Popular media and school literacies: Adolescent expressions

Kathy Sanford, University of Victoria
Abstract

This chapter will address the intersections and gaps between school literacies – mostly print-based texts – and out-of-school literacies – often non-print texts, media and technology-based texts. The chapter will also examine the intersections that exist between gender, school literacy, and out-of-school “life” literacy. Drawing on interviews with students, male and female, who are well-acquainted with the literacies of school, (e.g., essay writing, note-taking) and with literacies out of school, (e.g., Internet, computer games, TV), this chapter will examine notions of “education” that are currently prevalent in English Language Arts classrooms.
This chapter will suggest areas where the intersection between these three areas (gender, school literacy, life literacy) should be taken up in classrooms, using a critical literacy lens. There is considerable evidence to suggest that the messages received by students in school impact their gendered and academic identities and therefore need more focused attention in classrooms today.
Introduction

What I like best about school is looking forward to going home, maybe some things I do with my friends at school after school’s over. My friend tried to start up a skate club, but that didn’t work out. Mostly I do things in my room, I play my guitar, play music on the computer, talk to my friends on MSN, sometimes I play computer games, as a last resort, sort of. I play puzzle games where you have to figure things out, sometimes it can be fun, but sometimes it’s boring.
These words were spoken by Harley, a 14 year old boy growing up in a large urban center in Canada. Although he speaks of the importance of school, “You’ve got to do it because if you don’t you’re screwed [sic],” he finds little of interest or value to him personally. “Teachers have a way of making things not enjoyable,” he comments, and he can’t think of any classes he likes this year. “Maybe next year,” he suggests hopefully, “I’m signed up for drafting, computers, and guitar… there’s a new guitar teacher which will be good.” But while he finds little from school to connect to his life, he leads a very rich and diverse educational life after school. He uses his electronic keyboard and a computer program to compose music that he later writes lyrics for and plays with his friends, stays connected to his friends through the MSN Messenger chat-line, and occasionally plays simulation games -- but not games “where you’re a man with a gun who walks into a room and shoots a bunch of people.”

Students in school today have a considerable knowledge of the world and popular or “life” literacies; by the time they reach adolescence the sophistication of their knowledge is often considerably broader and more in depth than their teachers recognize. They are familiar with many complex visual, aural, and print-based forms of communication from TV cartoons, sit-coms, game shows, billboards, movies, computer games, Internet as well as a wide array of books and magazines. They have been exposed to the adult world, the global world, the technological world. The full range of adolescent literacy is much more complex, dynamic, and sophisticated than what is traditionally encompassed within school-sanctioned literate activity. Adolescents have multiple and overlapping literacies (Phelps, 1998, p. 1). However, their vast wealth of knowledge is seldom drawn upon to develop formal school experiences and learning. While there should be many intersections in the knowledge students develop out of school as they read multiple forms of texts, there are often more gaps than connections. Rather than using their knowledge of language, of story structure, of information-gathering, teachers often choose to begin with students as if they were blank slates, as if each new teacher was the only one responsible for depositing information into the minds of his/her students (Freire, 1972). We seem to be missing “much of the rich and nuanced literate lives they lead outside of what O’Brien (1998) calls school-sanctioned literacy” (Phelps, 1998, p. 1). We should focus on adolescents and the “various forms of literacy through which they inform, define, and transform their lives (p.1). Teachers need to become aware of the connections between youths’ engagement with popular culture and their need to form personal identifications, to construct memory, and to pursue their own interests (Alvermann & Heron, 2001, p.122). However, while students have a great range of skills and understandings, often these literacies are gender-biased, developed through powerful socialization literacies such as popular media images seen in advertising, movies, and TV, school rules, and family values. As they are learning to read various texts, students are also learning how to be in the world, how to understand themselves as male or female. Hinchman (1998) points to the mostly unexplored ties to gender, as well as race and class, in research projects connected to adolescents’ literacy. Gender as a social construct is largely ignored in school literacy experiences, but one that is subtly and powerfully exploited in life literacy situations. Many attempts are made by commercial ventures to manipulate adolescents’ actions and thoughts by appealing to gendered hopes and desires (Kenway and Bullen, 2001). Adolescents navigate their way through treacherous media messages in an attempt to develop their understanding about the world.

However, given the many opportunities and exposures to texts, curriculum developers, theorists, researchers, and teachers often make assumptions about the students they are teaching and the skills they bring to the classroom rather than listening to their voices and hearing what they have to say. This chapter will attempt to include those voices, and to draw upon the words and ideas of seven adolescents, ages 11-17, male and female students who come from across Canada in urban and rural communities. These adolescents have had very diverse educational experiences and levels of success at school. Sarah and Morgan, as young adolescents, are seldom concerned with school success; while both are competent and capable readers and writers, their positive experiences are measured more by their interest in particular school projects than by the evaluation assigned by the teacher. Luke, Anna, and Blythe have experienced considerable school success (as measured by exam results and awards), and have clear expectations of post-secondary education. Harley and Nella, on the other hand, have not experienced their schooling in such positive terms. Their literacies have been seldom recognized or ignored and the messages (in the form of teacher evaluations) have focused more on traditional school literacies than on the literacies in which they are highly competent.
Introducing the adolescents whose voices inform this writing

Sarah
Sarah is 11 years old, and is currently attending a school on the rural west coast, although she has also lived in Newfoundland. She likes school for the active things she does like run around, play with her friends, usually at lunch and recess breaks. When she’s not at school, she plays with her friends on the beach, practices the piano, bike rides, sometimes watches TV at her granny’s house, and does homework. Her computer access at school is very limited and she rarely uses it at home.

