 10 Reasons I'm Passionate about Young Adult Literature

Reason #1: They are content rich  They have themes and topics that engage the students emotionally and cognitively. If learners do not feel exposed to language in use, they are unlikely to acquire anything from the experience. Feeling enjoyment, pleasure and happiness, feeling empathy, being amused, being excited and being stimulated are most likely to influence acquisition positively, but feeling annoyance, anger, fear, opposition, and sadness is more useful than feeling nothing at all. (Tomlinson, 2003)* Themes in Holes: Friendship, Destiny, Love, Family, Greed, Prejudice Topics: Juvenile justice, bullying, creativity, climate change, heroes and many many more…! *Tomlinson, B. (2010). Principles of effective materials development. In N. Harwood (Ed.), English language teaching materials: Theory and Practice (pp ). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Reason #2 They have authentic language  The language is colloquial with both common and useful spoken and written expressions.  The language tends to be more straightforward than in adult novels. It has daily good phrases to use in conversation. (student response) I think the best thing of reading is remembering expressions. I mean it is very nice to learn new expressions through reading ‘Holes.’ (Student response) Make sure that language the learners are exposed to is authentic in the sense that it represents how the language is typically used. (Tomlinson, 2010)

Reason #3: They don't feel like children's books.  Although the main characters tend to be between 12 and 18 years of age, the situations and problems they deal with are not childish and are easily relatable to anyone's experiences. I recommend this book to my friends because I think it going to change their perspective towards life and change their mind to the best. (Student response)

Reason #4: The themes and topics can provide a springboard for a variety of skills practice.  Reading: predicting, previewing, comprehension, summarizing and other skills of both the story itself and of topically related nonfiction texts  Writing: journal writing, academic writing including simple source-based writing  Critical Thinking: recall, application, synthesis, evaluation As well as listening, speaking, grammar and vocabulary development!

Reason #5: Vocabulary and grammar are contextualized  Vocabulary and grammar examples are pulled directly from passages in the book. Make sure that the language input is contextualized. Language use is determined and interpreted in relation to its context of use. Decontextualized examples do not contain enough information about the user, the addressee(s), the relationships between the interactants, the setting the intentions or the outcomes for them to be of value to the learner. (Tomlinson, 2010)

Reason #6: They can create a community of readers If I find a good book, I can introduce it to others, so that people can get together and talk about the book and exchange their ideas. I think reading is a good way for communication. (student response) Students constantly work together not to only negotiate meaning and review the story but also to share their opinions about the topics and themes in the book. Reading can help me make a lot of friends in common. We can chat together to talk about the book we are all read and to share our opinion. We can learn each and make progress. So I enjoy my reading world. (student response)

Reason #7: They build reading fluency  As students become more and more familiar with characters and plot and become more emotionally invested in the story itself, they read more quickly and don’t worry about the unfamiliar vocabulary (In) the beginning of the term it was difficult for me to understand the story and read it but during the weeks it became more easier, because in the beginning of the term the story was not clear and it was hard for me to guess what will happen. However each chapter I read, it makes the story clear to understand. I think it is easier than the beginning of the term reading this book, because at first, I couldn’t (understand) some words, so I spend more time to search words in the dictionary. It makes me reading slowly. Now, I can understand the story quickly and enjoy the book…I read the book and I can understand almost meaning

Reason #8: They boost students’ confidence and encourage more reading When I finished the book, I felt I did like an accomplishment, because I have been reading an English book and as the same time I understand it. (student response) I feel like I accepted some challenge and I won in the end. (student response) When I finished the book, I felt happy because the book made me more interesting in reading. (student response) I want to continue to read the book written in English…I thank to have a chance to read books. (student response)

Reason #9: They can be tailored for any situation  You can use them as much (the core of a course) or as little (only for reading circles) as you want.

Reason #10: Using them is interesting for me!  They allow me to tap into my creativity.  I don’t have to juggle multiple textbooks with multiple topics. They allow me to design a course that is unified and meaningful.