Markus’s photograph of a young couple at a school dance
Another of the issues about which youth were motivated to write—and document via images— was the sheer number of daily responsibilities they encountered. Often these competing and even overwhelming duties included school-sanctioned activities. While these young adults participated in school extracurricular in large part so they could interact with peers, the resulting social pressures simultaneously supported and impeded their engagement with school and its writing tasks. Markus’s photograph of a young couple at a school dance—accompanied Cartier Replica by the following writing—illustrated the range of commitments youth encountered and the role these socially driven extracurricular played in challenging their orientation toward school’s literacy activities:
“Having Fun”
First thing Monday morning, I wake up at 5 o’clock and get my sister up and ready for school, get her down to the rapid station by 6:00 and then I come back and make sure that my younger brother and another sister get up and dress by 6:45. My younger brother and I catch our bus and we get to school about 7:30…. During athletic seasons, I go to practice after school, then to work at 5:30. Then, I head home at 10:00 and get there about 11:00. Before going to bed at midnight, I help my mom with her daycare business and clean around the house.
While many teachers may believe that we are helping youth by not engaging with these real-world issues as writing topics, these young people are already considering these on a minute-by-minute basis. Our students’ images often allowed them to write more readily about these concerns.
Finally, these youth took pictures of their own forms of artistic expression to illustrate responses to these questions. Tim selected a photograph of a friend’s graffiti tag (see Figure 2) and shared that he thought it important to include these activities in the school curriculum:
“Speaking Out”
Graffiti is an underground urban art form that deserves more credit than the terms of “vandalism” and “misused art.”… I think it’s a way to establish identity, especially in communities where people are looked at by their ethnic background, economic status, and neighborhoods, rather than by their individuality. Graffiti is art, and there is careful planning put into it. There are sketches, math, physics, point perspectives, and freedom of expression put into every piece.
These youths observed that teachers often discount their out-of-school activities when these might be starting points for Cartier Pasha Replica Watches meaningful teacher—student interactions and writing instruction. Adolescents disclosed that literacy activities with explicit relevance for settings beyond the school walls promote their school achievement, and having their out-of-school identities honored by classroom pursuits buttresses their school engagement. Tying these open-ended questions to visual stimuli allowed our students to better illustrate what they wanted their teachers to know about them—if we are to engage them in writing tasks.
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