Morgan
Morgan is a 12 year old girl living in a moderately sized urban centre who reads extensively, watches TV regularly (sit-coms, movies, action/adventure), and is very capable on the computer. She spends many hours on the computer writing stories and illustrating them, stories for school and for giving to family and friends. She uses e-mail or ICQ to stay in touch with current friends as well as friends she left when she moved last year. She uses the Internet regularly to locate information for school projects and her own information (in the past about Beanie babies, now about interesting actors and movies); the latest skill she has acquired is the ability to scan and digitally manipulate a variety of images for projects and for her own amusement. She also likes to create visual images using Corel Draw on the computer. Additionally, she plays sports such as soccer and tennis, and rides her bike extensively. She plays piano and clarinet, using CD accompaniment to enhance her clarinet playing.

Harley
Harley is a grade 10 fourteen-year old in a large urban Canadian city. His use of the computer is highly sophisticated and he has learned on his own to program, write music, and conduct research on the computer, as well as maintain close daily e-mail contact with his friends. Harley also plays music on guitar and keyboards, and has adapted what he has learned in piano lessons to independently learn how to play these other instruments. He also spends time skateboarding with his friends, an activity that largely defines his identity at school as a “skater.” Harley is not a “reader” of novels and doesn’t often do homework because “it’s only worth 5%.” Instead, he listens in class and then figures out what he has to do in each assignment. He doesn’t usually read from his textbooks, unless he has to revise for exams.

Luke
Luke, 15 years old, has grown up in Newfoundland. He doesn’t like school but knows it is necessary; he describes himself as “lazy” and says he doesn’t like to work. Nevertheless, he does complete his homework and gets decent grades in school. He likes science and social studies because he says they are interesting, show him what the world is made of, and how it is made. What he likes to do best is read, books like Tom Clancy that combine historical fiction with international politics. “Reading is very enjoyable, I’m reading five books at the moment, so it’s pretty important to me.” Luke also plays “lots of video games,” although he’s trying to keep it down because, he comments seriously, “it’s not always healthy sitting in front of a computer.” While he tolerates school, he thinks he would like it more if it was more interactive, not note-taking and homework -- “I’m not fond of that”, he says. He looks forward to the end of the day when he can talk with friends to discuss what’s happened in the day, voice their opinions -- they’re into politics, walk the dog, or just meet and hang around.

Anna
Anna is almost 16, entering grade 11 in school. She lives in a fairly rural and remote community, and has also lived in other small towns and urban centers across Canada. She thinks school is “pretty good, a place where you can learn and get knowledge for life, and for the social times as well.” She likes film, drama, and music classes best, but also like her English class as she likes to write. She reads novels when she has time, but during the school year rarely has time to read for her own pleasure or interest. She also likes a variety of sports such as soccer, volleyball, and ping-pong that she plays in her home with family and friends.

Nella
Nella is 17 and entering her final year of school. She has spent much of her life in a suburb outside a large prairie city, and has acquired a strong network of friends. ICQ is a popular method of staying connected with her friends, as well as telephone and regular note-writing during school. Nella has, until recently, avoided reading and was not a confident reader. In the past two years, however, she had become a keen reader of novels for her own enjoyment, and has become a much more confident reader of school texts as well. Nella’s greatest love is watching movies and she has an extensive knowledge of current and older videos. She listens to a wide range of popular music, reads magazines when they are available, and watches informational TV as well as her “favourite” TV shows. She uses the Internet fluently to help her complete school assignments in classes such as social studies, English, and biology.


Blythe
Blythe is 17 and looking forward to her first year away from home next year when she begins University. She liked school for the most part, a lot of it because of the social part of school. In her final year of school she found a good environment to work in where she could communicate with a lot of people, have friends around, and teachers who encouraged them to work together. She reports having had lots of good discussion and opportunities to hear what other people thought about the texts they were reading. She also does some reading on her own, as well as singing in a jazz choir that has enabled her to travel to Europe, but reports spending little time watching TV or movies and using computers mainly for e-mailing her friends and staying in contact.

These students have all come from families who have supported and encouraged their school success. They have had access to a variety of technologies, either at home or at school, and parents who themselves have professional careers where technology and fairly sophisticated literacy abilities are required. It is a safe bet that the “significant qualitative differences exist between the technological literacy practices enacted across different homes and worksites: these differences will have inevitable consequences for patterns of scholastic success and failure, other things being equal” (p.152). However, seldom have these students been asked about their acquired knowledge, either at home or at school; often their interests and abilities (or lack thereof) have been assumed. Students’ complaints that the opinions of teenagers are not given the respect they deserve is a valid and important concern (Knobel, 1999; Hinchman, 1998). Claims being made of “growing gaps between the experiences and values investments of teacher and student ‘generations’ respectively” and the lack of connection schools have with emergent technological literacies (Lankshear & Knoebel, 1997) need to be carefully considered.
If schools as effective institutions of learning are to be maintained in light of current allegations that technology is rendering schools “obsolete and expensively counterproductive” (Perelman, 1992, p.135), schools must be shown to be purposeful. Educators need to be clear on the value of schools as sites where teacher/learner relationships are formed, and where literacy is recognized as having “an important function in the development of individual, cultural, and social identities" (Phelps, 1998, p.1). Educators also must be clear, to themselves and to the public in general, that today’s students are quite different from students of previous eras, “different in important ways from their teachers and different from constructions of the ‘ideal student’ which underlie current curricula” (Green & Bigum, 1992, p.119).

