© 2006 INTERNATIONAL READING ASSOCIATION (pp. 662–672) doi:10.1598/JAAL.49.8.3
Monstrous acts: Problematizing violence
in young adult literature
Judith Franzak, Elizabeth Noll
lives that violence has become the norm, filling
The authors present descriptive analyses of
our world with acts of disruption, oppression,
eight novels and then offer ideas and
and alienation that underscore our need for security. In an interview on the U.S. televiresources for engaging students
sion show Now, a visiting professor of
in critical inquiry of the violence
Franzak teaches in the
psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
Department of Education at
portrayed in those books.
Montana State University,
pointed out that contemporary condiBozeman (PO Box 172880,
Bozeman, MT 59717-2880,
USA). E-mail jfranzak@
montana.edu. Noll teaches in
the Department of Language,
Literacy, & Sociocultural
Studies at the University of
New Mexico, Albuquerque.
Three army soldiers in camouflage and
protective gear stand ready with their
machine guns aimed slightly to the
right of the viewer. This is a familiar
image from the U.S. war in Iraq, an image that floats into our consciousnesses
and melds with other media images of guns, trauma, anger, and loss. On the front page of yesterday’s newspaper was a small photograph of a
smiling middle-age woman; it is an image that
cannot anticipate the fact that she was found beaten to death earlier this month. Last night’s news
carried a feature on the upcoming trial of a school
custodian accused of murdering the school physical therapist. The principal spoke of the impending trauma as the community prepared to revisit
the grisly horror of the crime. These media images
flow together and form a backdrop for our lives, a
backdrop that we have come to accept as part of
early 21st century reality.
The ubiquitous presence of violence is so
much a part of our consciousness that for many
of us it has a numbing effect. We are at a loss as to
how to make meaning of the violent context of
our social reality. It so saturates our mediated
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tions demand that we live a double
life:
On the one hand we know that we can be
annihilated and everybody around us by
terrorism, by the incredible weaponry that
this world now has. And yet in another part
of our mind we simply go through our routine. And we do what we do in life, and we try to do it
as well as we can. (Public Broadcasting Service, 2002)
This double consciousness or psychic dissonance is something our students know well. Their
concerns range from tomorrow’s quiz to the kind
of world that will be available to them in adulthood. The violence that infuses their world is eloquently captured in the genre of contemporary
realism in young adult literature.
Despite a growing body of work that draws
attention to the presence of violence in the mass
media (McManus & Dorfman, 2002; Slater,
Henry, Swaim, & Anderson, 2003) and its effects
on youth, little critical attention has been paid to
the role of violence in young adult literature. The
presence of violence in young adult novels is disturbing to some (Issacs, 2003) and validated by
others who accept it as a reflection of teen
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readers’ contemporary reality (Alsup, 2003).
Neither of these responses, however, questions
the very existence of violence in the texts. It is our
belief that by bringing violence to the foreground
in the study of texts, we can enrich and deepen
what these stories offer readers. We suggest that
the study of textual representations of violence is
an important and underdeveloped aspect of literary analysis. In this article, we wish to begin a dialogue with educators about the ways in which we
read the meaning of violence in contemporary
young adult fiction and to present ideas for engaging students in critical inquiry.
Defining violence
Central to our discussion is the realization that
the violence in contemporary young adult fiction
is too broad and too complex to be captured by a
single analytical framework. Rather, the violence
depicted is no more monolithic than the violence
we experience in the daily news. Although our
tendency may be to categorize oppressive and aggressive acts in a catchall category of “violence,”
we recognize that violent acts are not all of one
kind. The violence in the texts discussed here, like
the violence in our world, is multifaceted. It functions at different levels, is perpetuated by different motivations, and is experienced in a variety of
ways. We agree with Gutwill and Hollander
(2002) that “virtual violence assaults the psyche
of individuals who are simultaneously obliged to
negotiate the social, political and economic violence that constitutes the cultural matrix of late
capitalism” (p. 264).
