Books for Teachers
Critical Thesis: Is YA Literary? The Search for an Abundant Canon
Are you trying to bring young adult literature into your classroom as a whole-class, required reading? Please feel free to use the rationale presented by my critical thesis, completed for my MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts’ program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.
Use of this document: Please share as needed when making a rationale to schools for the use of YA literature as canon in the classroom. You may reference this thesis in blog posts, board meetings, seminars, professional development, workshops, or other such venues if credit is given to Lyn Fairchild Hawks as author, and a link back to my site, lynhawks.com, is included.
Lessons at Teachers Pay Teachers
Literary Analysis Questions
Visit the Readers section for questions usable in your classroom.
Copyright and Fair Use
Please respect copyright laws. With short stories, you may make copies of one story and distribute them physically or online (see specifics below). “One-time use” means a teacher may use the materials in one class, for one unit, in one year. You may re-use these materials the following year.
You may
- Make one set of classroom copies of one short story or an excerpt of the novel and re-use that classroom set in your own classroom year to year.
- Post a PDF of one story or an excerpt of the novel online, for one-time use with one class, kept behind a password-protected area of a school server or website.
- Buy one class set of the collection or novel (whether e-version or print) if
- you plan to use multiple stories or a majority of the novel
- and/or multiple classes in the school will use the collection or novel.
To copy a class set of one story or a class set of an excerpt of the novel, for one-time classroom use, please ensure your department or library has a copy of the book. A department can circulate this one copy of a book among teachers, but if you make more than one classroom set of copies, I request that you buy one copy of the book per teacher.