School literacy

School literacies are generally comprised of reading and writing activities, and are most often located in English Language Arts classes. Reading, as understood by most of western society and the adolescents in this study, is a process of decoding and understanding texts such as novels and short stories. Reading is done most often in English Language Arts classes, and is defined in various ways. The adolescents represented here connect reading to decoding (Sarah), to personal interest (Luke), and with pleasure and making connections (Blythe). Sarah views reading in a traditional way, as “looking at words on a piece of paper and saying or thinking them, and making a story, or a sentence”, while the older adolescents recognizes reading as something more, as encompassing personal meaning-making and enjoyment as important aspects of their expanded notions of reading. “Reading,” says Luke, “is something that one does for oneself, looking for information on Internet, books, magazines, as long as you enjoy the experience and learn something. Blythe suggests that reading “doesn’t have to do with pleasure, but it’s better when it is, because you don’t get bored, but reading is … it’s important, definitely, everything in school has some kind of reading, whether it’s instructions in math, or poetry and literature; reading the printed word is the building block, but reading is about taking the printed word and turning it into something that means something to you, an image, sound, or feeling, and you understand it better, it becomes a whole world built on top of that word; it evokes an emotional response.”
Writing for these adolescents refers to a limited set of print-text events and activities. Anna describes her notion of writing: “creative” writing of short stories, sometimes poetry, and the writing of essays, while Nella comments that “putting your thoughts on paper, writing words on paper, actual writing writing is what you feel, what you think, or a reaction to something. “Real writing” for Luke is “writing from your own imagination, your own endeavours” but it is something he seldom does. Manguel’s (1996) definition supports those presented by the adolescents, although he extends the definition beyond print text: “Reading, and by extension, writing, is an act of attributing meaning to multiple sign systems… reading letters on a page is only one of its many guises” (p.6-7) and he suggests that architects, dancers, and astronomers share with book-readers the craft of deciphering and translating signs. However, Street exhorts us to move beyond such naive conceptions of literacy as ‘reading and writing’, ‘encoding and decoding’ subsumed within the ‘autonomous model of literacy’ (1984, 1993). Definitions of literacy evolve as a result of the concensus of members of society, and human activity and cultural tools, such as emerging technologies, influence the ever-changing definition of what it means to be literate (http://chickscope.Beckman.uiuc.edu).
Some teachers are reluctant to use film, comic strips, contemporary music and other popular media, and technology in the classroom (Morrison, Bryan, & Chi coat, 2002), fearing “that such a non-traditional approach denies students time during which they could gain additional exposure to the canon.” (p.760). They want their students engaged in rigorous scholastic endeavours and may resist activities that appear frivolous. But is the engagement of alternative texts really reading, some might ask. Alvermann & Heron (2001) believe it is, and, like Manguel, suggest that “reading comprehension is a meaning-making process involving both print and non-print texts” (p.119). They suggest that “what might be easily dismissed as ‘frivolous’ actually involves multiple literacies embedded in complex communication practices” (p.122). These multiple literacies are seldom found in school practices, but their use in classrooms would help connect students to the world beyond the classroom.
Adolescents may struggle against becoming engaged in the study of the world, its’ sciences or its literatures, unless they see how such study pertains to them (Alvermann et al, 1998, p.xix). Language is one, if not the most predominant, of the social practices used by “affinity groups” (Gee, in press), which has clear implications for the involvement of adolescents in their school learning. The affinity groups of these particular adolescents provide language connections between their personal interests, such as jazz singing, skateboarding, fashion, and politics and the world beyond their own individual lives. Attention to the types of language use that adolescents engage in will help them make connections between school literacies and the relevant literacies of their lives. Witkin suggests that “to scorn the pop culture of teens as unworthy of serious attention is to underestimate not only adolescents’ need for peer group identity but also the way popular culture influences ‘high’ culture” (1994, p.30). Making connections between pop and high cultures, she continues, “helps me understand what is important to teach; I could not do it without pop culture to supply the entrance and the evidence … one reflects the other” (p.32). A biographical video of Michael Jordan, for example, has provided Witkin a way to connect the form of biography with other life histories and biographical works of historical and political figures. She uses segments from the popular Star Trek television series to introduce classical works of science fiction, encouraging students to critically examine society’s goals and possible future directions.
