What They Don't Learn in School

Contributors to this book have illuminated the practices of literacy and learning in the lives of urban youth. Their descriptions and assessments of these practices are anchored in perspectives of «New Literacy Studies». The ten studies explore a number of urban scenes in order to engage, understand, and present multiple youth identities, attitudes, activities, representations, and stories connected to a range of situated, adaptive, and voluntary uses of literacy. The authors use a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to explicate the various skills, the distinct methods of production or composition, the subjective and collective meanings, the mutable and variegated texts, and the dynamic contexts that urban youth utilize for expression, affirmation, and pleasure. There is a response to each chapter by a major scholar in its area of focus. Together, these studies and responses contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the pedagogies, politics, and possibilities of literacy and learning in and out of school.

Autorentext

The Editor: Jabari Mahiri is Associate Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture and co-director of the Center of Urban Education in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California at Berkeley. He has been Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Institute, an Executive Committee Member of CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication), and a high school English teacher in the Chicago public schools. Dr. Mahiri is the author of Shooting for Excellence: African American and Youth Culture in New Century Schools, as well as a number of journal articles on the language and literacy development of urban youth.

Zusammenfassung
«Literacy is all about producing valued meanings from print and other symbol systems. If you haven't thought about how meaning is produced outside of schools and across multiple cultural sites and practices, then you really haven't thought about literacy and are in no position to reform schools. 'What They Don't Learn in School', based on the work of Jabari Mahiri, his colleagues, and other leading scholars in the field, is now the best single remedy for overcoming current narrow and harmful perspectives on literacy.» (James Paul Gee, Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin at Madison)
«In a provocative and energetic volume, Jabari Mahiri has assembled an impressive team of inquirers who take seriously the expansive and multiple literate behaviors expressed by youth. Destined to be read widely, this book highlights youth agency and suggests how connections can be made between traditional curriculums and the 'new literacies'.» (Keith Gilyard, Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University and former Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication)

Inhalt

Contents: Jabari Mahiri: New Literacies in a New Century - Jabari Mahiri: Street Scripts: African American Youth Writing About Crime and Violence - Pedro A. Noguera: Response to «Street Scripts» - Peter Cowan: Devils or Angels: Literacy and Discourse in Lowrider Culture - José David Saldívar: Response to «Devils or Angels» - Wan Shun Eva Lam: Border Discourses and Identities in Transnational Youth Culture - Claire Kramsch: Response to «Border Discourses» - Beth Lewis Samuelson: «I used to go to school. Now I learn.» Unschoolers Critiquing the Discourse of School - Carol D. Lee: Response to «I used to go to school. Now I learn.» - Jennifer Seibel Trainor: Critical Cyberliteracy: Reading and Writing The X-Files - Andrea Abernethy Lunsford: Response to «Critical Cyberliteracy» - Tony Mirabelli: Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers - Stuart Tannock: Response to «Learning to Serve» - Jane Stanley: Practicing for Romance: Adolescent Girls Read the Romance Novel - Gesa E. Kirsch: Response to «Practicing for Romance» - Amanda Godley: Negotiating Gender Through Academic Literacy Practices - Barrie Thorne: Response to «Negotiating Gender» - Soraya Sablo Sutton: Spoken Word: Performance Poetry in the Black Community - June Jordan: Response to «Spoken Word» - Ernest Morrell/Jeff Duncan-Andrade: What They Do Learn in School: Hip-Hop as a Bridge to Canonical Poetry - Jeannie Oakes: Response to «What They Do Learn».