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Young Adult And Canonical Literature Instruction In The High School Classroom: Assessing Students’ Reading Interest, Alexis Yang

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

In the high school English classroom, classic novels are taught as cornerstones of the curriculum. Although these canonical works such as To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) are revered for their literary merit, students often find them boring and skim through the readings or decline to read altogether. Young adult literature (YAL), a genre written for teens, may be an effective genre to teach in high school to boost students’ reading interest. This study aims to determine how teaching young adult literature in the high school classroom, as opposed to canonical works, might affect …