ALAN v21n2 - THE MEMBERSHIP CONNECTION
News from ALAN The Membership Connection
Kay Bushman, Editor
Ottawa High School, Ottawa, KansasThe ALAN Award for outstanding contributions to young adult literature was presented to Chris Crutcher at the ALAN breakfast on November 20, 1993, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Crutcher is the author of numerous young adult books including Running Loose , Stotan! , Chinese Handcuffs , and Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes .
ALAN election results were also announced in Pittsburgh by election chairperson Gary Salvner . President-elect is Diana Mitchell from Sexton High School in Lansing, Michigan. The new directors, serving three-year terms, are John H. (Jack) Bushman of the University of Kansas; Patricia Campbell , the general editor of Twayne's Young Adult Author Series; and Lois Stover of Towson State University in Maryland. They began their terms on November 23, joining Virginia Monseau as president; Betty Carter as past president; and Beatrice Cain , Donald Kenney , Rosemary Ingham , John Mason , Gary Salvner , and ALAN Teasley as directors. Ted Hipple serves ALAN as its executive secretary.
Recipients of grants from the ALAN Foundation for Young Adult Literature are Jean Brown and Elaine Stephens of Saginaw Valley State; Sandra Krickeberg of Northern Illinois University and the Aurora, Illinois, public schools; Virginia Monseau of Youngstown State; and J. Lea Smith of the University of Louisville. These grants are awarded annually and funded by royalties from Don Gallo's Sixteen , Visions , and Connections ; by publishers of young adult books; and by a portion of ALAN dues. Applications for these grants are available from Ted Hipple, 301 Claxton Hall, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-3400 , and must be submitted by September 15, 1994.
The 1994 ALAN Workshop will be held in Orlando, Florida, November 16-17, prior to the annual NCTE Conference, November 18-21, 1994. The keynote speaker will be Stephen Dunning . The ALAN breakfast will be Saturday, November 19.
News from NCTE
The National Council of Teachers of English announces the following publications that may be of interest to educators involved with young adult literature:
* Speaking of Poets: Interviews with Poets Who Write for Children and Young Adults , written by Jeffrey S. Copeland, focuses on some of the top children's poets and anthologists in America, who share their views on their own work and the role of poetry in children's lives. Poets included in the publication are Arnold Adoff, Lilian Moore, Mel Glenn, Aileen Fisher, and Jimmy Santiago Baca, among others.
* Situating Readers: Students Making Meaning of Literature , written by Harold A. Vine, Jr., and Mark A. Faust, promotes a student-empowering approach to literature instruction. The authors describe their own curriculum in reading and literature, which is based on a three-step process of engaging students in reading a text, enhancing their understanding of the text through creative classroom activities, and evaluating what has been accomplished and learned through self-reflection.
* Literature in the Secondary School: Studies of Curriculum and Instruction in the United States , written by Arthur N. Applebee, includes findings from a wide-ranging study of the present state of literature teaching in American middle and secondary schools. The author distills evidence about conditions for teaching literature, the curriculum as a whole, works chosen for study, selections available in recent anthologies, classroom instruction, instructional materials offered in anthologies, writing in connection with literature study, and school library resources in literature.
Each of these sources can be obtained through contacting NCTE, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096 .
News of Awards
The 1993 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards were presented to James Berry for Ajeemah and His Son (HarperCollins) for best fiction work and Patricia C. and Fredrick McKissack for Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman? (Scholastic) for best nonfiction work. Honor books were The Giver (Houghton Mifflin) by Lois Lowry and Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times (And What the Neighbors Thought) (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) by Kathleen Krull and illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt .
Calls for Manuscripts
Anita C. Fellman is seeking student writing for a study she is doing on the place of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books in the American culture. Teachers and librarians are encouraged to ask their teenage students who read and remember those books to write a paragraph indicating the following: when and under what circumstances they read the books, what they found most enjoyable and memorable about them, and what they recall as the most important lessons about American life and values to be learned from the series. Responses should be sent to Anita C. Fellman, Department of History, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23629 .
The Virginia English Bulletin invites you to submit articles, reviews, or descriptions of teaching ideas for the Fall 1994 issue, the focus of which is Adolescent Literature: Making Connections with Teens. The deadline is June 15, 1994. For further information, contact Patricia Kelly, Curriculum and Instruction, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0313.