"I Don't Like Reading ... It's My Specialty, but I Don't Like It": Youth Speak(s) Identities

• In Event: 41.084 - Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: 41.084-16 - Equity and Identity: Language and Literacy Tools for Change

Abstract

New educational standards have highlighted the importance of fostering critical thinking, argumentation, and collaborative knowledge building to prepare students for successful postsecondary literacy experiences and futures. As such, reading and writing provide opportunities for students to position themselves as agents of information and ideas, thus actively engaging in dialogic processes inherently present in texts. This study is a closer look at student perspectives about reading and writing as they engage in critical, evaluative literacy practices during a summer literacy program. We explored with 29 participants (ranging in ages from 6 to 12 years of age) what it means to be a great reader and writer. Preliminary findings suggest that notions of literacy expertise are bound to duration and quantity.

Authors

• Jenny Sperling, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Diana J. Arya, University of California - Santa Barbara