Using Literature to Help Troubled Teenagers Cope with Identity Issues: (The Greenwood Press Using Literature to Help Troubled Teenagers Series)

The search for one's identity is an ancient quest reflected throughout history in stories where human glory and conquest are often layered with great pain and self doubt, meant to help people discover themselves and who they are. Today, this quest is found prevalently in young adult novels, where characters wrestle with modern dilemmas in order to find themselves. This reference resource provides a link for teachers, media specialists, parents, and other adults to those novels and how to use them effectively. Educators and therapists explore the literature where common identity issues are addressed in ways intriguing to teens. Using fictional characters, these experts provide guidance on how to encourage adolescents to cope while improving their reading and writing skills. Twelve novels are examined from both a literary and psychological perspective, allowing the readers to meet the central figures as if they were living human beings. Each chapter is written by a literature specialist who has teamed up with a therapist and confronts a different identity issue, examining such dilemmas as body image, the father/son relationship, bigotry, and peer relations. This pair of experts tries to define the central character's struggle in each novel to discover who they are and to become self-actualized individuals. Each chapter also provides an annotated bibliography of other works, both fiction and nonfiction, that explore these same issues to give readers not only the insight into helping teenagers with similar problems, but also the tools with which to get teenagers reading and addressing these problems. This innovative approach is meant to provide the opportunity for adults and adolescents to better understand each other.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Prologue by Joan Bauer Identity within the Family: Phyllis Reynold Naylor's The Year of the Gopher by Lois Stover and J. Roy Hopkins Identity through Body Image: Chris Crutcher's Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Patricia L. Daniel and Vicki J. McEntire Sexual Identity: M. E. Kerr's Deliver Us From Evie by Rita G. Drapkin and Lynn Alvine Identity through Intimacy: Jenny Davis' Sex Education by Marie Hardenbrook, et al. Identity through Self-Awareness: Kathryn Lasky's Memoirs of a Bookbat by Patricia Crawford and Rosaria Upchurch Identity within the Father-Son Relationship: Robert Newton Peck's A Day No Pigs Would Die by Charles R. Duke and Jon L. Winek Identity within Societal Expectations: S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders by Mary E. Little and Mary Alice Meyers Identity Confusion: Zibby O'Neal's The Language of Goldfish by Marcia F. Nash and David Daniel Identity through the Realization of Prejudice: Carolyn Meyer's Drummers of Jericho by Tania Gartside and Kristen Sternberg Identity from Destruction: Robert Cormier's Tunes for Bears to Dance to by Janet E. Kaufman and Lynn Kaufman Identity through Peers: Paul Zindel's Harry and Hortense at Hormone High by Michael L. Angelotti and Terry Pace

About the Author :
JEFFREY S. KAPLAN is Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations at the University of Central Florida and Area Education Coordinator for the UCF Daytona Beach Campus./e He is the recipient of the State of Florida Teaching Incentive Program award (1996-1997) and has contributed to three textbooks.

Review :
The search for one's healthy identity is an ancient quest reflected throughout history in myths and stories where human glory and conquest are often layered with great pain and self doubt. Today, this quest is found pravelently in young adult novels, where characters wrestle with modern dilemmas in order to find themselves. This reference resource provides a link for teachers, media specialists, parents and other adults to those novels and how to use them effectively. . . . This innovative aproach is meant to provide the opportunity for adults and adolescents to better understand each other. Using Literature to Help Troubled Teenagers series, provides a bibliotherapeutic focus for educators working with teens who are coping with grief and loss. . . . The book provides a wealth of information for educators hoping to provide guidance to troubled teens. . . . Large public libraries with extensive parent or teacher collections and school librarians would benefit form the purchase of this book. The literary analyses included are interesting and even entertaining. [W]ill be popular with teachers, library media specialists and public librarians. . . . Recommended as excellent background reading for persons entering the field who want to try to understand the teenage animal. This book will be useful to teachers who are interested in making assigned books more relevant to issues faced by today's students, and to librarians for young adult collection development. In this interesting, well-written collection of articles, professionals in physical and mental health education suggest ways of helping adolescents cope with disability by means of literature. . . . this book is an excellent professional reference, with a no-nonsense approach that maps out concrete methods.