The violence in the young adult fiction we
analyzed reflects domains of social, political, and
economic violence that interrupts the lives of
characters and structures the context of the story.
In our analysis, we found Van Soest and Bryant’s
(1995) conceptual model helpful. Their model
presents violence as a complex, multilayered social
phenomenon in which conditions of oppression
and aggression are present. They defined violence
as any act or situation in which an individual (or
individuals) injures another, whether physically or
psychologically, directly or indirectly. Central to
their model are three levels of violence: individual,
institutional, and structural-cultural, which we
used as a lens for understanding violence in the
novels we examined.
Individual violence is the type we most
readily recognize: individuals doing harm to others. Examples include what we read about in
newspapers and what students experience or witness when a fight breaks out in school. Individual
violence is violence that we can see. Institutional
and structural-cultural violence, on the other
hand, are not as visible. They are the substrata of
violence that underpin and support the presence
of individual violence. Institutional violence is
that which is perpetuated by social institutions
like schools and the criminal justice system.
According to Herr (1999), institutionally violent
practices “are expressions of dominant societal
ideologies and function as a mechanism of social
control” (p. 244). In the institution of U.S.
schools, for example, this can take the form of
ability tracking, whereby students of color are
disproportionately placed in low-level classes.
Structural-cultural violence, at the foundation of
Van Soest and Bryant’s model (1995), is represented in world views, or ways of thinking, that
accept violence as a natural part of life. It is hard
to see because it appears “normal.” It is present in
the way society approaches an issue or defines a
problem. Conceptually this can be difficult to
grasp, but through careful examination of texts,
students can learn to identify and critique patterns of thought and social values that contribute
to violence.
Violence in literature:
A text set
We recognize that violence is present in all domains of U.S. society and believe that students
can most deeply understand violence in literature
when they are exposed to a broad range of examples. In this section, we describe eight young adult
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novels in which violence plays a role. All are contemporary, realistic fiction published within the
last decade. In some of the books violence is central to the story, is highly visible, and drives the
plot. In others, violence is less visible and serves
as a backdrop to the story. The settings and characters present in these novels reflect diverse socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, sexual, and class
identities, which we point out in our descriptions.
We also identify the different levels of violence—
individual, institutional, and structuralcultural—and offer ideas for classroom inquiry.
We base our suggestions on the belief that activities and teaching strategies must be part of a coherent, inquiry-based approach to teaching
language arts (Beach & Myers, 2001; Carey-Webb,
2001).
We do not envision the discussion questions, research topics, and interdisciplinary connections we offer to stand apart from other
literacy learning. Rather, we maintain that probing the problem of violence in young adult literature is best done in a dialogic classroom where
students make meaning in a variety of formats
for a variety of audiences and purposes. We recognize that teachers are often constrained in their
ability to develop interdisciplinary inquiry by the
limits of class size, schedules, and policy. Thus, we
offer interdisciplinary connections that facilitate
exploration of the issues presented in the texts
that are manageable for teachers to implement in
their own classrooms as well as in collaboration
with colleagues from other departments. (A list of
additional young adult, contemporary, realistic
fiction with themes of violence appears at the end
of this article.)
True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff
(2001)
And there’s the other children too that are gone....
Every one of them is not alive anymore.... Robby ran
in the way of his mother’s pimp, and Shyrelle got held
in front of her big brother when the gang gun went off
and she lived for six days before dying of all the violence and dumbness. (p. 30)
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This novel, told in free verse, is second in
Wolff ’s Make Lemonade trilogy. It is the story of
LaVaughn, a 15-year-old girl growing up in project housing, who develops a fierce crush on her
childhood friend. While she struggles to understand his ambiguous behavior toward her, she
also contends with her two best friends, who suddenly embrace fundamental religion, and her
mother’s new relationship with a man who rivals
the memory of her murdered father. This story
takes place against the backdrop of urban violence portrayed at individual, institutional, and
structural-cultural levels.
