Adolescent Literacy Policy

By Author: Tracy McGrady
Total Articles: 55
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Within S.I.N., members come together to discuss and critically analyze the social world as it shapes their lives, a process that fosters critical consciousness (for more detail, see The S.I.N. Collective, 2007). As such, S.I.N. members read the world and the word (Freire, 2000). They also write against the world as they read it, producing new texts that challenge dominant narratives about immigration. Some of S.I.N.'s textual products include an audio segment for radio, a video documentary, an academic article (The S.I.N. Collective, 2007), and the show Voces S.I.N. Verguenza. In this column, we discuss S.I.N.'s work as an example of a counternarrative that reframes the debate about undocumented students. We argue that S.I.N.'s diverse activities and textual products challenge dominant frames of Tag Heuer Replica Watches education and immigration while constructing new, alternative ones.

As the two previous policy columns in this journal have discussed, dominant media frames often contain unexamined assumptions and implicit value judgments; restrict what can ...
... be said, thought, or practiced with regard to a particular issue; and may shape or legitimize particular policies. In the immigration debate, the "illegal" frame prevails (Lakoff & Ferguson, 2006). This frame defines the issue of immigration as one of law enforcement and criminality—it positions immigrants as criminals, "illegal aliens," and even "terrorists" in a post-9/11 world. In this frame, immigrants are viewed as a problem. As one member of S.I.N. testified:

I get bothered when the media and politicians say that my parents are criminals. I do not accept that, even as a method toward getting support for undocumented students. Our parents aren't criminals, and there are other higher powers that have led them to migrate to the U.S. I am betraying my parents if I support that ideology.

Research that uses frame analysis helps us deconstruct and problematize dominant frames, like the "illegal" frame Replica Tag Heuer for immigration. However, research rarely shows us how to construct a new frame or a counternarrative that can successfully challenge and transform dominant media frames. This is because living counternarratives those that take shape in the real world cannot be constructed and sustained only by scholars working in theory, but rather in practice by grassroots action and collectives of people whose work is driven primarily by lived experience and necessity. S.I.N. members did not sit down one day and say, "We need a counternarrative, let's build one." Instead, S.I.N.'s counternarrative emerged organically from the necessity to survive, heal, and reclaim their humanity.