February 23, 2024
The Summit on the Research & Teaching of Young Adult Literature
The 2024 Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature will be Friday, February 23, 2024 online. The Call for Proposals will be opened in October!
2023 Thank You
The Summit is facilitated by members of NCTE's ELATE Commission on the Study of Adolescent Literature
On behalf of the organization committee of the sixth annual Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature, we’d like to thank you for your participation and conversation.
The theme of this year’s Summit was In Conversation: The Promise of Young Adult Literature, and so we’d like to keep the conversation going.
Here are several ways you can engage with the young adult literature community:
Join the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE.
The ALAN Review has many publications from our presenters and may give you ideas for publishing your own research and teaching of YAL.
Join and attend meetings at NCTE with the Commission on the Study and Teaching of Adolescent Literature of ELATE with co-chairs Alice Hays and Steffany Comfort Maher. Complete this form to get on the mailing list.
Learn more about our presenters and check out their books and articles. Ask your school or local librarian to order the book and consider hosting a book group with colleagues or in your English affiliate.
Check our website, www.yalsummit.org, for updates about next year’s conference.
We do hope you consider publishing an article or blog post inspired by your session. Some welcoming sites include the following:
Overall, the Board is committed to making the Summit accessible and inclusive. In selecting a Friday, we aim to recognize professional development as part of the workweek and respect our colleagues’ personal commitments. Please complete the feedback survey so that we can continue to be responsive as we plan for next year.
PD letters are on their way for anyone who completed the attendance sheets.
Sincerely,
Sarah Donovan and Gretchen Rumohr, Co-Directors
Ashley Boyd, Michelle Falter, Melanie Hundley, Chea Parton, Amy Piotrowski, Leilya Pitre, and Jessica Wiley, Advisory Board
2023 Featured Speakers
Ricki Ginsberg
Dr. Ricki Ginsberg is Associate Professor and Co-Director of English Education at Colorado State University. She is a former ALAN president and The ALAN Review editor, and she directs the BIToC (teachers) Collective at Colorado State University and serves as Co-Chair of the Native American Advisory Council. Her work has been published in journals like American Indian Quarterly, English Journal, Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, and Teachers College Record. Her first book, co-edited with Wendy J. Glenn, is Engaging with Multicultural YA Literature in the Secondary Classroom: Critical Approaches for Critical Educators (2019, Routledge). Her newest book is Challenging Traditional Classroom Spaces with YA Literature: Students in Community as Course Co-Designers (2022, National Council of Teachers of English).
Mollie Blackburn
Mollie Blackburn is a professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning and affiliated with Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Ohio State University. Her research focuses on literacy, language, and social change, with particular attention to queer youth and the teachers who teach them. She is the author of Moving across Differences: How Students Engage LGBTQ+ themes in a High-school Literature Class and Interrupting Hate: Homophobia in Schools and what Literacy can do about it, the editor of Adventurous Thinking: Students’ Rights to Read and Write, among co-authored and co-edited books. She has received NCTE’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy and Leadership Award; WILLA’s Inglis Award for work in gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, and young people; AERA’s Queer Studies Special Interest Group’s Body of Work Award; and the Alan C. Purves Award for an article in the Research in the Teaching of English deemed rich with implications for classroom practice. She has also been recognized with The Ohio State University’s Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Cristina Herrera
Cristina Herrera is Professor and Director of Chicano/Latino Studies at Portland State University. She is the author and editor of multiple books on Chicanx and Latinx young adult literature, including her 2020 monograph, ChicaNerds in Chicana Young Adult Literature: Brown and Nerdy (Routledge). Her co-edited volume with Dr. Trevor Boffone, Nerds, Goths, Geeks, and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature, won the 2022 Children's Literature Association Edited Book Award. Cristina has a forthcoming monograph, Welcome to the 805: Michele Serros's Oxnard Writings, with University of Pittsburgh Press.
2023 Summit Sponsors
Oklahoma State University
Aquinas College
2023 Summit Co-Directors
Sarah J. Donovan
Dr. Sarah J. Donovan is a former Chicago junior high ELA teacher & assistant professor at Oklahoma State University. She is the author of the Alone Together , editor of Rhyme and Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes, & founder of Ethical ELA, an open access site for educators.. Her publications focus on anti-bias reading practices of YAL and writing in teacher professional development using relational poetry pedagogy.
Gretchen Rumohr
Dr. Gretchen Rumohr is a professor of English, department chair, and writing program administrator at Aquinas College, MI. She is the chief curator for YA Wednesday and editor of Contending with Gun Violence in the English Language Classroom. Dr. Rumohr lives in Zeeland, MI with her four daughters and a tiny baby Yorkshire Terrier.
2023 Summit Advisory Board
Michelle Falter is an associate professor of English education at North Carolina State University. She studies critical, affective, and discussion-based approaches to teaching English language arts. Michelle is an avid reader, critical scholar, and empathetic teacher of young adult literature and has been involved in one way or another with the YA Summit since its inception.
Jessica Wiley is an ALE Educator and Dyslexia Interventionist for the South Conway County School District in Morrilton, Arkansas. She serves as a board member for Arkansas Hands & Voices and volunteers as a Parent Mentor with Community Connections, two organizations that help improve the lives of children with disabilities.
Ashley S. Boyd is an associate professor of English education at Washington State University. Her research includes the development of critical literacies and social action projects with students reading young adult literature. Her books include Social Justice Literacies in the English Classroom: Teaching Practice in Action (Teachers College Press).
Chea Parton is a former rural English teacher and current visiting faculty member at Purdue University. Her work focuses on the identity development of rural out-migrant teachers, rural pedagogy, and rural YAL. She founded/manages Literacy In Place and the Reading Rural YAL podcast which offers resources for teaching rural YAL.
Leilya Pitre is an Assistant Professor and English Education Coordinator at Southeastern Louisiana University where she teaches methods courses for preservice teachers, literary analysis, American and Young Adult Literature courses. Her research interests include teacher preparation, secondary school teaching, and teaching and research of YA and multicultural literature.
Dr. Amy Piotrowski is an associate professor of English education at Utah State University. She teaches undergraduate courses in English education and secondary education as well as graduate courses in literacy education. Her scholarly interests focus on digital literacies, young adult literature, and teacher education.
Dr. Melanie Hundley is a Professor in the Practice of English Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College; her research examines how digital and multimodal composition informs the development of pre-service teachers’ writing pedagogy. Additionally, she explores the use of digital media, poetry, and canonical texts in young adult literature.