In the excerpt quoted are explicit incidents
of individual violence: (a) between Robby and his
mother’s pimp and (b) inflicted on Shyrelle by
gang members. Less visible is the extent to which
these incidents and others in the book reflect
structural-cultural violence: the view of poverty
as inevitable and of violent acts against the poor,
particularly women and children, as a norm of
poverty.
Woven throughout True Believer is the existence of institutional violence in LaVaughn’s
school. For example, the guidance counselor
moves LaVaughn from her current science class,
which she admits “was too easy and way too
loud,” to a biology class, where she is greeted by
the teacher with “Let’s see if you can keep up” (p.
53). LaVaughn recognizes the differences between
the two classes as reflecting two very different
kinds of education within her school:
I look around the room. Different shoes. These students in this room look very unfamiliar. Even their
hair conditioner smells different. There are unbroken
microscopes and equipment. The teacher walks
around and helps us,...[and] there are enough books
for everybody to have one.... It’s so quiet in this room.
You can hear the teacher whenever you want to. I
think they even have more watts in the bulbs. (pp.
54–56, 126)
Discussion questions
• What messages about their future options
in life are communicated to the students
who attend the special after-school class?
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• What does this suggest to you about the
ways our society operates?
• Do you think poverty is a cause of
violence?
• In what ways does LaVaughn resist the violence in her life?
Ideas for classroom inquiry
LaVaughn experiences turmoil when she finds
out that Jody is gay. Students might write about
how to create safe spaces for gay and lesbian
youth in school. Although there is no overt violence toward Jody in True Believer, students also
might compare his experience with the information presented in the educational film It’s
Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School
(Cohen & Chasnoff, 1999).
Resources
www.safeyouth.org/scripts/teens/facts.asp, a webpage from the National Youth Violence
Preventions Resource Center, has numerous links
to fact sheets on teen violence. Topics include
bullying, depression, teen dating violence, and
after-school programs.
Jeremy and Jenna alternately narrate this
novel, which tells the story of how they cope with
the knowledge that their father murdered their
mother. The book opens with Jeremy’s simple
statements, “My mother is dead. Dad killed her”
(p. 3). It unfolds as Jeremy and Jenna struggle to
repair their disrupted lives and understand how
their father could have been so selfish as to kill
their mother. While Jeremy inhabits his deceased
mother’s space, literally and figuratively, Jenna
finds solace in the company of her father’s exwife who was also her mother’s best friend. The
tangled interpersonal relationships in the novel
acknowledge that family relationships can be fluid, complicated, and contradictory. Both Jenna
and Jeremy learn secrets about their parents’ lives
that contributed to the emotional and physical violence at the end of the relationship. This novel
vividly demonstrates the complexity of violence
at the individual level. Although there is one clear
victim—Rachel, the children’s mother—there are
also instances of symbolic violence through exploitative sexual relationships and the silencing of
an earlier violent act in the family’s history.
Discussion questions
www.splcenter.org/center/tt/teach.jsp is the website for Teaching Tolerance, a project of the
Southern Poverty Law Center that helps educators promote tolerance through a quarterly magazine, a free antibias multimedia kit, and other
useful resources.
• How do Jeremy and Jenna each perceive
their father’s murder of their mother?
When Dad Killed Mom by Julius
Lester (2001)
• Are there adults in the novel who interrupt
violence?
When it was time to go, Dad gave me another hug,
but I didn’t feel anything. I still don’t. Maybe I keep
going because I hope the hugs will start to feel like
they used to and Dad will tell me what happened.
Maybe if he told me why he did it. I know what he
said in his letter, but that doesn’t make sense. So what
if Rachel was seeing someone else? Everybody screws
around and it’s no big deal. And anyway, Dad’s a therapist. He’s supposed to know how to talk about things
like that. He was always asking us about our feelings.
