As someone who has always enjoyed reading, I related to Beuhler's own experience as a reader and I feel our reading journeys have led us both to believe that adolescents should have a wide variety of literature to choose from. Her assertion that students who have been readers all along will be successful in English classes later really resonated with me. One, because it makes perfect sense, and two, because I fear many elementary teachers are not only beating the love of reading out of early readers but in turn, are setting them up for failure academically. I say this because as a media specialist I have watched teachers abuse children with reading levels and reading programs. Now that I am at a high school, I still see teachers controlling their students' reading selections with Lexile levels. I appreciate Beuhler advocating for choice and pointing out the benefits that YA literature offers to adolescents, not just as students, but as individuals who are in a period of personal self-discovery.
Beuhler contends that it is possible for adolescent students to become readers when they have not been so in the past. Finding out how to help with this process is exactly why I am now enrolled at UGA in the Reading Education program. Beuhler mentions the term "reader identities," which struck me because I have been studying instruction that focuses on students' identities and I had not thought about "reader identities," which seems silly considering what I am doing. I found Beuler's conceptual framework for YA pedagogy to be wonderful and I enthusiastically ate it up. My wheels are spinning now as I have been considering doing a PL experience with my teachers at the beginning of the year and I now feel like I have more direction thanks to this reading. Perhaps I can loosen the Lexile grip some teachers have on their students if I present them with their role as book matchmakers.
The conversations between middle school and high school teachers that Beuhler retells made my head spin as I thought about all the different professional opinions at play when it comes to teaching literature. The one thing I do have a strong opinion about myself is summer reading lists and the crazy selections I see on these lists. Often times there are classics or other heavy books that most students do no naturally gravitate towards. It's summer...can't we let our kids have fun and read books that are popular teen picks?! Sometimes I think adults have lost their minds.
