Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents' Lives (Electronic book text)

"Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents' Lives, Second Edition" maintains the focus of the first edition on a broad, generative view of adolescent literacies. What is different is its emphasis on the importance of valuing adolescents' perspectives - in an era of skyrocketing interest in improving literacy instruction at the middle and high school levels driven by externally mandated reforms and accountability measures. A central concern is the degree to which this new interest takes into account adolescents' personal, social, and cultural experiences in relation to literacy learning. In this new edition, students' voices and perspectives are featured front and center in every chapter. Particular attention is given throughout to multiple literacies - especially how information and new communication technologies are changing learning from and with text. Nine of the 15 chapters are new; all other chapters are thoroughly updated. The volume is structured around four main themes.; Situating Adolescents' Literacies - addressing how young people use favorite texts to perform their identities; how they counter school - based constructions of incompetence; and how they re/construct their literate identities in relation to certain kinds of gendered expectations, pedagogies, and cultural resources. Positioning Youth as Readers and Writers - stressing the importance of classroom discourse, cultural capital, agency, and democratic citizenship in mediating adolescents' literate identities. Mediating Practices in Young People's Literacies - looking at issues of language, social class, race, and culture in shaping how adolescents represent themselves and are represented by others. And, Changing Teachers, Teaching Changes - capturing the productive ambiguities associated with teaching urban adolescents to read and write in changing times, encouraging students to conduct action research on topics that are personally relevant, and using 'enabling constraints' as a concept to formulate policies on adolescent literacy instruction.