Adolescent Literacy as Expressed in an On-line Rap Site: If You Don’t Care About Your Text - Why Should I?
The paper focuses on 'out of school' literacy. Its main goal is to recognize and analyse adolescent literacy practices situated in youth culture and to find options for bridging them with classroom practices.
Being inspired by NLS (New Literacy Studies) and in light of recent research work on reading and writing as social activities, I chose as a research field an online multi-user internet site that deals with youth popular culture (Rap).
I found that adolescents, in their unique way, make abundant use of reading and writing for their own purposes: they share, respond and provide feedback to one another during a writing process.
Yet, it is true that the texts they produce are of a deviant manner and would have probably been considered as illiteracy in any school context.
My study, however, challenges this 'deficit view'. It takes 'as is' the literacy that people derive from their discourse communities and culture, and tries to offer insight into the ways in which non-standard and low-status literacy practices can be functional, and even rational in their specific socio-cultural context.
The presentation will focus on some examples of literacy events displayed in the site. Discussion will be held about the following topics: What range of literacy skills and resources is demonstrated? What types of conventions the participants draw upon? What are the pedagogical options for bridging adolescents' worlds with classroom practices?
Keywords: NLS (New Literacy Studies), Situated Literacy, Out-of-School Literacy, Adolescent Literacy, New Media and Online Literacy, Popular Culture
Mz Aliza Laserson
Lecturer, School of Education |
My 8 years experience at a junior high school (1985 - 1992) included teaching heterogeneous classes, special-education classes, and gifted classes. Also a teachers' coordinator in the field of language arts. After receiving the MA degree (1995), I joined the Center of Educational Technology (1995-2002), as a developer of educational projects and curriculums in the fields of literacy and literacy assessment. These projects included WEB based instruction projects and instruction books, among them: a teachers’ handbook for writing research papers of various disciplines(1999); a "tasks pool" which provides a diversified set of parameters for alternative assessment (2004); a textbook which provides an updated curriculum and pedagogical concepts towards literacy, language and learning (2005) and more.
As a faculty member at Bar-Ilan University (1995 - today) a lecturer in the fields of Hebrew language instruction, and academic literacy. Most of my courses are conducted via web sites.
As an active member of SCRIPT, the Israel Association for Literacy - lectured in conferences and published several articles.
My recent research interests include adolescent on-line literacy, socio-linguistics and discourse analysis.
Ref: L06P0502