But it just occurred to me: I don’t think he ever told
us how he felt about anything. (p. 105)
• Are their perceptions related to their
gender?
• In what ways is the father’s attitude toward
females reflective of structural-cultural
violence?
Ideas for classroom inquiry
In an Author’s Note, Lester describes the grief he
experienced in writing this novel and provides
students with opportunities for exploring questions about authorial intention and the relationship to “real” circumstances. The novel also
includes a set of questions in the form of a “Chat
Page” that could be used to guide students to a
closer examination of the text. To extend the inquiry, students could visit the many websites that
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feature interviews and articles wherein Lester addresses his motivations for writing and his past
involvement in nonviolent and civil rights
organizations.
Resources
In an essay entitled “On the Teaching of
Literature” (Lester, 2005), the author shares his
hopes for readers of his works.
www.usdoj.gov/ovw is a website sponsored by the
U.S. government that offers information about
stopping violence against women.
www.amnesty.org, the Amnesty International
website, provides numerous links to information
about the violence women face around the globe
as well as suggestions for students interested in
social action.
Monster by Walter Dean Myers (1999)
I couldn’t sleep most of the night after the dream. The
dream took place in the courtroom. I was trying to ask
questions and nobody could hear me. I was shouting
and shouting but everyone went about their business
as if I wasn’t there. (p. 63)
Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is on trial
for his alleged role in the murder of a convenience store owner. He also is an aspiring film
maker who experiences his court trial as though
through the lens of a camera. Thus, much of the
novel is written as a screenplay whereas other
parts are in journal format. Through Steve we
learn about the violence inside prison—“sounds
of fists methodically punching someone” (p.
57)—and his feelings of loneliness and fear:
Through Steve’s experience, readers are faced
with questions about culpability, racism, and
justice.
Discussion questions
• We often hear about racial profiling in the
U.S. news. In your opinion, is Steve’s arrest
an example of racial profiling?
• Why do you suppose Walter Dean Myers
chose the genres he did in telling this
story?
• The novel offers glimpses of a judicial system that does not always promote fairness.
What does the novel suggest about institutional violence?
Ideas for classroom inquiry
Although Steve is found not guilty, readers are left
with questions about whether the verdict was
right. Students might choose one side or the other and, working in small groups, write down evidence from the text to support their particular
view. This could be followed by staging debates or
having the students write argumentative papers
in which they promote their view. In addition,
students could make their own videos that address youth justice.
Resources
www.teenreads.com/authors/au-myers-walter
dean.asp is a website that provides a biography,
reviews of Myers’s books, and several interviews
in which he discusses his motivation for writing
Monster.
It is about being alone when you are not really alone
and about being scared all the time. I think to get used
to this I will have to give up what I think is real and
take up something else. I wish I could make sense of
it. (p. 4)
The book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
Together? And Other Conversations About Race
(Tatum, 2003), is about the psychology of racial
identity. Teachers may find it helps them understand their own racial identity and the experiences of students of different racial backgrounds.
Like True Believer, this novel contains incidents of
individual violence but is also about institutional
violence, in this case within the judicial system.
www.justthink.org is resource that aims to teach
youth to understand and create media messages.
It has numerous examples of student-made films.
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Big Mouth & Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol
Oates (2002)
He tried not to speak sarcastically. He tried to hide the
rage he was feeling. Explaining to his silent audience
(the detectives, the court-appointed female, his teary
mother, and his attorney): Why would he, of all people, want to blow up Rocky River High? He liked
school. A lot. He liked his classes, and he liked lots of
people, he’d been elected vice president of his class.
And he’d never owned a gun, never fired a gun. (pp.
