How to Address LGTB Students in Class

In Ad Lit for the past few classes, we have been discussing LGTB novels like Aristotle and Dante and sexuality, focusing on how they come into play in our classrooms. I know this is a touchy subject for a lot of teachers and/or districts mainly because it is one of the newest societal agendas that is being addressed. Just like how racial acceptance and support was the main "issue" in the 1960s, gay rights is in the news more today, and therefore, it will be coming into our ELA classrooms eventually.

Personally, I thought Aristotle and Dante was a well-written novel that could play a role in my classroom in the future, either as the novel to be studied or as a supplemental reading that could aid in the study of other pieces of literature. I appreciated the idea of bringing in LGBT students into our Ad Lit class to discuss their own experiences, but I personally didn't gain much from it. The idea was great, but the execution on the part of the panelists is where, I believe, it was lacking. While it was informative to hear their experiences, the panelists never shared any constructive advice on how to actually help LGBT students fit in in our classrooms. When asked about LGBT literature that would serve as effective tools to bring into the classroom, two of them had never read any and the other wouldn't recommend any that she had read. I found this to be difficult, because while I think we should try to meet the needs and interests of all of our students, we weren't presented with any real solutions to do this for this particular group.

I took it upon myself to research some LGBT novels that may be appropriate for the high school audience, and I hope that this may help one of my fellow English majors know how to bring this specific kind of text into the classroom.