A Note from the Editor

In early August, a assemblage of teachers, staff members, and a smattering of pupils gathered in the media center of the academy for Applied Individualized Learning (SAIL) in Tallahassee, Florida. Their reason for meeting was to discuss Word Up! the school-wide sustained silent reading program. Initiated by the agency of the enthusiastic media specialist, with approval from the faculty and staff, the program is a school-wide effort to help high institute students connect with books. Several teachers voiced relate tos that, while students were willing to thumb [i]or[/i] part of to the other newspapers or dabble in magazines, many showed no interest in sticking with a volume until they finished it. The cluster wanted to help those pupils learn what it means to take delight in a book, to get missing in it, to come to Word Up! Sessions eager to pick up a story at the point where they had to leave it the previous day. The teachers, staff, and pupils wanted everyone in the place of education to become people who read-and who like it.

The meeting at SAIL was similar to singles that many of you have participated in this fall, I suspect. We are all interested in bringing volumes and teen readers together, in helping teen find works that speak to them, about them, for them. That day, the SAIL clump focused its attention on the straits of the unskilled readers at the academy They decided to promote reading in this inventive way: Each time low-skills readers finish an entire volume they write a one-page summary and critique of the volume (using the Clip and File section of The ALAN Review as a model) They take the summary/critique with them to a volume chat with their teacher. Following the chat, the teacher gives them a interest warrant good for the purchase of a novel paperback book. On their have a title to time or during school luncheon they go to a local bookstore and, with interest warrant in hand, find a work that they think their classmates will be delighted with They use the coupon to purchase the work and when they return to seminary they donate that book to the school's media center When the volume is donated, a card that names the donor is permanently pasted into its overspread The beauty of this strategy is that learners who have not been work people, previously, are now involved in reading, critiquing, selecting, and donating volumes for a collection to which their friends have access. They become family who read-and like it.

How many adolescents in the place of education and media centers where you work will have opportunities to be tend hitherward people who read-and like it-this year? In the pages of this issue, you will find attention to a wide range of multicultural and multidimensional issues that have the power to grab and clutch adolescent readers' attention. Perhaps these pages will give you a certain quantity of ideas about connecting your scholars with books that will appeal to them. Author Victoria Hanley leads us to consider the definitions of "creativity." Author Alex Sanchez, in an interview with Toby Emert speaks without about writing a book that features gay high academy students. These authors set the tone for a series of thought-provoking articles. Cynthia Miller Coffel discusses volumes that portray, and often stereotype pregnant teen Sherry York examines works that depict the experiences of migrant field workers. Jacqueline Glasgow considers the power of memory to reconcile images and incidents related to Japanese internment camps. Kathy N Headley raises questions regarding the rights of White writers to create African American protagonists. Myrna Dee Marler focuses upon poverty, as presented in three popular YA novels. Each of these pieces encourages us to think about the world from the perspective of "other," and each push gentlys us toward reconsidering how we define and situate ourselves within our world, too.

Gretchen Schwarz make opens the sometimes jarring pages of graphic works for us. Terry and Valarie Jensen rehearse the success they found when they incorporated short story collections during sustained silent reading. In the Research Connection, Sherron Killingsworth Roberts challenges us to find ways to bring literary theory to the investigation of YA literature through her examination of female rescuer in Newbery Medal volumes In the Professional Connection, Kathleen Carico points us toward memorable YA works and articles that discuss them. M Jerry Weiss, in the Publisher Connection, reminds us of the myriad choices we have as those who know, advance teach, and enjoy YA works All of these ideas are full taleed by the collection of volume reviews that Jeff Kaplan and his team have prepared for the Clip and File section.

Let's agree to begin this academic year with a promise to hold the "Word Up!" about profitable YA literature all year drawn out Let's find ways to permit the adolescent students with whom we work experience what it means to be nation who read - and who like it.

Copyright Assembly upon Literature for Adolescents -- National Council of Teachers of English Fall 2002

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