40–41)
In this story, a relationship develops between Ugly Girl, a powerful but conflicted young
woman, and Matt, a popular male student who is
suspected of calling in a bomb threat. Although
the bomb threat is a hoax, the story is rife with
internalized violence. Ursula Griggs, who narrates
part of the novel, uses the moniker “Ugly Girl” to
refer to herself in the third person in her narration. On one level, the name illustrates the power
of co-opting repressive terms to present an oppositional identity. Ursula is empowered through
her self-talk and finds herself being the lone advocate for the wrongly accused Matt. As effective
as this is, the name and Ursula’s internal dialogue
also suggest self-hatred. This psychic violence is
mirrored by the institutional violence exerted toward Matt and his family.
Matt is victimized by the sweep of “suburban hysteria” that demands youth violence be
taken seriously. The novel testifies to the power of
gossip, innuendo, and modern-day vigilante violence. When Matt’s parents initiate a lawsuit
against the school and others responsible for
making the allegations, Ursula observes, “It was
like some disease that breaks down one organ,
then another, then another” (p. 190). The insidious nature of groupthink emerges as Matt is harassed and beaten, and his dog is kidnapped. The
story ends in redemption as Matt is proven innocent, and he and Ursula find affirmation in their
relationship. Thus, the novel offers the chance for
students to investigate how individuals can transcend social boundaries and create alliances that
resist institutional violence.
Discussion questions
• Ursula’s power and confidence seem to
come, in part, from negative feelings about
herself. Is her use of the names Ugly Girl
and Big Mouth an example of self-loathing
or empowerment?
• How do the parents in this novel contribute to the violence in the story?
Ideas for classroom inquiry
Inquiry-based extensions of this text could center
on the discussion of the collective dimension of
violence. Collective violence occurs when groups
of perpetrators commit acts that they would not
commit if they were alone. Asking students to
identify the myriad examples of collective violence in this text is a first step in helping them
suggest strategies that can be used to counteract
the human impulse toward collective violence. In
addition to analyzing the text for the presence of
collective and intrapersonal violence (e.g.,
Ursula’s self-contempt), students could inquire
into the legacy of collective action such as the
Civil Rights movement and suffrage, which led to
positive societal change.
Resources
www.apa.org/pi/pii/isyouthviolence.html is a
website that addresses the need for violence prevention programs.
The video In the Mix—School Violence: Answers
From the Inside (CastleWorks, 1999), explores the
perspectives of students in a diverse suburban
high school. It includes interviews, information
about the school’s conflict resolution programs,
and forthright commentary from teenagers. (For
more on this video, see www.pbs.org/inthemix/
shows/show_schoolviol.html.)
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
(1999)
The girl behind me taps me on the shoulder with long
black nails.... “Aren’t you the one who called the cops
at Kyle Rodgers’s party at the end of the summer?” A
block of ice freezes our section of the bleachers. Heads
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snap in my direction.... My throat squeezes shut, as if
two hands of black fingernails are clamped on my
windpipe. I have worked so hard to forget every single
second of that stupid party, and here I am in the middle of a hostile crowd that hates me for what I had to
do. I can’t tell them what really happened. I can’t even
look at that part myself. (pp. 27–28)
Speak is the story of Melinda, who is raped
by a popular high school athlete. Even her
friends, unaware of the assault, shun her, and
Melinda is afraid to tell her parents about it.
Instead, she retreats into silence, desperately trying to bury the memory. Her grades slide in all
classes except art where, with the help of an understanding teacher, she eventually is able to express her pain and anger on paper. Speak explores
the psychic violence that accompanies physical
assault. In Melinda’s internal dialogue, readers experience her alienation from all that the institution of school represents. The structural-cultural
level of violence is evident in the way Melinda internalizes guilt, even though she is the victim of
crime. Through identifying with other victims,
she is eventually able to speak against sexual
assault.
Discussion questions
• What does the character of Melinda communicate about an individual’s ability to
interrupt violence?
• What structural-cultural forces contribute
to the violence in Melinda’s life?
• How is violence “gendered” in this story?
