Switching Places and Looking to Adolescents for the Practices That Shape School Literacies

Abstract

This study investigated how three adolescents who struggled to meet school-based standards for reading achievement used popular culture texts both in and out of school. Specifically, we focused on how the adolescents' uses of popular culture shaped and were shaped by adult expectations for literate practice. The adults in our study included two English/language arts teachers, the librarian in the Young Adult Section of a local public library, and the three authors of this article, who acted as the facilitators for an after-school media club. Using resistance theory, we analyzed the conflicts that arose when the adolescents' uses of popular culture differed from the adults', our objective being to locate opportunities for productive inquiry and shared meaning. Our findings suggest that adult-youth conflict over popular culture can provide young people with opportunities to investigate sociocutural and sociopolitical issues. Such conflict can also provide adults who work with adolescents opportunities to reflect on how their own expectations about reading and writing shape student learning.