Young adult literature (YA) has been stereotypical in many of its portrayals of LGBTQ teens from the 1960s to the early 2000s, but three contemporary YA series--Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments, Sarah Rees Brennan's Demons trilogy, and Holly Black's Modern Faerie Tales--indicate a change toward more nuanced characterizations. Using four categories--scriptedness, context, importance, and sexuality--to determine whether these representations of LGBTQ youth challenge or reiterate older tropes, my analysis indicates that YA has moved toward more complex representations of queerness, yet some normative discursive structures are still at work, such as poisonings or curses, supernatural parallels to coming out, and heteronormative humour. Although representations of queerness have diversified, then, the implicit ideologies in each author's portrayal of queerness demands closer attention.

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This research was designed to investigate issues of quality in the reading of fiction of 11 – 16 year olds in school; this included the reading of fiction as part of the curriculum and private reading for pleasure. It is research which found its roots in the surveys of children’s reading habits carried out by Jenkinson (1946), Whitehead, Capey, and Maddren, (1977), Hall and Coles (1999) and Clark, Osborne and Akerman (2008). These surveys, over sixty years, show how attitudes to reading for 11 – 16 year olds, their reading habits and their preferred texts have changed. Judgements of quality in children’s chosen reading are implied in those studies but criteria for these judgments of quality are not defined. The National Curriculum (NC) for England (2008) explicitly refers to texts considered to be of high quality and lists prescribed texts and authors, but does not define what is meant by quality. The study was designed to investigate how teachers and students in secondary schools (11 – 16 year olds) in England conceptualised quality in the fiction used in class and for private reading. Individual teachers and groups of 11 – 16 year olds from four schools in the South-West of England were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The interview data were analysed using a Cultural and Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) framework. The findings indicate that interpretations of quality are complex and often linked to examination syllabus requirements; the iterations of the NC for English in England; and discrete individual school and departmental needs. This can cause professional tension amongst teachers relating to the imposed rules, to external expectations and to the lack of teacher autonomy. The study offers new insights into how fiction for 11 – 16 year olds is used and conceptualised in school. This is represented theoretically through the framework of CHAT and in terms of the confusion at the intersection of boundary objects. The outcomes of the research will also contribute to clarifying how texts written for young adults may be judged and to the conceptualisation of a pedagogy to support the use of fiction with 11 – 16 year olds in school.

Adaptations of works have the potential to bring their subject matter to a new audience. This thesis explores the adaptation of Russian fairy tales into novels by authors Orson Scott Card and Joy Preble by looking at how they present Russian fairy tales, folkloric figures, and fairy tale structure to an American audience.

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of the role of Swedish literature for adolescents in the French literary scene in the early 2000s. The sociology of literature constitutes the main theoretical framework of this thesis. Drawing from examples that broach the sensitive topic of "unprovoked violence" as it is treated in two Swedish novels for teenagers, Spelar död [Play Death] by Stefan Casta and När tågen går förbi (Train Wreck) by Malin Lindroth, this thesis shows how these novels are innovative in Even-Zohar’s sense of the term, as addressed in his Polysystem Theory (1990). By introducing "unprovoked violence" and violent teenagers via a realistic genre, such works filled a vacuum in the French system and injected a new dynamic into it. This dynamic makes it possible for new literary models to be introduced in the system and to change the standards of that system. The analyses of the French and Swedish receptions of the two novels mentioned above show that they gave rise to a moral panic in France, which is not an unusual thing to happen in periods of ongoing change. This also clarifies the differences in norms between the two systems. The French system tends to reject dark topics, while the Swedish wishes to discuss them. The investigations of the translations of unprovoked violence show that adherence to Swedish norms determine the translation’s adequacy (Toury), which may be part of the reason for the stormy reception the two works received in France, and their undergoing censure. The position of translators and publishers in the literary system also plays a major role for a translated text not being censured during the transfer from one system to another. Even if the Swedish titles translated into French are few, this thesis shows that the impact of Swedish literature on adolescents in France is certain. By introducing new and sensitive topics, such novels could be early markers of an evolution of the French field of literature for adolescents.

For some years now the need for the emphasis of moral and spiritual values in our public schools has been recognized by the Kentucky Department of Education. The department has given encouragement to numerous research projects and summer workshops held for the purpose of finding an answer to the problem of emphasizing moral and spiritual values in public education. The concern for this need has informally become known as the “Kentucky Movement.” This study was not undertaken with the thought of introducing new programs in our high schools. The teaching of moral and spiritual values should be done through the curriculum and the school activities as they now exist. If the English teacher is sensitive to life-values and endorses the excellent position of the Second Workshop on Moral and Spiritual Values in Education held at the University of Kentucky in 1950 on his subject, he will have a wonderful time working out lesson-plans slanted toward bringing out those values. It is up to the teacher to work out, according to his own teaching field, the procedure he will use. Basic help can be received in workshops and other study groups where evaluations of success and failure in like situations take place, but still, the teacher must depend on his own individual ability.

