Reading All American Boys (2015) in the Swedish Upper Secondary School English 6 Classroom

Abstract: Young adult literature is enjoyed by both adolescents and adults. This genre of literature is often contemporary and tends to deal with real life issues, for example cultural and social aspects of young people’s lives. Such social issues can be, for example discrimination and racism, topics highly relevant to discuss in the Swedish upper secondary English classroom. This essay performs a didactic literary analysis of All American Boys, a young adult novel dealing with racism and police brutality in the USA. The primary focus in this essay is arguing for how literature, specifically, All American Boys, can be used to promote students’ critical thinking and intercultural awareness in the Swedish upper secondary school English classroom. The literary analysis of All American Boys found that the novel’s dual narrative offers a powerful and complex insight to social issues, making it suitable a suitable material to use in the Swedish upper secondary English classroom. The dual narrative in the novel can help students develop, not only reading comprehension in English, but also intercultural competence, as well as an opportunity to practice their critical thinking skills, specifically through working with comprehension constructors.