this paper, you will write a 4-page essay that critically examines how two of the books that we have discussed addresses a social issue. Through a close reading of the text, you will need to examine how each of the texts disrupts or reinforces a dominant social ideology, then analyze its significance as a work of young adult literature. Compare and contrast how each of the texts addresses the specific social issue A close reading of the text requires you to use specific examples from the text.
This is a formal critical response paper in which you examine how a young adult novel that we have read works to reinforce or disrupt a master narrative of your choice. To begin, identify a social construct that is central to two of the texts we have read. This could be about race, gender, social class, age, government, technology, education etc. Then, offer a close reading of the novel with the intention of examining how each book reinforces or disrupts the master narrative surrounding the social construct you chose. Illustrate how this social issue influences the identity of the adolescent from each of the books that you have chosen. Finally, examine the consequences of it doing so as a work of young adult literature (use the quote above and what you know about the characteristics of young adult literature).