Schooling “always represents an introduction to, preparation for, and legitimation of particular forms of social life” (McLaren, 1989, p.160) and always involves power relations, social practices, and privileged forms of knowledge that support a specific vision of past, present, and future. These traditional forms of “social life” are continually challenged by today’s adolescents and in an effort to maintain a present and future that is known and comfortable, many educators attempt to resist the dramatic changes that are occurring in 21st century literacies and classrooms (Teasley & Wilder, 1997). Many classroom teachers have been denied or have otherwise refused, opportunities to implement new technologies into their pedagogies in anything other than the most domesticated ways (Lank & Knobel, 1997, p.136).
Papert (1993) suggests that the current generation of students, who have already grown up in a cultural milieu in which video games have a prominent place, have already learned what computers are just beginning to teach adults. School, not surprisingly, he says, strikes many young people as slow, boring and out of touch by comparison. As with all social structures, school needs to be accepted and valued by its participants (Howe & Strauss, 1993). Relevance, which largely determines value for adolescents, is central to popular culture, for it minimizes the difference between text and life. Relevance is the intersection between the textual and the social (Fiske, 1989). Schools are caught in the tension between the need to convey information deemed to be in society’s interest and the need to be popular, but it is the job of schools to provide relevant, integrated and meaningful experiences for students that connect school literacies to the students’ life literacies.
Sometimes journals are used to help students capture their personal ideas and opinions, although these are implemented in very different ways in English Language Arts classes, with the focus sometimes being placed on handwriting, sometimes on recording personal thoughts and opinions, and sometimes on gathering ideas for future creative writing projects. Other writing activities identified by adolescents are note-taking and worksheet completion, and while these are reported by as important school activities, they often have little relevance to their lives and cannot sustain their interest. There is little crossover between literacy activities in their English Language Arts classes and their other classes, and there was initial surprise and puzzlement expressed when they were asked about reading and writing activities in other classes. School literacy, then, is comprised largely of the study of literature and it happens in English Language Arts classes rather than being shared among all school subject areas. Sarah reported being given traditional activities, “We did book reports on the novels we read in class, we’d put our name and the date, the title of the book, then write what you think will happen, then half way through, write what’s happened so far, then at the end we drew four little pictures and the teacher signed it.” The reading Morgan described included “stories the teacher read to us, and lots of reading that I did at home.” Both Harley and Anna commented on the novels they were assigned to read in their English classes: “We read a few books in English, like In the Heat of the Night, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Giver”; “We did novel studies, Animal Farm and The Chrysalids, a few articles in Socials…” They all commented on writing lots of notes, textbook reading, and completion of worksheets. “Homework” was a big part of the reading and writing activities that these adolescents reported; they spoke dispiritedly of the quantities of homework they were assigned that they saw as pointless and some, such as Harley, found ways to ignore or minimize the homework. Additional writing included Luke’s report of “lab write-ups in science and a term paper in history class”, Nella’s description of “in-class essays and an essay assignment in social studies”, Harley’s reporting that “in English we wrote a couple of short stories and in social studies we wrote a few reports on things, a report on September 11th, a report on an Israel battle.” Anna’s writing experiences included “a journal for a bit -- it was like, if you were an animal, what would you be and why -- but the class didn’t like it.” In Blythe’s final year at school, her writing experiences consisted of “lots of essays and outlining to show you understood what was going on; we wrote responses to our novel studies, but no poetry at all, which was disappointing.
Most often these adolescents reported reading textbooks and writing notes in their content area classes. They demonstrated a similarly limited experience and understanding of “literacy” as noted in the definitions they offered. Literacy for Luke is defined as “someone who can comprehend language and read language. Harley defines literacy as comprehending, “some people can read but can’t comprehend, understand the plot, theme, or message the writer is trying to put across.” Anna says, “The word I associate with it is “writing”, literacy -- books, people writing and writers, intellectual people. Sarah describes literacy as “being able to read and understand what is being said”, and Blythe explains literacy as “being able to understand the concepts that someone is trying to get across to you whether it’s Dr. Seuss concepts, or 1984 concepts… more than just being able to read and even write, although that’s obviously necessary.” They did not make any connections to literacies other than print-based unless prompted.

