Wintergirls+Book+Rationale+(Parks)

In order for students to become engaged in literary learning they must be provided with a text that they can relate to in terms of their interests, problems, and experiences. Laurie Halse Anderson’s //Wintergirls// is loaded with social and emotional issues that are relatable to virtually every teenage reader. The main character, Lia, is trapped in a fierce battle with anorexia and self-cutting while trying to deal with the death of her bulimic best friend, her parents’ divorce, her father’s remarriage, her relationships with her parents and siblings, and making decisions about her future. Each of these issues could be used to stimulate powerful class discussions and powerful projects for 11th or 12th grade students.

//Wintergirls// can also be used to teach students different writing and reading skills as well. For example, Lia is a very unreliable narrator, and thus students will learn how to identify unreliable narrators and how to deal with them. Anderson also employs a lot of metaphors, reoccurring images, vivid imagery, flashbacks, internal monologues, and more. Thus, students can learn to both identify these strategies while their reading and use them in their own writing. It is much easier to teach these strategies to students using a book that they enjoy than one that they feel that they are being forced to read.

Although //Wintergirls// is loaded with heavy emotional issues, Anderson approaches them in a way that is more effective than frightening. Although some parents may have an issue with their children reading a book where the main character is anorexic and a cutter, it is important for them to recognize that it is extremely likely that their children will encounter someone with these disorders at some point in their life – quite possibly someone they know. We need to encourage teenage students to read by providing them with books that interest them, and address the issues that they are dealing with during a very confusing and tumultuous time in their life.