British speculative fiction writer, Diana Wynne Jones, has published over forty books for middle school to adult readers, and her work continues to receive many awards for its creativity and high quality. Jones is a prolific and talented writer who has contributed to and influenced speculative fiction. She uses magical contexts to comment on social situations in what she sees as an essentially non-magical world. Whether she is being humorous, drawing upon myths and legends, or using fantasy or science fiction, Jones reflects the contemporary unpredictable adolescent mind. Jones's unusual childhood has influenced her writing, and a brief biography of Jones's life provides insight into her work—why certain themes have greater interest to her over others. Recurring themes in her books include alienation, empowerment, and identification. Through often convoluted plots, she encourages her readers to think for themselves. From her stories, readers learn to appreciate and accept the complexity and inexplicability of life. While her themes are consistent, her work varies. Some of her work is humorous, some is based on myths, some leans more towards science fiction than fantasy, and some seems more like fantasy than science fiction. Despite this diversity, Jones consistently seeks to learn from her own work by questioning basic assumptions and endeavors to contribute wisdom to her readers through her fiction. Jones uses myth and the heroic ideal to encourage readers to question their motives and recognize the empowerment that comes from self-sacrifice.

Current scholarship in literacy education underscores the inefficacy of standardized education in public schools, particularly for minority students. At the same time, a longstanding lack of understanding between the various culture groups that live in the United States often results in minority groups that are either stereotyped, misunderstood, or viewed as Other. Both of these issues can be traced to the literature that students read in school, which focuses on "classic" literature—often synonymous with "white" literature—that excludes minority narratives. While minorities struggle more with "academic literacy" (the ability to read and write in an active, reflective manner), there is also a pressing need to educate all students in "cultural literacy," or a knowledge of and appreciation for difference in worldview, culture, and opinion. One possible solution is a more effective implementation of multiethnic young adult literature in the classroom. Careful consideration of specific cultural texts can help minority students connect positively with literature, increasing student engagement with academics. Providing educators, librarians, and parents with a framework for selecting literature that begins to address this issue is a critical first step in empowering minority students with emotional and intellectual development as well as providing mainstream students with alternative perspectives that establish common ground, develop social awareness, and reduce stereotyping across groups. This thesis examines literacy and education studies to develop criteria and rationales for selecting books that appeal not only to minorities, but to readers from outside those groups. These criteria provide useful guidelines for educators and librarians in selecting multicultural novels for young adults that (1) act as "mirrors" of relatability to boost self-esteem and foster a love of reading in minority youth, and (2) provide "windows" into other cultures that promote greater cross-cultural respect and understanding. After setting up a theoretical framework that lays out the challenges and benefits to this approach as well as criteria for selecting these novels, this paper provides analyses of several books that meet these criteria as well as a booklist of additional titles. Addressing these issues within the context of young adult literature is crucial to the development of self-assertive, productive adults who value themselves and the different individuals that they interact with on a daily basis; on the other hand, failure to address these issues early perpetuates a cycle of marginalization and distrust that is difficult to break in the adult world.

This dissertation is an exploration of trauma in the secondary English classroom. It examines what trauma is and the ways in which English classrooms can center healing through rhizomatic explorations of fiction in order to reassemble experiences with trauma and create hope. The heart of this work is a young adult novel embodying a rhizomatic exploration of trauma. In exploring trauma in fiction in a rhizomatic epistemology, the novel uses multiple genres and non-linear storytelling to examine the roots of trauma that are nomadic and non-binary. This writing to heal invites teachers and students to follow the rhizomatic roots necessary for their own healing and allows teachers to think differently about the purpose of the English classroom and what healing-centered practices can look like.

In this essay, an analysis of Lucy Montgomery's bildungsroman Anne of Green Gables has been conducted. The story of the protagonist Anne Shirley’s development into adulthood displays many aspects of the gender roles of the twentieth century in Canada as a result of her gendered upbringing. Anne's conformity to the private sphere stems from a need to solve her inherent crisis as an orphan but has the purpose of making domestic life seem desirable to the young reader. Anne of Green Gables was released in the twentieth century when women were considered to have universal traits that benefited the conservative gender roles. Therefore this essay analyses the didactic purpose of the novel, theorizing to find that the novel's purpose is to steer the reader's development toward conservative gender roles. Feminist theory provides this essay with explanations of the cause and effect of the notion of gender roles and is used as a guideline throughout the analysis. The results of this essay demonstrate that the bildungsroman Anne of Green Gables has a didactic purpose of steering the development of the reader toward the acceptance of conservative gender roles.

