The accelerating popularity of Angie Thompson’s The Hate U Give is proving a bellwether for young adult literature engaging with social justice activism to a degree rarely glimpsed before. Connecting to the goals and philosophies of movements such as Black Lives Matter, Thompson’s protagonist Starr Carter navigates the paradoxes and perils of structural racism in her school and community, with the novel’s exponential growth in popularity already leading to a film adaptation. How can such a text provide lessons for adolescent activists in search of a blueprint for social change?
Questions to be considered:
1) Why is a call to social justice so effective in YA fiction?
2) How can teaching YA provide a vehicle to examine our current societal values, understand where we have come from and continue to question the status quo?
3) Should we as literature teachers be teaching social justice in young adult fiction?
4) The desire for a moral/ethical purpose to literature has been with us since the Greeks, so YA lit that advocates for a more just society is following in a long tradition. But challenging the status quo has always carried the threat of danger, and with the amplifying factor of the internet, young adult audiences may be encouraged toward an activism that brings consequences that they are not equipped to handle. How can authors/teachers help students navigate this?
5) Young adults are already active in the public sphere : Parkland kids in voter registration and gun control, Greta Thunberg in climate change, Malala Yousafzai in female education. How can teachers best incorporate current events and politics into classroom discussion?
6) Corey Doctorow’s novels Little Brother and Homeland have been described as “youthful techno-defiance.” Can teachers leverage the dependent relationship so many students have with their own personal technology in support of social justice?
7) In what ways does Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu and the #MeToo movement contribute to the conversation of gender equality?
8) Do Hollywood adaptations of YA works with subversive potential such as Thomas’ The Hate U Give blunt such potential in search of greater audience appeal and box office receipts?
About the presentersValerie A. Booth
Valerie Booth, Ph.D. teaches in the English and Philosophy Department at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Her teaching and writing interests include: literature and science, science fiction and Modernism.
Sheila Sandapen
Sheila Sandapen, Ph.D, teaches in the English & Philosophy Department at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Her teaching and writing interests include: children’s literature, genre fiction, cultural studies and all things Jane Austen.
William Hamilton
Dr. William Hamilton is an Associate Professor of English at Neumann University. His research interests include eighteenth-century British literature and the rise of the novel, gender studies, and children’s and young adult literature.