Wendy Glenn

I explore questions related to teaching and teacher education in the areas of young adult literature and anti-oppressive and identity-affirming pedagogies. My first line of research centers on young adult (YA) literature (fictional texts intended for readers, ages 12-18). I draw upon critical theories to engage in literary analysis of YA texts to highlight the affordances and limitations of literature published for young people and how it is and might be incorporated into curricula and classrooms.

My second line of research centers on work with preservice and practicing educators around learning to teach for equity and justice. These lines of research have merged in explorations of how young adult literature might be used to support teachers in recognizing, better understanding, and responding to power and privilege in their and their students’ lives in and out of the classroom.

Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) •President-Elect, President, Past President •Senior Editor, The ALAN Review •Founding Chair, Chair, and Past Chair, Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) •Special Drafting Group, NCTE Statement on Classroom Libraries •Standing Committee Against Censorship •Chair, Special Drafting Group, NCTE Principles for Defending Intellectual Freedom in Education

My teaching is guided by the assumption that inviting classroom spaces and genuine student learning and development are predicated on the creation of a community in which each member feels valued, supported, and capable. When students and teachers work together to build trusting relationships growing from knowledge of and respect for individual needs and interests, opportunities for authentic learning, growth, and humanistic connection are fostered.

As an English/Language Arts teacher in Arizona, I worked with middle and high school students who held diverse identities connected to race, culture, socioeconomics, language, and gender. As a university faculty member, I am a teacher of teachers, one who works with both preservice and practicing educators to collaboratively study and implement innovative practices that encourage student learning and engagement. A grant project afforded me the opportunity to spend an academic year teaching with a remarkable educator and working with middle school students identified as struggling writers.

Although students were reluctant to engage in an authentic writing process and tackle topics that mattered to them, with time and the creation of a trusting community, students demonstrated a keen awareness of one another as authors and learned to call themselves writers. Additionally, I collaborated with a classroom teacher to learn more about the reading experiences of high school juniors and seniors enrolled in her Young Adult Literature elective course. The majority of these young people devoured books in our time together but were persistently labeled by school officials as non-readers.

Most recently, I worked with a high school teacher in the development and implementation of curricula centered on reading and conversation around young adult literature with Islam-related content and Muslim protagonists to help freshmen students build more complex understandings of representations of a less familiar religion and culture.

Ginsberg, R., & Glenn, W. J. (Accepted. In press for 2022). “Everything is in us”: Collaboration, introspection, and continuity as healing in #NotYourPrincess. American Indian Quarterly.

Midgette, L., & Glenn, W. J. (Accepted. In press for Winter 2022). “It never starts with machetes”: Interrupting Intergenerational Transmission of Biases Through Speculative YA Fiction. The ALAN Review.

Glenn, W. J., & Caasi, E. (2021). Gendered assumptions in the framing of fitness in sports nonfiction for young adult readers. Children’s Literature in Education. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10583-020-09432-7.

Durand, S., Glenn, W. J., Moore, D., Groenke, S., & Scaramuzzo, P. (2021). Shaping immigration narratives in young adult literature: Authors and paratextual features of USBBY outstanding international books, 2006–2019. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 64(6), 665-674.

Ginsberg, R., & Glenn, W. J. (2020). Moments of pause: A model for understanding students’ shifting perceptions during a Muslim young adult literature learning experience. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(4), 601-623.

Glenn, W. J., & Ginsberg, R. (2020). Tensions between envisioned aims and enacted practices in the teaching of Muslim young adult literature. Teachers College Record(122)2, 1-44.

Glenn, W. J., & Moore, D. (2020). The authorial mediation of religious tensions in YAL narratives of immigration. The ALAN Review, 48(1), 13-27.

Glenn, W. J., & King-Watkins, D. (2020). Fictional girls who play with the boys: Barriers to access in the transition to male-dominated sports teams. Children’s Literature in Education, 51(3), 309-331.

Torres, F. L, & Glenn, W. J. (2020). The journey stories of young adult authors: Complicating contemporary immigration narratives. The ALAN Review, 47(2), 25-36.

Glenn, W. J., & King-Watkins, D. (2019). Being an athlete or being a girl: Selective identities among fictional female athletes who play with the boys. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 44(3), 290-309.

Ginsberg, R., & Glenn, W. J., Eds. (2019). Critical approaches for critical educators. Engaging critically with multicultural young adult literature in the secondary classroom. New York, NY: Routledge.