Ideas for classroom inquiry
Discovering empowerment through creativity is
pivotal in Melinda’s healing. Students can experiment with different artistic media to create works
that represent an aspect of silencing in their own
lives. Melinda’s growing awareness of the potential of art to empower and challenge oppressive
forces is reflected in the lives of many celebrated
artists. Researching the link between artists and
depression will enrich students’ understanding of
historical figures as well as help them recognize
another avenue for resisting oppression.
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Resources
The webpage http://kidshealth.org/teen/
your_mind/problems/date_rape.html, written for
teens, has informative articles and resources on
date rape.
In her article “Shattering Images of Violence in
Young Adult Literature: Strategies for the
Classroom,” Miller (2005) describes how using a
Socratic Seminar with her students helped them
to interpret violence in texts from both dominant
and oppositional perspectives.
www.focusas.com/Depression.html is a webpage
that focuses on warning signs for teen depression,
information about it, and how to get help.
Buried Onions by Gary Soto (1997)
What did I know? The working life was a scam. I
could stencil every curb in Fresno from pagan
Monday to holy Sunday, tattoo them with numbers so
that no one, drunk or sober, could ever get lost. But
no matter how hard I tried to live a straight life, I
could still mess up. (p. 35)
At 19, Eddie is determined to make a better
life for himself than the one of poverty and crime
in which he has grown up. Yet he struggles to earn
enough money just to feed himself and is plagued
by a series of ill-fated incidents. As hard as he
tries and despite the love of his tia and the support of Coach, who runs the neighborhood recreation center, Eddie cannot avoid the violence that
is rampant in his barrio.
Violence is clearly the dominant theme of
this novel with drive-by shootings, stabbings, and
gang attacks integral to the plot. These incidents
of individual violence are embedded in the larger
structural-cultural context in which abject poverty and violence are inseparable.
Discussion questions
• If you were in Eddie’s shoes, would you
have made different choices? Or, as some
suggest, were there really no other choices
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available to him that might have led to a
better life?
• Why do you suppose Gary Soto interspersed Spanish throughout the novel?
• How do the actions of other characters—
the police, store owners, Mr. Stiles’s
neighbors—reveal prejudice toward Eddie?
Have you ever experienced similar reactions from others that you felt were unjustified? What is the relationship between
prejudice and discrimination?
Ideas for classroom inquiry
Students might watch Stand and Deliver
(Menéndez, 1988) and compare the messages
about achievement ideology in this movie to
those in Buried Onions. Or students could create
a text-based Readers Theatre and focus on scenes
reflective of structural-cultural violence.
Resources
The webpage www.garysoto.com/faq.html contains an interview with Gary Soto about his life as
a writer, his childhood, and his current interests.
www.brownpride.com/murals/default.asp is a
webpage with links to numerous online Latino
museums, artists, and murals.
Tangerine by Edward Bloor (1997)
I started with the basic facts, a paragraph or two, but I
couldn’t stop there. I had too much to say. I started
writing about Luis, and what he meant to the people
around him, and how they depended on him, and
why they looked up to him. Then I tried to write the
same thing about Erik: What did he mean to the people around him? How did they depend on him? Why
did they look up to him?
I don’t suppose the police are interested in all of that.
That’s not their job. But it’s a part of the truth. A big
part. And as Antoine Thomas told me, “The truth
shall set you free.” (p. 293)
When his family relocates to Florida, Paul
Fischer experiences the displacement that adjusting to a new community and new school often
brings for teenagers. Paul, legally blind, is initially
wary of his new environment. Overshadowed by
his football-star older brother, Paul gradually
builds relationships that extend far beyond his
family’s upper middle class enclave. Early in the
story, Paul transfers to a school with a diverse student population, and it is here that he strengthens
his identity as a soccer player, team member, and
friend. Throughout the story, he develops the
ability to see clearly the social violence present in
the lives of his Latino friends and the physical violence perpetuated and condoned by his family. It
is only at the end of the novel that Paul realizes
that his near blindness resulted from his older
brother spraying paint into his eyes years earlier.
