Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents' Lives (3rd edition)

2012

This investigation is a case-study of adolescent literacy practices and some of the texts arising from them. Forty-five texts were initially analysed for their generic structure and semiotic composition from within the traditions of the sociolinguistic paradigm. Findings from these two processes of analysis were then reinterpreted from a Deleuzean perspective with the aim of opening out otherwise imperceptible generative forces implicated in differences between the creation of online texts such as MXIT instant messages; Facebook texts and emails, and traditional print-and-paper school based writing. The context for the study was a Pietermaritzburg government girls' only high school. A mixed-methods approach was used throughout the research process. The sample of twelve learners was purposefully selected from across two grade 9 classes to whom subject-English was taught. The core component of the data is a single writing exercise in which the pupils were asked to write a film appraisal as 1) a MXIT or SMS message; 2) an email; 3) a Facebook message and 4) a conventional film review. There are two major findings from this study. First, in some contexts, adolescents demonstrate a high degree of differentiated control over the structural, linguistic and semiotic composition of their writing in English; second, in online literacy, there is a complex configuration of motivating contextual variables that teenagers co-opt. These generate dynamic forces that serve adolescents' own social and affective purposes and which can supersede, subvert or cooperate with the stated purpose of a genre. A Deleuzean framework helps reveal the complex processes underlying adolescent literacies and enables the beginning of an interrogation of the pedagogic implications of recent innovations in communication technology and practices.

Unpublished PhD dissertation, 2013

This investigation is a case-study of adolescent literacy practices and some of the texts arising from them. Forty-five texts were initially analysed for their generic structure and semiotic composition from within the traditions of the sociolinguistic paradigm. Findings from these two processes of analysis were then reinterpreted from a Deleuzean perspective with the aim of opening out otherwise imperceptible generative forces implicated in differences between the creation of online texts such as MXIT instant messages; Facebook texts and emails, and traditional print-and-paper school based writing. The context for the study was a Pietermaritzburg government girls’ only high school. A mixed-methods approach was used throughout the research process. The sample of twelve learners was purposefully selected from across two grade 9 classes to whom subject-English was taught. The core component of the data is a single writing exercise in which the pupils were asked to write a film appraisal as 1) a MXIT or SMS message; 2) an email; 3) a Facebook message and 4) a conventional film review. There are two major findings from this study. First, in some contexts, adolescents demonstrate a high degree of differentiated control over the structural, linguistic and semiotic composition of their writing in English; second, in online literacy, there is a complex configuration of motivating contextual variables that teenagers co-opt. These generate dynamic forces that serve adolescents’ own social and affective purposes and which can supersede, subvert or cooperate with the stated purpose of a genre. A Deleuzean framework helps reveal the complex processes underlying adolescent literacies and enables the beginning of an interrogation of the pedagogic implications of recent innovations in communication technology and practices.

This chapter, written from my perspective on adolescents’ changing literacies in currently changing times, will one day be history, but for the present at least, it frames possibilities for reaching/teaching young people in a way that attempts to make sense of who they are, where we’ve been as a field, and where we might be headed if we take them and their changing literacies into account. Toward addressing this purpose, I have divided the chapter into three sections: a) a brief description of adolescent literacy as it is presently reflected in major research reports, practitioner journals, and policy mandates; b) an equally brief tracing of the social and cultural constructions of adolescence and adolescents that have played a role in bringing us to the place we’re at, pedagogically; and c) a more extended look at what is missing or taken for granted in those constructions that might serve as guideposts in how we reach/teach adolescents as literate beings with their own agendas for learning and communicating.

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article features a collaborative autoethnographic examination of three adolescent-researchers' digital literacies. The participatory design punctuates the role of the adolescent-researchers as they explored their meaning-making practices. Such collaborative research, which included three adolescents and their parents, not only resurfaces parent-inquiry, but also brings the adolescentresearcher voice to the forefront of literacy research. Two research questions guided the investigation: (a) What do adolescent-researchers tell us about their digital and nondigital literacy practices? and (b) In what ways do adolescent-researchers' retrospective examinations of their own practices reveal their perspectives of these practices and the power (and power struggles) that underlie them? The research team engaged in two rounds of coding, embracing first dramaturgical coding and then versus coding. Results suggested that Perspective/Attitude was the most prevalent attribute in the adolescent-researchers' discourse. Moreover, versus coding revealed strong relationships between "then versus now." Overall, the voices of the adolescent-researchers offer ongoing authenticity to discussions of their practices, creating continued opportunities to rethink the implications and applications of digital and nondigital practices in adolescents' lives.

This chapter begins by highlighting some unexamined assumptions about adolescence and an adolescent literacy achievement gap that allegedly, if not closed, will lead to dire consequences for those youth who are on the “wrong” side of the divide. After a brief tracing of the epistemological and structural constraints through which literacy historically has been enacted and regulated, attention is drawn to the ways in which certain sociocultural constructions of adolescence produce sites for opening up new ways of thinking about contemporary youth and what counts as literacy. One such possibility is that in a digital world where privileging the linguistic mode for communicating shows signs of loosening, educators, researchers, and policy makers will do well to consider the implications of this turn for reaching and teaching the very adolescents who are at the center of their attention.

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 2012

Abstract The home–school mismatch hypothesis has played an important part in sociocultural studies of literacy and schooling since the 1970s. In this paper, we explore how this now classic literacy thesis has developed a new life in studies of digital media and electronic communications with regards to young people and schools, what we call the new home–school mismatch hypothesis or new literacy thesis. We report on two studies, one conducted in Australia and the other in Greece, that worked with 14–16-year-old young people to explore the relationships between their use of digital media in- and out-of-school. Our analysis suggests that the relationship between literacy and digital media use in and outside of school is more complex than is often presented in media commentary and in research and points to the need for more careful consideration of the relationship between school and out-of-school practice and knowledge.

The ALAN Review