Life literacies

Although students do not see their out-of-school activities as “literacy” in any way, there is a growing understanding of the 21st century need to broaden our notions of “text”, “reading”, and “literacy” (Alvermann & Heron, 2001). Out of school, students engage in a broad range of activities that often require a high level of literacy demanding the reading of diverse complex texts. Students report reading music, writing scripts and filming, reading political novels, researching on the Internet, scanning texts into digital forms, playing computer “games” and writing in personal journals and diaries. Teachers are often unaware of these activities and do not consider these as legitimate literacy activities.
Students’ attitudes towards alternative literacies are very different from their attitudes toward school-based literacy activities (Kenway & Bullen, 2001). While they do not recognize e-mail interaction, creating visual images, or reading magazines as literacy events, students have a much more sustained interest in these activities (O’Brien, Moje, & Stewart, 2001). They have no formal instruction in these alternative literacies but learn the required skills themselves, by reading manuals, asking friends, experimenting, and repetition. The activities they have chosen support personal interests and learning styles, connect to their social lives and peer-group and are related to social and cultural group identities, allegiances, and exclusions. Because of adolescents’ interest in such activities, there is an excitement about learning, an ability to focus for a long period of time, to practice for long hours, and to rehearse. Talk, in the form of discussion with peers or adults who have knowledge beyond their own, is a critical aspect of learning these literacies (Wells, 1989). “Talking is a form of literacy,” comments Harley, “it’s kind of like writing, it’s a form of communication, for me a better form of communication because it’s quicker and easier, face to face or MSN.” Information is researched from diverse sources and the students are not reliant on one textbook or the authority of one teacher for this information. And these literacies will have considerable life-long influence over the types of careers and interests that are selected, shaping their ability to critically and creatively act and react in workplace situations (Tannock, 2001). Often it is the out-of-school literacies such as technological aptitude and awareness of media (creation of spreadsheets, ability to interact quickly on computer games, awareness of visual messages, composing using computer programs) that prepare adolescents more for future employment.
The technological and media forms that teachers and parents fear are limiting adolescents’ progress and damaging their ability to learn sometimes influence their perceptions of how adolescents spend their time, how they learn best, and what interests them. Computer games, e-mail, and compact discs are dismissed as frivolous. Parents are informed by “news” items in newspapers, magazines and on television that report the number of hours their children sit in front of the television. Although surveys report that 50% of children watched television for three hours or more in 1990 (Witkin, 1994), no reports are made on the 50% of children who do not watch television for extensive periods. These voices are not represented in media reports. “The media and schools would have parents, who are not able to interpret their children’s attraction to video games, believe that children love them because they’re easy and hate homework because it’s difficult, where in reality the reverse is more often true” (Papert, 1993, p. 150).
Teachers bemoan the fact that their students do not “read” any more and everyone is concerned with decreasing “standards” of literacy. However, when these popular perceptions are challenged, and adolescents are asked about what they are reading and writing, and how they are reading and writing, another much richer story emerges, one that can inform teaching practices and choice of texts. Sarah reports having just completed reading Phillip Pullman’s A Subtle Knife, and enjoying animal stories and fantasy. Morgan has recently completed all of Madeleine L’Engle’s five stories beginning with A Wrinkle in Time, and is beginning to read The Hobbit. Luke loves to read novels and books on history -- it’s what he likes to do best. He just completed Sunzu’s Art of War, a book from Ancient China. His favourites are Tom Clancy novels that talk about international politics. Anna reports that she’s not really into “teen novels”, but just recently read The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve, and is now reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. Nella has read numerous historical mystery stories, and can’t put one down until she’s reached the end.
About television, Blythe comments, “I don’t watch television, occasionally I’ll watch The Simpsons or the news, whatever’s on.” Nella, however, loves to get involved in her favourite television programs, which include Smallville, Higher Ground, and Ally McBeal. She also reports enjoying learning things on the Discovery channel. Although broad surveys question students on the amount of time spent watching television, spent playing computer games, or “surfing the net”, many adolescents’ individual lives are very different from the reported norm as their comments reflect. Although media access is widely available, many students do not have regular access to the Internet, and many do not have regular access to global television. Many have different interests. And as Fiske (1989), Hartley (1982), Buckingham (1998) and Sheldon (1998) suggest, adolescents “read” these alternate texts with a critical and discerning eye, often aware of the media manipulation they are subjected to.
It is here where the intersection between school literacies and life literacies can be very powerful, where students can read history from multiple perspectives, can use their fertile imaginations to create new ideas, and to challenge the aspects of society that support inequity and injustice. For example, Nella describes a social studies essay she recently had to write on any aspect of World War II. She chose the experience of women during that time, and located information sources from the Internet about Russian, American, and Korean women’s experiences during the war. Her interest in gender issues intersected with the social studies curriculum and enabled her to create a meaningful text for both herself and her teacher. Other adolescents create meaningful texts and literacy experiences for themselves. Luke comments, “In computer games, there’s a story line and if you can get the storyline and enjoy the whole experience, that’s like reading, you can comprehend what happened, the theme, the plot, the character interactions…” He continues, “In a sense, video games are like writing, especially the non-linear ones, where you can choose what happens, because you’re writing the character’s story with everything you do.” Anna suggests that “being able to understand rules of a game, other people playing, being able to communicate with them” is a form of literacy. Harley’s literacy of learning skateboarding connects to reading the moves other people make and imitating them, “You can see people do it but you don’t know how it feels, but after you’ve done it you know how it feels so you can do it again.” Although there are differences between the two, Blythe connects music and the printed word, “like a novel is equivalent to a symphony” and Nella connects literacy to visual texts -- “You need to be very literate to understand a lot of television and movies, to really get the meaning from them, for example, even The Simpsons and all the references they make, or a movie like Pearl Harbour, or Titanic.” Morgan finds many literacy experiences on the computer, as she delights in locating information on the Internet for school projects and her own interests, e-mailing her friends, scanning pictures to e-mail to relatives, and composing print and visual texts.
Although for teachers, incorporating popular culture and technology into classroom activities and discussion can be treacherous ground, it can also be a relief to be able to give up the pretense of knowing everything about technology -- they can then assume a different stance about knowledge in all subject areas they teach (Lankshear & Knobel, 1997). Morrison, Bryan & Chilcoat (2001) recommend the use of popular culture in all subject areas for three reasons: 1) popular culture is integral to the lives of most adolescents and can diminish the disparity children perceive between their lives in and out of school by legitimizing many of their after school pursuits (Buckingham, 1998); 2) students learn to become critical consumers of media messages (Alvermann et al, 1999; Dyson, 1997); and 3) popular culture is popular, and students enjoy it (Wright & Sherman, 1999). Lemke (1995) observed that students who are computer users have developed perceptual strategies to deal with the hundreds and thousands of visual images they see in electronic games and information databases in ways that older individuals have not. And while books and printed matter will not go away, the ways of thinking about and with and through text are utterly changed by the new technologies (Purves, 1998). Technology is helping to change our very consciousness.
It is apparent that gaming “has an educative/educational significance both overtly and covertly. “Covertly, learning the game, one is being apprenticed to rule-governed activities and to testing ideas about how to work within rule-governed settings” (Lankshear & Knobel, 1997, p.150). The involvement with computers teaches young people that some forms of learning are fast-paced, compelling, and rewarding, and that “gaming is an initiation into modes of practice that are characterized much more by learning, and self/collaborative direction and discovery than about wholesale exposure to teaching and instruction” (Lankshear & Knobel, 1997, p.151). Teachers, they conclude, are going to have to adapt and become adept at technology.
The electronic text, suggests Lanham (1993) is both “creator-controlled and reader-controlled”(p.4), therefore reading and writing undergo major transformation. However, no technologies except the blackboard, states Cohen (1987) have had any significant effect on school organization or practice -- they have not made schools more modern, more efficient, or more congruent with the world outside! Papert (1993) has offered constructive possibilities for how teachers can transform their classroom practices by integrating new technologies into their pedagogy in ways that engage the interests and prior experiences of students while not compromising their communicative competencies of the future. Educators must consider how the relationships between adolescents and technologies affect their learning, and how gender plays a part in the development of these relationships.