Although the veil is lifted on Paul’s memory of
his own loss, the more significant insight he gains
has to do with his perceptions of social injustice.
The violence in the story functions at the
individual, institutional, and structural-cultural
levels. There are vivid examples of the pain one
person can cause another, as in the murder of one
character and the assaults on others. Institutional
violence surfaces in school policies that privilege
some students over others. At the structuralcultural level, the glorification of athletic heroes
offers readers the opportunity to explore the ways
in which society fosters contradictory values
about skill and behavior in sports.
Discussion questions
• A central theme in this story is the Fischer
family’s inability to acknowledge the violent tendencies of their eldest son. What is
the relationship between the violence on
the football field and the violence in the
family and community?
• What does Paul’s use of violent images to
convey his soccer triumphs suggest about
his attitude toward violence?
• What are some economic and social factors
that contribute to violence in this novel?
Ideas for classroom inquiry
Students reading this text could study their own
contradictory stances toward violence. They
could examine the popular texts that fill their
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lives—music, television, sports—to see how violence is constructed and rejected in the realm of
popular culture. Because sports rivalries are central to this story, readers could investigate how
the media treats violence in sports.
Resources
The webpage www.farmworkers.org/fwafpage.
html offers information on the life and work conditions of Florida’s farmworkers and contains
links to many social and political organizations.
“Blueprint for Violence in Youth Sports,” an article published at http://ijahsp.nova.edu/articles/
Vol2num1/grosz-violence.htm, explores developmental and cultural factors contributing to violence in youth sports.
Who Will Tell My Brother? by Marlene
Carvell (2002)
February 19: Fourth Plea for Justice
Once more I approach the [school] board;
once more I ask for reason;
once more I hear their empty reasons,
their lack of tolerance and understanding.
But this time their words
hostility from the board and bullying from peers.
He has threatened a school tradition, an act that
will not be tolerated.
Discussion questions
• Is Marlene Carvell’s representation of bullying by students like Martin and Silas realistic? How does the indifference of other
students contribute to the bullying?
• Do you agree with the school board’s statement that “Racism is a matter of opinion”?
• Why does it take the violent death of a pet
for the characters to recognize the violence
directed toward a human being?
Ideas for classroom inquiry
“Tradition” often masks oppressive behavior.
Students can research educational traditions that
have privileged some while denying others their
rights. Topics in this research may range from
school prayer to segregation to the history of
North American Indian boarding schools.
Another idea is to have students watch the movie
Smoke Signals (Eyre, 1998) and identify examples
of structural-cultural violence.
Resources
are harsh and clear
and the meaning is not misunderstood:
“Racism is a matter of opinion.” (p. 93)
Though Evan Hill physically resembles his
white mother, he identifies more closely with his
father’s Mohawk ancestry. Now in his senior year
of high school, Evan is compelled to take a stand
against the school’s mascot, an “Indian warrior”
who performs at pep rallies, crying out war
whoops and waving a cardboard hatchet. “With
scalping motion, he leaps forward toward the
cheering crowd, scowling fiercely...the noble savage” (p. 14). Evan’s request to the school principal
to change the mascot is met with a cold rebuke,
and his attempt to engage the support of the
school newspaper staff fares no better. Finally,
with his parents’ support, Evan turns to the Board
of Education, but his repeated attempts result in
670
www.aistm.org/1indexpage.htm is a website with
links to a wide range of information about
“American Indian Sports Teams Mascots.”
www.oyate.org is the website of the Oyate organization, which evaluates and distributes texts, resource materials, and fiction “by and about
Native peoples.” (Oyate is the Dakota word for
people.)
Stories Matter: The Complexity of Cultural
Authenticity in Children’s Literature (Fox & Short,
2003) explores how different cultures are represented in children’s and young adult literature.