This essay is based on Judith A. Langer’s many years of literacy research and her concepts of ‘the literate mind’ and ‘envisionment building’ in the classroom. In addition to Langer’s theories, I consider several other strategies for reading, some of which have evolved from Langer’s ideas and are adapted to fit the teaching of English for Swedish upper secondary school. Furthermore, I discuss the benefits of teaching a foreign language with the help of literature in general and Young Adult (YA) literature in particular. Working with YA literature in the classroom can not only help students develop a greater empathy towards others, but is also well suited for teaching reading strategies to teenagers. In the analysis, I demonstrate a didactic approach with the help of extracts from Ruta Sepetys’ Between Shades of Gray (2011). My findings indicate that reading Young Adult literature can benefit teenagers’ personal growth as well as their language learning and general knowledge. Lastly, I assert that envisionment building can both lead to reevaluation of the readers themselves as well as to a greater understanding of different texts and the readers’ perception of the historical and contemporary world.

This thesis explores the ways in which the television adaptations of Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries become more homogenized during the adaptation process, thus contributing to an implied exclusivity from which Alloy, Inc.—the media and marketing company that owns these products—might benefit. This paper points out the ways in which the three products become structurally similar to one another during the adaptation process through the implementation of soap opera conventions. An exploration of consumption and class in each of the three works reveals an emphasis on class-based exclusivity in the adaptation process. Finally, a focus on portrayals of race within the source texts and their respective adaptations reveals the ways in which African American characters are presented as invisible, outsiders, or antagonists, thus creating products that become more exclusive on a race basis.

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Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-07-11T12:44:36Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Leticia Gois Vilela.pdf: 794938 bytes, checksum: 831807878fa6bcdaf5d3c541dfc367b1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-11T12:44:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Leticia Gois Vilela.pdf: 794938 bytes, checksum: 831807878fa6bcdaf5d3c541dfc367b1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This dissertation aims to explore how the teenager identifies with the literary narrative destined for him. During the last years, the consumption of young adult literature surprises the market and the researchers that look for ways to promote reading among teenagers; the former saturates the market with books of similar themes and the latter discuss whether this interest is genuine or whether it is just another form of socialization and belonging into "tribes" for these teenagers. The empirical object of this research consists of narrative strategies for the teenager, for the corpus were select some works of young adult literature, these being the trilogies Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, The Selection, by Kiera Cass, and Divergent, by Veronica Roth. The epistemological object focuses on the analysis of the formation of bonds with the teenager public through the narrative strategies. The objective is to understand how these narrative strategies are consumed and form perceptive bonds with the teenager public, creating another face for the consumer. As a methodological strategy were determined the discrimination and analysis of the narrative structures and cultural patterns of the works of the corpus, a comparison of these characterizations and the definition of the communicative processes underlying them. For the theoretical foundation, concepts of Vladimir Propp and Tzvetan Todorov were used to analyze the narrative structures and to discriminate their common elements, as well as Paul Ricoeur and Walter Benjamin to study the mimetic function of these characterizations, texts by Michael Cart, Jon Savage, Lucy Rollins and Philippe Ariès, of historical standpoint, by Zoara Failla, João Ceccantini and Silvia Borelli, by social and cultural standpoint adequate to the contextualization of teenager public and young adult literature, as well as the concepts of Homi Bhabha, João Freire Filho, Edgar Morin and Giles Lipovetsky to study the stereotypes that permeate the teenager culture and finally the concepts of Gabriel Tarde, Siegfried Kracauer, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer to analyze the concepts of invention and imitation in communicative processes / Esta dissertação busca explorar como se dá a identificação do jovem com a narrativa literária destinada a ele. Durante os últimos, anos o consumo de literatura juvenil surpreende o mercado e os pesquisadores que buscam formas de fomentar a leitura entre os adolescentes; os primeiros saturam o mercado de obras com a mesma temática e os últimos discutem se esse interesse é genuíno ou se é apenas mais uma forma de socialização e pertencimento a "tribos" para esses jovens. O objeto empírico desta pesquisa consiste em estratégias narrativas para o público jovem, para o corpus selecionou-se algumas obras da literatura juvenil sendo elas as trilogias Jogos Vorazes, de Suzanne Collins, A Seleção, de Kiera Cass, e Divergente, de Veronica Roth. O objeto epistemológico volta-se para a análise da formação de vínculos com o público jovem por meio das estratégias narrativas. O objetivo é compreender como essas estratégias narrativas são consumidas e formam vínculos perceptivos com o público jovem, criando uma outra face para o consumidor. Como estratégia metodológica determinou-se a discriminação e a análise das estruturas narrativas e padrões culturais das obras do corpus, a comparação dessas caracterizações e a definição dos processos comunicativos subjacentes a elas. Para a fundamentação teórica utilizou-se conceitos de Vladimir Propp e Tzvetan Todorov para analisar as estruturas narrativas e discriminar seus elementos comuns, bem como Paul Ricoeur e Walter Benjamin para estudar a função mimética dessas caracterizações, textos de Michael Cart, Jon Savage, Lucy Rollins e Philippe Ariès, de viés histórico, de Zoara Failla, João Ceccantini e Silvia Borelli, de viés social e cultural adequados à contextualização do público jovem e da literatura juvenil, além dos conceitos de Homi Bhabha, João Freire Filho, Edgar Morin e Giles Lipovetsky para estudar os estereótipos que permeiam a cultura juvenil e por fim os conceitos de Gabriel Tarde, Siegfried Kracauer, Theodor Adorno e Max Horkheimer para analisar os conceitos de invenção e imitação nos processos comunicativos