There Is A Need To Think Carefully About The Role Of Texts In Teens' Lives

By Author: FIRELEAVES
Total Articles: 49
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Many teens are experiencing vulnerable-producing incidents inside and outside of schools; crime and violence are primary among them. More than 1.6 million youth 18 and younger were arrested in 2006 ("Total Arrests"). Among those arrested, over 13,000 were ten years old and younger. In the eight-year span from 1992—2000, there were more than 24,000 school-related violent deaths occurring at and away from school ("Number"). More recently, in the Chicago Public Schools system alone, eight students were murdered during the first month of academic school year 2008—09, the equivalent of two per week. Then-CEO of Chicago Public Schools (now US Secretary of Education) Arne Duncan stated, "At this rate we could lose 60 or 80 children this year" (Rossi). This would double last year's 35 student Tag Heuer Replica Watches deaths. The assault on the lives of teens across the nation continues as efforts are being made to bring attention to their literacy development. For example, the Harvard Educational Review published a special issue on adolescent literacy ...
... that stressed the centrality of adolescent literacy today. A September 2008 editorial entitled "Literacy Education in New Times: In These Times" was published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Tom Bean and Helen Harper offered:

We believe that literacy education is about something more than improving test scores, intensifying capitalism, or in the case of digital literacies the mixing of image and print. We suspect that the ongoing issues of peace and conflict and of violence, poverty, and oppression; the interest in sustainable futures; and the growing concern surrounding the global environment will require an increasingly literate, critical, and global citizenship.

In this column, I suggest that there is a need to think carefully about the role of texts in teens' lives, particularly the ones who are experiencing troubling times. While a small debate is growing about the types of texts to use with adolescents in English classes/reading classes, little attention is given to the role of texts in teens' lives as dictated by the times. The disagreement among educators between giving teens choice in the English curriculum and preserving the literary canon represents two current lines of thinking. A conferee attending the 19th West Regional Conference of the International Reading Association in Seattle posed the question, "How do I balance YA literature and the required canon?" I offered that it depends on the trajectory one is attempting to shape, a shaping that involves real teens living complex lives. I suggested it is more prudent to advocate for the students and not the texts. There is nothing inherently good or bad about young adult literature or the Breitling Replica traditional literary canon. The power resides in the mediation or discussion of such texts, and how they are selected to honor and acknowledge students' realities.

A wide range of questions has been raised about the role of adolescent literacy during the past decade. Among them is "What does the teaching of reading and writing mean in these times for adolescents . . . and what are the implications of these literacies?" (Bean and Harper 4). I add, what I suggest that there is a need to think carefully about the role of texts in teens' lives, particularly the ones who are experiencing troubling times are the roles of text for our most vulnerable teens, and how should English educators conceptualize the use of the texts with them? Traditionally, the three Rs was a widely used abbreviation for the basic elements of a primary school curriculum: reading, 'riting (writing), and 'rithmetic (arithmetic). These troubling times dictate the need for placing three additional Rs under consideration: recovery, reconciliation, and resilience.