In Whose Honor? American Indian Mascots in
Sports (Rosenstein, 1997) is a documentary film
that explores issues surrounding “Media and
Race, Native-American Identity, [and]
Stereotypes.”
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Monstrous acts: Problematizing violence in young adult literature
Questions and combinations
In addition to the suggestions given, questions
derived from a critical literacy perspective are also
useful in helping students analyze violence in the
books discussed. Among other practices, critical
literacy asks us to interrogate the power relations
present in texts. Because power is integral to the
perpetuation of violence, critical literacy questions can help us see texts in a new light. Such
questions might include the following, adapted
from Bomer and Bomer (2001).
• Whom is this story about? Whom do we
not hear from in this story?
• How would the story be different if we
heard from the person or group left out?
• Is this story fair?
• What language does the author use to
paint a visual image? If we take away the illustrations, does our impression of the image change?
• Who is powerful in the text? What changes
in the text would empower others?
• Is leadership important in the text? Are
people like you leaders in the story?
• Whose interests are served by this text?
Whose interests are not served?
• What view of the world is put forth by the
ideas in this text? What views are not?
• What are other possible views of the
world?
The text set we presented in this article can
be taught in literature circles, through independent reading, or in whole-class novel studies.
Depending on a teacher’s interests and choice, the
text set can be adapted to invite inquiry into a
more focused discussion of violence. For example, Monster, Tangerine, and Buried Onions all
overtly address issues of race and class.
Combining one or more of those texts with Speak
or Big Mouth & Ugly Girl, in which race and class
are normalized as white and suburban, provides
an opportunity for students to examine issues of
racial identity in relation to violence. Another interesting topic for students to explore is the representation of schools and their role in
perpetuating and interrupting violence in Big
Mouth & Ugly Girl, Tangerine, and Who Will Tell
My Brother? Yet another possibility is to examine
beliefs and values regarding gender and sexuality
and their relationship to violence in True Believer,
Speak, and When Dad Killed Mom. In short, we
see many possible combinations in which these
texts can be used to further students’ understanding of the presence of violence in popular literature. As Wartski (2005) suggested, it is easier for
students to approach sensitive topics when they
start with the problems of fictional characters.
Whenever our students enter a textual
world, we hope they will engage in meaningful
dialogue with the characters, settings, and themes
of the literary work. Like Lester (2005), who
wrote that what is most important to him as a
writer is how books touch the soul of the reader,
we want to give adolescent readers access to
words that help them understand how violence
touches their souls through books and through
life. We believe it is important for readers of all
ages to recognize the presence of violence in literature in order to gain a better understanding of it
in their own world. This is not to imply that the
violence in young adult literature is an accurate
reflection of reality. But it should serve as a lens
to help us see how violence functions in our collective imagination. If we can understand how we
interpret violence, we are perhaps better
equipped to resist violence in our midst.
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Bloor, E. (1997). Tangerine. New York: Scholastic.
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Carey-Webb, A. (2001). Literature and lives: A responsebased, cultural studies approach to teaching English.
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ADDITIONAL TEXTS
Block, F.L. (2000). The rose and the beast: Fairytales retold.
New York: HarperCollins.
Bone, I. (2002). The song of an innocent bystander. New
York: Penguin.
Cormier, R. (1998). Tenderness. New York: Laurel Leaf.
Crutcher, C. (2001). Whale talk. New York: Random House.
Draper, S.M. (1994). Tears of a tiger. New York: Aladdin.
Fleischman, P. (1999). Whirligig. New York: Laurel Leaf.
Giles, G. (2002). Shattering glass. New York: Simon Pulse.
Klass, D. (2002). Home of the braves. New York: HarperCollins.
Konigsburg, E.L. (2000). Silent to the bone. New York: Simon
& Schuster.
Strasser, T. (2000). Give a boy a gun. New York: Simon
Pulse.
Woodson, J. (2003). Hush. New York: Puffin.
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