“But She Didn’t Scream”: Teaching About Sexual Assault in Young Adult Literature

In this article, three English Language Arts teachers draw on their teaching experiences of addressing sexual violence in assigned young adult literature. The authors use their experiences to guide a series of suggestions for other teachers who wish to teach these texts in their own classes. First, the authors offer suggestions for legitimizing the literature with school leaders and students’ caretakers. Then, the authors offer a list of steps that teachers can follow so that students develop an accurate understanding of sexual assault and rape. Finally, the authors provide curricular suggestions to teach students to critically examine those topics when reading young adult titles. Although the focus of this article is young adult literature, the teaching suggestions can be applied to other texts.