Gendered Perspectives of Literacy

In this discussion of school literacies and out-of-school life literacies, it is important to provide a gendered overlay to the perspectives presented and to broaden the literacy landscape. In addition to the seven adolescents whose perceptions have informed a deeper understanding of their literacies, adolescents in two middle schools I have recently visited have both shown and told me how gender shapes their views of literacy. They have provided depth and complexity to the stereotypical perceptions about the ways in which boys and girls engage in literacy practices, as the following classroom scenarios show.
There is no doubt that adolescents’ gender plays a major role in identity formation as students and as future citizens. Media messages blast at adolescents telling them what to wear, who to like, how to look, and what to think. School curricula present ideas still steeped in Eurocentric patriarchal ideology, glorifying the role of males in current and historical events while ignoring the role of women. Media messages such as “Test results show lag in boys’ literacy (Guardian, 2000) and “The trouble with boys” (Guardian, 2001) conspire, albeit unknowingly, to maintain a divisive focus on male and female adolescents regardless of their true complex characteristics.
Although there are valid connections between students’ literacy activities and their gendered orientation, the words of adolescents challenge the simplistic stereotypes of boys’ and girls’ literacies. While the socialization of children and adolescents encourages them to take up different activities (boys are encouraged in science, math, technology and physical pursuits; girls are readers of fiction, writers, interested in fashion, relationships) there is considerable resistance to the common stereotypes by many adolescents. It is true that, upon cursory observation, girls do read more novels, are more nurturing and concerned with social relationships, and boys do read more non-fiction, are more capable of adapting situations and taking physical risks. Girls create and communicate their ideas using traditional print-based texts, while boys create with technology and digital media. Girls seem to be more interested in reading texts such as fashion magazines, that connect to their social world, their friends, and that give information about how to present themselves in their peer groups (Hollows, 2000). Boys, on the other hand, read popular texts such as magazines and newspapers for information, for example, sports scores, new skateboarding moves, and computer cheats (Alloway & Gilbert, 1998). Boys appear to see school as important to their futures and careers, while girls use school to sustain present interests and social positions. As Sadker and Sadker (1986) point out, boys are trained to be assertive and girls are trained to be passive, mere spectators relegated to the sidelines of classroom discussion. When these same adolescents are asked about their activities and views, however, more complex pictures emerge (Smith & Wilhelm, 2002).
Many adolescent boys, as they report in interviews, are vocal about their dislike of literacy activities, “My mom would force me to read, but now she doesn’t -- I hate reading, so I won’t read”; “I play sports -- I’ve never read a book that I liked”; “A book, you have to imagine it and you have to read it and reading, I don’t like it.” Many girls report finding real enjoyment in reading novels, “I love to read animal stories,” “It’s really relaxing to get into a good book.” However, by restricting our view of literacy to reading print text and restricting our view of gender to a binary conception, we would miss the broader understanding of literacy as seen in these scenarios:
  1. Four or five boys at recess asked the teacher if they could stay in and play a computer game. They clustered around the computer on the teacher’s desk, one boy took the controls and the others coached him, gave him suggestions, words of encouragement and praise. A couple of other boys joined them, and a couple more, and then three girls also joined, but were at the back of the cluster. The male teacher came and joined in and engaged in a conversation about the game with the boys while the girls watched silently.

    These male students are learning how to interact in an “affinity” group (Gee, in press), to communicate effectively with each other, to take risks, and to think and react quickly and multidimensionally. They are becoming adept with various computer functions. The female students are learning other messages, how to learn vicariously, how to be supportive and also what literacies are not meant for them.
  2. A grade six class of students was working on a scrapbook assignment where they had been asked to locate international, national, or local news items, read them, summarize them, and paste them in scrapbooks. There was a box of current newspapers located at the back of the classroom. Several of the boys had chosen to continue reading their books rather than spending this time completing their scrapbooks, and there was a cluster of several girls and a couple of boys at the newspapers. They selected sections, browsed through them, showed each other items, complained about how hard the activity was, cut out items that interested them, and some of the students read the items silently, reading out interesting bits as they came across them. Boys working on this task each took their own section of the newspaper to their desk and worked independently. Although the girls looked like they were not focused on their work, the teacher confirmed that it is the girls who complete the assignments on time while many of the boys who were working independently do not.

