Texts of the Everyday as a Resource to Support Literacy Engagement for Underserved Youth

• In Event: Poster Session 5
  In Poster Session: Literacy Research Issues in the 21st Century

Abstract

In this presentation we report on one instructional tool emerging from the broader study of talk in the salon, --Texts of the Everyday--texts (print, music, digital media, art) with which we presume students are familiar and engage with in their everyday practices outside the classroom. These everyday cultural texts place interpretive demands similar to those the students will meet in the canonical texts that follow in the instructional sequence. In addition to being familiar, Texts of the Everyday, position students, identified as African American adolescents, in a particular way. The activity of unpacking these texts, is an instance of social reading and problem solving, facilitates the instructional goal of identifying and interpreting the literary problem within complex canonical texts.

Author

• Yolanda J. Majors, The University of Minnesota