Cultivating Literacies of Access and Liberation: A Case Study on the Use of Oral Language, Hybrid Literacies, and Culture in the 21st Century

• In Event: 66.058 - Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: 66.058-10 - Preparing Youth for College and Career

Abstract

This multi-year critical ethnographic study examined the development of academic, digital, and critical literacies among Black and Brown public high schoolers participating in a critical academic apprenticeship at an Ivy League University in a large northeastern city. Drawing on African American literacies and rhetoric(s) and sociocultural and critical education theories, the study documented and analyzed professors, Hip-Hop teaching artists, and college debaters working with youth to blend oral languages, digital literacies, critical theory, emperical research, community-based literacies, Hip-Hop, and academic writing with original research addressing social injustices. Findings reveal ways to support students in becoming more dexterous users of multiple literacies, languages, and discourses, and to leverage these in academic and civic spaces for self- and social justice advocacy.

Author

• Jennifer Kathleen Johnson, San José State University