What Does Literacy Play In The Out-Of-School Lives Of Adolescents?

What functions does literacy play in the out-of-school lives of adolescents?
In order to understand what function literacy plays in the out-of-school lives of adolescents, we must first delve deeper into the definition of literacy itself. Literacy is generally understood as being the ability to read and write (MacBook Dictionary). However, in studying this course I have learnt that literacy extends far beyond simply the skills of reading and writing. Rather it is an extremely complex activity that requires specific skills, including reading, writing, listening, speaking and, contrary to belief, critical thinking of texts. This is essentially in response to rapidly changing social, economic, cultural, intellectual, political and institutional

Students navigate cities on public transportation, participate in slam poetry events, engage in instant messaging, play video games, look up information on the Internet, read and write on the job as well as for pleasure, and so on. All of these activities involve some form of literacy. The literacy practices in adolescents’ lives, however, often are disconnected from the academic literacy demands students are required to meet in school (Adolescent Literacy: A Position Statement of the International Reading Association, 2012). Faulkner (2005), like others, advocates for a more inclusive view of adolescent literacy – one which recognizes and values the ‘private’ literacies in the same way that the academic of ‘public’ literacies - that is, school-based, literate practices specific to a student engaging with classroom practices, also known as curriculum-literacies - are valued. The goal is ultimately to achieve a recognised and advocated pivotal connection between the two (private and public literacies) to be developed and implemented creatively in teaching practice (pedagogy). As a result, pedagogy, curriculum and assessment in high schools will function to help adolescents to identify ‘oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or ‘social network’ (Gee, 1998, p. 108), which is ultimately one of the widely-agreed-upon

As a learner, becoming accustomed to a new learning environment such as a curriculum-based experience which is based on performance purely in assessment tasks, this can be particularly difficult. As expected within high schools, and most schooling environments, subject areas include ‘general and discipline-specific literacy instruction in their curriculum are often hampered by insufficient knowledge of literacy’ (International Reading Association, 2012), the same way as literacy-specific educators may lack the disciplinary knowledge within those subject areas. This is where the four resources model becomes particularly important. Code breaking, extracting meaning & intertextuality, discourse analysis/focus on text organisation and text ideology & criticality are all integral in the skill of learning, whatever the subject matter may be. In a way, these four critical aspects of literacy learning are contained within high school curriculum and assessment, however the extent to which all four resources are explicitly utilised within a classroom is fairly subjective. Depending on the institution, curriculum, teacher, students, practices, etc, each of these pivotal steps in learning, understanding, interpreting