    Students in this class are experiencing a range of literacy activities that connect school literacies with those of the broader world. They are learning to read a variety of texts in appropriate ways such as skimming, scanning, and close reading. The girls are learning to use social communities to complete their work and to infuse enjoyment into their tasks, and to become school-successful.
  3. A middle school teacher has decided that his students will focus on reading for the next three weeks, so he has allotted one and a half hours a day to reading books that the students have selected themselves. On this particular day, they have a fifteen-minute time to read, and the teacher has instructed them all to get their books and read. Most of the girls and a few of the boys complied, and began reading silently. One boy in particular did not. He first walked to the back of the class, browsed in the magazine box, came back to his desk empty-handed, then went to the sink at the front, got paper towels and proceeded to clean off his desktop. He finished this task, then sat at his desk and shuffled papers on and in his desk for a few more minutes. After about ten minutes, he finally picked up his novel and began to read. Soon after the teacher told them that it was time to move on to the next activity, but that they might continue reading if they wished. This particular student, and four other boys who took a while settling down, chose to read and continued reading throughout the next thirty minutes with absolute concentration.

    The teacher in this case has provided opportunities for all of his students to be successful and to develop an interest in sustained reading rather than pre-judging and penalizing students who need time to prepare for literacy activities.

    In     each case, our traditional conceptions of literacy are broadened and our stereotypical gendered views are challenged.
What’s to be done?: Classroom suggestions

Through discussions that educators facilitate in classes, activities requiring critical reading and analysis of multiple texts, and opportunities for students to create “texts” using a diversity of literacies, students will be enabled to become more aware of their own literacy potential and apply it much more broadly than to the English Language Arts classroom. As shown in the previous scenarios, many teachers are attempting to tackle the complex literacies of a new century and incorporate these into their teaching practices. It is through the “life” literacies so familiar to adolescents that a critical element can be infused into school-based activities. Teachers need to learn to look differently at their school-based practices and be encouraged to consider adolescents’ prior literacy knowledge.
The use of critical literacy, defined by Young (2001) as “an awareness that the language of texts and the reader’s responses to it are not neutral, but are shaped by social contexts and our experiences as people of particular races, ethnicities, genders, and social classes” (p.5) can assist adolescent readers and their teachers to become more aware of textual constructions. They can be helped to become more aware of how texts portray gender identities and inequities in stereotypical ways (Gilbert, 1997) and through their growing awareness can discover alternative literate positions for themselves. Many (2000) suggests that it is becoming more and more imperative in the world of Internet that “students assume a stance that includes an interrogation of the author, the author’s background, perspectives, and expertise. They must be able to understand how an author’s knowledge, personal agenda, and subjectivity may have shaped the information they are reading” (p.66). We can help students to feel more literate and to make more explicit connections between their personal literacies and formal literacies of school. Using a critical approach to pedagogy, Lankshear & Knobel (1997) remind us of important features associated with critical practices. First, critical practices involve the components of analysis and evaluation, and second, “critical pedagogy and critical literacy engage students and teachers collaboratively in making explicit the socially constructed character of knowledge, language, and literacy” (p.155).


Subject-area literacies

Examples of critical literacy activities, offering opportunities for analysis and evaluation and incorporating personal interest, enjoyment, challenge, and purpose in meaningful and active ways, can be found in many classrooms. For example, Nella’s social studies teacher invited a representative of “fair trade” to address issues with the students regarding a socialist perspective of globalization. Harley’s social studies teacher attempted to incorporate discussions regarding ‘current events’ in his class, even though Harley found these “sometimes useful, sometimes not.” Teachers need to make the purposefulness of such activities consistently explicit to their students.
Alvermann & Heron (2001) suggest that “the corporate interests of multinational firms appears to offer teachers the perfect opportunity for incorporating students’ interests in popular culture while simultaneously developing their critical awareness of mass marketing strategies -- a sure-fire way to produce critical readers” (p.121). Robb (2002) suggests the use of multiple diverse texts in a single unit of study to introduce students to multiple perspectives on specific topics, similar to the approach Blythe described being used by her social studies teacher using three different textbooks and examining how each of these presents information differently.
Inquiry projects such as the one described by Linn, Slotta, and Baumgartner (2000) integrate Internet-accessed information with school curriculum. Using computers in their classrooms with Internet access, students and teachers logged into the local University computer, manipulated experimental conditions and viewed the resulting images of a chicken embryo in real time. This project enabled students to engage in scientific practices and to construct their own scientific knowledge through investigation and analysis rather than through memorization.
In addition to developing critical literacy skills, adopting an inquiry stance to texts, that is, gathering information, analyzing and organizing it in order to develop an in-depth understanding of issues, enables adolescents to engage in texts in personally meaningful ways. A wide range of texts, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, instruction manuals, Internet sites, and chatters, can be selected that enable room for choice in everyday reading. These texts should be selected to represent society in a wide range of stereotypical and non-stereotypical ways (Young & Brozo, 2001). Teaching strategies that incorporate social interactions, opportunities for success, and personal meaning making need to be made part of classroom life.