By examining critical studies of the dystopian genre from Gregory Claeys, Fátima Vieira, and Keith Booker as well as the studies of young adult dystopian novels from Roberta Trites, Kenneth Donnelson, and Sean Connors, I argue that young adult literature (YAL) has literary merit and is worth studying. This literariness stems from a novel's ability to explore complex themes like religion, sacrifice, and societal contracts. I introduce and analyze a subgenre of YA dystopian literature, which I classify as the medical dystopia, a genre that is uniquely positioned to explore the complex moral questions that surround advancing medical technologies and their impact on society. To demonstrate how YAL can deal with the complex ideas inherent to themedical dystopian genre, I analyze Neal Shusterman's Unwind and Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion. The analysis concludes that novels like these do not lack substance and have literary value due to their ability to invite young adults to view the darkness that exists within society from a position of safety and light.

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Education should provide the academic support to promote every child's potential. In my experience, schools often neglect the population of gifted students. One way to support any population is to provide books that include positive role models (Purves & Monson, 1984). Therefore, my study will attempt to answer the question: Are gifted students represented in children's literature? In particular, fictional Caldecott Medal books. The copyright dates range from 1938 to 2007. After creating a random sample of Caldccott Medal books, the selections were read and analyzed by the researcher for five specific traits of the gifted. As a means of analyzing these books, I created a schema to determine if the protagonists exemplified any of the gifted traits identified by prior research. My research revealed that out of 26 books, 14 characters were creative, 20 were intellectual, 6 were high achievers, 3 showed academic aptitude, and 4 were in the visual/performing arts. Next, the analysis revealed the protagonist characters were 17 males to 9 females; however, most surprising was the discovery that of all five characters identified as gifted, all were male and over the approximate age of eighteen. Certainly, the dominant educational implication from this study is the need for positive gifted role models that more equally represent both genders and that are school-age children.

Often teachers are faced with the challenge of teaching more content with less time and resources. The use of trade books within the content areas allows teachers to integrate multiple skills in one lesson. The Magic Tree House series has been popular with students and teachers on the elementary level. Using books such as these would be a good way for teachers to use their allotted time to teach all of the content that they are accountable for. This thesis will explore the historical accuracy and educational connections within the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne. The purpose of my thesis research is to determine, through the methodology of content analysis, if the facts provided within the Magic Tree House series are accurate enough to use as supplements within the classroom as well as what Next Generation Sunshine State Standards might be linked to particular books.

Social Work education is focused on helping students identify triggers and biases prior to entering the workforce, with an aim towards cultural competence. Class discussions and homework assignments are particularly intentional: through various assignments, students are urged to work on those issues before entering clinical practice. Young Adult (YA) literature has been successfully used in the field of Education to teach empathy and reflectivity regarding diversity to preservice teachers. The use of YA literature may hold promise for Social Work education as a teaching tool, but the extent of current use in Social Work education is unknown. An anonymous survey of Social Work faculty at Florida universities was conducted using Qualtrics. The survey was sent to approximately 250 instructors of undergraduate and graduate courses. Eighteen surveys were completed, and 17 were used in data analysis. It was found that the majority of respondents used non-textbook and print material at least some of the time in their courses. Of those who used YA Literature in their courses, more than half the time it was used to facilitate cultural and diversity learning. Based on the data, YA literature holds promises for social work education in the area of development of cultural empathy. This study lays the groundwork for further research on how YA literature can be incorporated into cultural competency coursework.

This research examined the use of award-winning children’s literature for social and emotional learning, focusing on its use for children in third through sixth grades. The world is ever-changing, and, as a result, the need for children to learn necessary social and emotional skills continues to increase. These skills include, but are not limited to, perseverance, friendship, grit, caring, and the like. It has been found that teaching social and emotional skills through bibliotherapy is an engaging and successful method that can be used by schools and teachers. Teachers or other educational stakeholders can use this document to begin to understand the need for social and emotional learning and the benefits of bibliotherapy. Additionally, this document can be used as a reference to guide literature selection based on social and emotional traits and themes. At the time of the research, there were few other guides and references as such.