Inquiry Post #2

QUESTION: What is it about dystopian fiction that captivates young adult readers?

In order to move forward with answering my primary question about students finding cultural connection in these books, I realized that I need to step back first and find out what is so appealing about this specific genre in the first place.  This appears to be a genre that is read across the board, with male and female students all finding something that interests them in this genre.  Dystopian fiction seems to have boomed in the last several years.  As an avid reader in my young adult days, I do not recall having nearly as many books from this genre receiving such wide popularity.

So--I take a step back. Why are students so in to these books? Philip Reeve says the interest is obvious; that "stuck in those awkward years between childhood and full adulthood, bridling against the authority of parents and high school teachers, they [teenagers] can draw a bleak satisfaction from imagining adult society reduced to smoking rubble" (35).  While this might be true, I also want to suggest that it may not be the failure of adult society that draws them, but the notion that within these new societies, teens often have to exercise greater autonomy in order to survive.  My students might not have an accurate or realistic sense of what it means to be an adult, but they quite often talk about all the things they can be and do when they are "grown", so for me, the draw would be a sense of being "grown"  and having the control that comes with that feeling.  Further to this point of what this genre reflects in our students ways of thinking, Reeve makes a strong point regarding the lack of balance in the genre.  He makes the assertion that the genre has taken a turn for the decidedly negative and pessimistic with less of a projection of any futures that are not dark "blighted wastelands", that the balance of optimism in past novels may have been a factor in the way our world has grown in positive ways "because the children of earlier generations were excited by fictional visions of a brighter future and ended up as the scientists and social reformers, innovative engineers and hi-tech entrepreneurs who helped to make it happen (36). With all of this darkness, he asks the important question: "What sort of future awaits a society whose young people are taught that there's nothing to look forward to but decline and disaster, and that decline and disaster may be all that they deserve?" (36). This is an extremely important question that I will consider further as my research moves along. 

I am new to this genre, and I was looking for a resource of some popular titles--both new and old.  I came across this online forum in which several contributors offer suggestions of dystopian (or post-apocalyptic) fiction for young adult readers. I plan to sift through this forum and find a nice survey of books that may help me answer my questions with primary material.

Works Cited

Reeve, Philip. "The Worst is Yet to Come". School Library Journal 57.8 (August 2011): 34-36.

Inquiry Post #1

QUESTION: How might we help students with diverse cultural backgrounds make their own personal cultural connections with the relatively un-diverse worlds of the ever-growing in popularity dystopian fiction genre? Do we even need to try to foster these connections?

Dystopian fiction is becoming more and more popular with Young Adult readers. I admit that I have read only a small sampling of this genre; however, I am a bit dismayed to have come across perhaps one minority character and I have yet to encounter a Black character at all. I teach in a predominantly Black and Latino school, and a great number of my students are reading these books. In what ways can we make cultural connections so that students are able to "see themselves" in other ways in these works?  My students are often attracted to the stories these novels have to offer, and they think less of how they can connect to the book beyond enjoying the story. Perhaps I should be asking if my students even need to make these types of connections--if it is perfectly okay that they take much satisfaction in the story and need nothing else.


Again, I have to admit that I have no idea how to really begin figuring out a real answer to these questions. I did not have much success with my first round of looking for research on this, but I will keep searching and return this post at a later time.  I do not want to be the teacher who takes the fun out of something because I press the students to see big pictures that they really do not feel a reason to see on their own.  However, I do feel like it is part of my job to help my students make connections that go beyond the books. From my reading perspective, I see really interesting connections to be made between these YA dystopian novels and, say, classism and/or colonialism more broadly and  real-life, historically based racial/ethnic struggles. I think that encouraging students to locate and think about these types of connections will not only enrich their reading of the particular novel, but it will also add a new dimension to their thinking about their own cultural backgrounds and the backgrounds of others.

Let the Web Help You Review!

I like to have students do activities and assignments that give them as many chances as possible to internalize the vocabulary they are learning. They have done Power Point presentations,  written stories, and developed characters all based on their understanding of the words. I would send my students to this website, so that they could demonstrate their knowledge by making a crossword puzzle.


The clues the students would write would reflect how well they understand the words and how well they can communicate that understanding to an audience (in this case, a fellow class member). I would collect the finished puzzles and distribute them to their classmates to solve.


I would also send my students to this website so that they can play a game that tests their recognition of suffixes and their meanings.  I would have them keep track of the ones they got incorrect, and bring them to class. I would be curious to see if there were common suffixes that the students got wrong, so that we could work more intensely with those during class. 
I would apply the suffixes to several words we have learned so that students could then apply the meanings of the suffixes to the vocabulary they have learned.

Use the Web! Practice makes perfect.

Researchers have proven that students learn vocabulary through context and experiential knowledge much more effectively than they would learn unconnected lists of words. Despite this, there are many websites that offer vocabulary quizzes for words commonly used in academic texts and on standardized tests.  

I teach a vocabulary class that does not use a textbook.  Therefore, it is up to me to create and provide lists of words that I believe are most useful for my students. I pull from several sources and organize word lists in various ways. One list might include words that are all verbs or adjectives along with a list of affixes that students will use to create derivatives of the given words.  Another list may be composed of words that are all derived from the same Greek or Latin root.  Every list includes space for students to write derivations and contextual examples relevant to each individual student. 

Given the unique lists of words I give my students, they would not find a website that uses all of the words they have learned.  I would use the following two websites to have students challenge themselves outside of class with unfamiliar words using vocabulary skills we have studied in class.

I would like students to visit this site and focus on the sections entitled "Knowing the Roots" and "Learning Prefixes and Suffixes". Students would go through the different roots and affixes and locate other words that use these roots and affixes in books they are reading, textbooks, magazines, websites. They would write a brief explanation of the word's meaning as it relates to the root/affix.

This site offers all kinds of practice quizzes. This particular quiz will allow students to practice with common morphemes. I would also encourage students to challenge themselves with the other vocabulary quizzes as well.