Reconceptualizing

Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives

Chapter 1:
“The text or texts, as the adolescents themselves, resist stasis and defy definition” (p.6). I love how true that is. This chapter seemed to attempt to define David and El in terms of their literate life at any particular point in their life, but they couldn’t be defined. Changes could be identified in the two, but there were so many different influences at any one time that it was impossible to clearly define who they were as readers.
David and El seemed to me to be more advanced in their ability to articulate their thoughts than some high school students. At first, this made me a bit skeptical, but I came to understand that what they were doing was articulating the actions of other students who may not even understand what they are doing let alone their motives and influences. For example, David says, “And we’re borrowing from everything we see that we think is cool. I mean, like maybe this well fit on me. This will look cool on me; this kind of conversation, this kind of attitude” (p. 16). Not all students would be able to identify why they act the way they do. Reading David and El’s words depicts the necessity of identifying what is significant to each individual and how that shapes their identity, even if they can’t directly express it.
Pulling this out of students is essentially a different form of assessment that leads to necessary reflection of our teaching. After listening to El, Neilsen identifies the question of whether or not the school has provided models of female protagonists in literature and how this has affected how she defines herself. I’m not exactly sure how teachers can find the time to probe their students to the point where they reveal significant aspects of their identity based on their forms of literacy. Conferences and writing are the main avenues I would take.
Like any good piece of writing, Neilsen closed with questions instead of answers: “What do schools offer that incites desire in youth? What ways can schools be places where seeking home is encouraged?” “When does being aware and critical destroy the desire to move the world?” These are questions that she leaves us to answer, and sadly the answer to the first question in many cases in my opinion would be nothing. So it’s time to work on changing that, right? . . .
Understanding students’ many identities is the first step to this. It is impossible to know and understand everything that makes a person, but we can start by helping them identify the most important form of literacy in their lives.

Chapter 2:
In all of our readings thus far (except for maybe Push), I have not encountered any specific ways to help students who cannot decode, which is a primary interest of mine. So when O’Brien says that schools “provide practice in print strategies that struggling readers have never learned—more of the same in spite of the fact that the approaches, for a host of reasons, did not work earlier in these adolescents’ academic careers” (p 43), I wonder if he includes decoding here. If so, I’d like to know if and how multimediating helped students become better decoders.
I think the idea is great and would love to learn how to implement it, however, I’d like to see some statistical data if I’m going to start an after school video game club for students in a reading class. I can’t deny the power of using different forms of media. Still, I worry about the kid who although he can build a bridge and excels in this form of literacy, cannot decode a sentence.
I guess what I’m looking for is how exactly multimediating helped these students become better readers. I’m not saying that it didn’t, I just want to know how.

Chapter 5:
LOVED this chapter. It is so easy to misinterpret students’ actions and misjudge their personalities. The authors say that readers might think they are crazy for asking us to think about all of these aspects of our classroom, but we don’t have to videotape our students’ every moves and analyze them to create a more nurturing environment. Simply being aware of our tendency (and peers tendencies) to peg students as types and force them into roles can help us take responsibility for changing this. It’s all about awareness to me. Awareness of incongruencies in our “participant structure” and what the activity really calls for. Awareness of our own style of and stance on teaching.

Chapter 6:
Yay! Literacy currency again! I love that term.
The students’ works in this chapter were touching. It’s so powerful to see a person grow through writing.
I’m shifting back and forth on the “as if” framework. In some cases, if fits perfectly: “NF presented herself ‘as if’ she were confident and sure, yet she struggled with her identity” (p.116). But in other instances, it just doesn’t fit: “VR is able to focus on other issues that affect African Americans ‘as if’ there is more to being African American than a perpetual struggle with racism” (121). There is more to being African American than a perpetual struggle with racism, no as if.

Chapter 8:
This chapter didn’t catch me as the others did. Nevertheless, I was astonished that Fallen Angles was banned “because of its graphic depiction of war” (p. 147). War is graphic. How can we allow kids to see it first hand but not allow them to learn about it—the reality of it—before going into it? That is so absurd.
I had a student ask me the other day if Iraq was part of the U.S. It’s astonishing how far students can get without having any idea what is going on around them. This is a perfect example of why it is important to incorporate democratic citizenship with literacy.
I’m glad Harper and Bean added “take action” to Parker’s curriculum (p.157). That’s one of the most important steps.