Critical print-based literacies

Other critical literacy activities include the following: 1) comparing the nouns and verbs used in two sports articles, one about a female and one about a male (Young, 2001); 2) discussing the relationship between textual representations on television, in song lyrics, in advertising, and the students’ personal experiences; 3) addressing stereotypes perpetuated through the everyday language of students, e.g., “chick”, “nerd” and ask students to consider the stereotypical meanings held by such terms; 4) present students with texts that are written in the first person and ask them to assign a character to the “speaker” in each instance, then compare with other members of the class, and discuss what this might indicate about their assumptions (Martino & Mellor, 2000). Chapter two of Lankshear’s Changing Literacies (1997) provides additional examples of critical literacy experiences that can be incorporated into classroom practice, based on current newspaper texts juxtaposed with diverse alternative texts. Such an approach enables teachers to bridge traditional subject-area divisions, coordinate resources and model an integrated approach to teaching and learning.

Visual literacies

A further example of integrating popular media, technology and critical literacy involves cartooning. Students are interested and familiar with the format and able to draw from many life literacy examples in comic books and various forms of cartoons. They can integrate their own personal interests and aptitudes with new learning about multiple perspectives, visual representations of motion and emotion, and print text to support visual text. A middle school class I recently visited in mid-June, nearing the end of the year, was engaged in creating a variety of comics for their final class project. This class, a generally challenging group of predominantly boys, remained focused on their projects throughout the final week of school, attending to the details of form and content of their developing cartoons. Their drawings were meticulous, thoughtfully developed, and completed. Both boys and girls were engaged in this literacy event, and while there were differences noted between boys’ selected subjects (“The Sneezing Disaster”, “Snowboarding”, “Adventures of Square Head” being some of the boys’ titles, while girls’ titles included “Anna’s Birthday”, “A Summer Splash”, and “Pool Party”) all students were equally interested. As Morrison et al (2001) comment, “given the opportunity to share and create their own comic books, students engage in greater literacy exploration than they otherwise would, due to comics’ popular and easily accessibly format” (p.113).

Conclusion

As the world becomes increasingly complex and interconnected, educators and schools are challenged more insistently by diverse interest groups, including adolescents themselves, to provide experiences that engage their attention in the present as well as to prepare them for possible futures. Such engagement should provide meaningful experiences as determined by the learner as well as the educator, and change the way literacy is understood and taught in classrooms. By considering the value of “playing” to learn (Gee, in press) teachers may come to “appreciate the attraction popular media texts hold for youth, and in doing so they may discover ways to foster academic endeavors that invite the types of literacy practices adolescents find most worthwhile” (Alvermann & Heron, 2001, p.122). It is the ways of making meaning rather than the specific texts used that need to be highlighted. Using popular texts as a connection between present and past cultures is a powerful starting point for classroom teachers. “Teachers who draw on popular culture references”, suggests Nella, “make things more interesting and connected -- like my social studies teachers sometimes refers to The Simpsons, it helps makes things stick, it helps me learn and reminds me of what happened during the day.” Cunningham (2000) suggests that “nothing exemplifies the difference between reading and writing as school-based activities and literacy as a society-based practice” more than the growing use of technologies such as the Internet and popular media. It is this difference that needs to be bridged if schooling is to have the powerful impact on adolescents that is critical in this globalized and networked world.
Lankshear & Knobel (1997) identify four related goals for classroom learning: 1) enabling learners to make explicit the relationship between ‘word’ and ‘world’; 2) providing adolescents with opportunities to “explore the extent to which social practices, ways of doing and being, and forms of knowledge are historical, contingent, and transformable rather than natural, fixed, and immutable” (p.156); 3) providing opportunities for exploring the social implications of discursive practices and values existing as they are; and 4) providing adolescents with experiences that enhance their awareness of possibilities for the vast range of actual and possible ways of doing and being. If these goals are to be achieved, educators need to be more clearly attuned to the world outside of school and acknowledge the degree of literacy sophistication adolescents bring to the classroom. The traditional spaces that have separated subject specialities need to be melded and the role of subject specialists needs to be reconsidered in light of new literacies that allow simultaneous processing of word, image, and sound (Lankshear & Knobel, 1997).
The contemporary challenge faced by educators in relation to literacies needs to be considered in light of new reconfigurations of discourse made possible by alternate texts, particularly at the intersections between informal modes of communication and more traditional academic forms (Shannon, 1995). As Luke recognizes, “It’s important to talk with friends, to voice our opinions on things, talk about what happened in the day. We learn from world experience and the news and from history.” Luke and the other adolescents quoted in this paper are looking for challenges, for understanding, for insights into the world they are entering. School literacy practices need to encompass the world, to help adolescents with their personal and social development, to find a place in the world. Teachers offering literacy experiences need to encourage the need for respect and for the development of reflective and critically informed approaches to the world. Developing the potential of students, demonstrated through their knowledge of technological literacies and the world, will bring classroom learning into closer contact with the developments and forces operating in the world beyond the school walls, and may achieve the goal of educating informed creative and critical thinkers.


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