Daughters Reading and Responding to African American Young Adult Literature: The Umoja Book Club

Open Access
- Author:
- Davis, Melvette Melvin
- Graduate Program:
- English
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 16, 2009
- Committee Members:
- Raymond Keith Gilyard, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Keith Gilyard, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Linda Furgerson Selzer, Committee Member
Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Committee Member
Jeanine M Staples, Committee Member - Keywords:
- African American literature
literacy
adolescent girls
reader-response
book clubs
young adult literature - Abstract:
- This dissertation details efforts undertaken by the researcher to address a group of African American adolescent girls’ need for positive role models and Black female-centered spaces where discussions of issues such as Black female identity, voice, and relationships could take place. During the 2005-2006 school year, I facilitated a book club with ninth and tenth grade girls participating in the Umoja Youth Empowerment Program. This book club provided an opportunity for teen girls to read and discuss with peers and adult mentors issues in young adult texts written by African American female authors. This book club aimed to examine how African American female readers discussed African American young adult literature (AAYAL) in an out-of-school context. In Chapter One, I outline the theoretical framework that undergirds this study. It is largely informed by feminist and Black feminist/womanist theories that offer a way to discuss social, personal, cultural, and literacy issues concerning African American adolescent girls and women. Chapter Two describes the youth empowerment group from which participants were recruited and details my data collection methods and analysis procedures. In Chapter Three, I present the results of my textual analysis of AAYA novels read in the book club. I use Black feminist literary criticism to analyze works by Sharon Flake, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Connie Porter and to demonstrate how these authors use AAYA fiction as a tool to tell Black girls’ and women’s stories and to challenge the ways we view Black teenage girls. Chapter Four reveals the most frequently discussed topics among participants during the book club: relationships with mothers, relationships with boys, and support and guidance for girls. I employ Black feminist and reader-response theory to analyze the ways the girls responded to these topics. In Chapter Five, I reflect on the research experience and emphasize the need for continued efforts to identify adolescent girls’ personal, social, and cultural needs and to affirm their identities. I also discuss the significance of this study to in-school and out-of-school literacy research and teaching practices.