As a veteran English teacher, I have watched my students change with the world around them. Given their evolution, I have found it more and more important to find texts that mirror their voices and diversity. It is through young adult literature that my students find protagonists who are reflections of themselves, both physically and metaphorically. That is not to say that I have given up teaching the canon in favor of more contemporary voices. Instead, I have realized the necessity of pairing classics with newer young adult titles. Through the creative integration of these texts into my curriculum, I have seen the engagement of my students surpass my expectations.

Pairing core texts with books featuring YA voices through book clubs, literature circles, and independent reading provides chances for contemporary voices to enter the classroom conversation, allowing for comparative analyses in writing, sketch notes, and other creative assignments that explore thematic landscapes. Students can also apply critical lenses while reading YA texts to see, for instance, the social and historical effects of the time in which the books were written on their messages. Textual comparisons can allow you and your students to explore what it means for a book to be timeless, which books should be included in the canon, and whether these newer texts will stand the test of time. Integrating YA breathes new life into curricula, allowing for added opportunities to engage even the most reticent learners.

• A Series of Unfortunate Events
• Doll Bones
• Inkling
• James and the Giant Peach
• The Graveyard Book
• The Spiderwick Chronicles
• Warren the 13th

The New York Times calls Just Mercy “as compelling as To Kill a Mockingbird, and in some ways more so.” Like in To Kill a Mockingbird,  Bryan Stevenson delves deep into the broken U.S. justice system, detailing from his personal experience his many challenges and efforts as a lawyer and social advocate, especially on behalf of America’s most rejected and marginalized people.

If your curriculum includes To Kill a Mockingbird, consider reading and discussing Just Mercy as a teach-alike. See below for sample discussion topics and questions, and be sure to check out the Just Mercy Discussion Guide for School- and Community-Wide Reading Programs!

Discuss the phrase “to kill a Mockingbird” with your students. Since a Mockingbird is neither a pest nor a game bird, killing one is unnecessarily cruel. Who is the “Mockingbird” in each novel? Who or what is responsible for the mistreatment of the “Mockingbird”, and why does it continue to happen?

In To Kill a Mockingbird, the jury finds Tom Robinson guilty, despite compelling evidence that he is not. In Just Mercy, Walter McMillan is just one example of many low-income individuals and/or people of color presumed guilty before presenting their cases. What are other examples Bryan Stevenson shares? Why is a guilty verdict and/or a death sentence more likely if a defendant is black and the victim is white (80 percent of people on death row are convicted of crimes against whites, although 65 percent of homicide victims are black)? Do you think race and class should factor into a court case?

Bryan Stevenson writes “We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated”? Who participates in and benefits from the systems of injustice in To Kill a Mockingbird? Do you believe that we have personal responsibility for how other people are treated? If yes, how should we be involved? If no, why not? Who does?

Bryan Stevenson writes that there are four primary institutions that shape the conversation around race and justice today: slavery; racial terror and the threat of violence against people of color; Jim Crow laws, which legalized segregation; and mass incarceration. How do you see these institutions impacting Maycomb and affecting cases throughout the book?  How do we see the history of racial bias in the United States impacting the criminal justice system today?

Brainstorm ways to work towards just systems. Use the list of suggestions on how to take action from the Just Mercy Discussion Guide.

Teaching suspenseful literature taps into students’ desire to read scary stories and, at the same time, helps them explore story structure and develop critical thinking skills. Have students examine story elements (e.g., character, setting, plot) through teacher read-alouds and independent reading. Reader-response journals and graphic organizers prepare students for the culminating activity-the creation of their own scary stories.

Try out the following activities with your class. Use the activities with commonly-taught short stories like “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe or “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, as well as with Neverworld Wake. Examine how the elements of a modern thriller compare and contrast with classic short stories. Then have students try their hand at a thriller of their own!

1. Tell students that authors of scary stories often use setting and word choice to create a disturbing mood or atmosphere.
2. Set up a chart paper with two columns. As you come to words or phrases in the text that describe the setting, write “when” words on the left side and “where” words on the right side. How are these words clues about the setting?
3. On a second sheet of chart paper, start a list of descriptive words and phrases that convey fear in the story. This list may include words and phrases that describe the sounds, places, things, or people in the story. How do these words and phrases add to the mood of the story?
4. Continue reading aloud, stopping intermittently to identify key descriptive words or phrases that convey a scary setting or mood, and continue to model by thinking aloud how these words contribute to the scariness of the story.

1. Tell students that much of a scary story’s suspense is conveyed through the characters’ thoughts, words, actions, and reactions to events and other characters.
2. Continue modeling as you read the book, this time focusing on descriptive words about the characters. Have students draw conclusions about the main character and villain by using the thoughts, actions, and words of each character. Have students add these words to the ongoing descriptive words list.
3. Distribute the Character Descriptions Organizer, and help the class identify the characteristics of the main character and villain on an overhead transparency. Students should keep their copies of the organizer in their folders.
4. Take the class to the computer lab or have students work at classroom computers. Have students use their completed Character Descriptions Organizers to help them compare and contrast the main character and villain using the interactive Venn Diagram. Remind students to print and place their Venn diagrams in their folders.

1. Read a section of the book or short story aloud and have the class notice how the plot unfolds and how the author creates suspense.
2. Distribute The 5 Ws of Scary Story Writing and help students identify the story’s details on an overhead transparency. Have students add the completed 5 Ws organizer to their folders.
3. Have students use The 5 Ws of Scary Story Writing to identify and describe the story elements (i.e., character, setting, conflict, resolution) and then type their responses into the interactive Story Map. Have students print and place the story maps in their folders.
4. Before reading the final chapters, have students predict what they think will happen.

Lesson provided by Read Write Think.