Students complete a short survey to establish their beliefs about technology. They compare their opinions to the ideas in a novel that depicts technology (such as 1984 or Fahrenheit 451).

To understand the historical background that influenced Maya Angelou's poems, students research events to produce trading cards using the ReadWriteThink Trading Card Student Interactive. Through the sharing of these trading cards, students understand the historical background as they analyze Angelou's poetry.

With each annual crop of new nonfiction, teens have the opportunity to discover and explore new disciplinary worlds. Tune in to hear about an array of recently-published nonfiction titles that will engage teens in learning about history, science, economics, and medicine. You'll hear about junk food and advertising, the atomic bomb and civil rights, bird watching and volcanoes – books written in a variety of formats for a variety of teen readers.

Books about science allow readers to encounter new concepts, ask new questions, and discover what we can learn simply by paying close attention to our surroundings. You'll hear about ecology and climate change, food production, infectious disease, ancient human history, the universe, and our power as humans for both ingenuity and destruction.

Books featuring teens as change agents call attention to young people who are lobbying for change in their schools, communities, and the larger world. Tune in to hear about teens who work for change by participating in political campaigns, defying social hierarchies, and even going to war.

Tune in to hear E. Lockhart talk about creating girl characters who try to ignite social change and challenge social hierarchies, the approach she takes to the writing process, and her thoughts on reader response to her books.

With a new movie version of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins' story of a dystopian world where children are forced to fight to the death on live television is set to reach an even broader audience. Tune in to hear about the seeds for The Hunger Games story, themes that distinguish the series as an important work of literature, and what the books have to offer teen readers.

Tune in to hear how Coe Booth worked through the challenges of writing Bronxwood, how she makes sense of her characters' actions, and how her books challenge readers to develop critical social consciousness.