Good morning. We’ll start off with a quick review of what we covered Wednesday. The activities from that class, as always, are on our Goals and Plans Doc. Last Wednesday:
- we looked at the shout-outs in the reply box to last Monday’s post (and reviewed the difference between abstract and concrete language);
- we shared some (concrete) cultural artifacts and described their (abstract) significance to us (and we also introduced the idea of a narrator’s position; cultural artifacts can help us remember and orient the reader to “where we’re coming from”)
- finally, we did an exploratory freewrite, positioning ourselves (as readers) in relation to the concrete objects (books) we’ll be “reading alone and with others” over the rest of the semester. Some notes from those freewrites:
- a number of us, including Taisjuan and Angel, liked how reading with others helped “piece together” the meaning of the text (Taisjuan) allowing for conversations about what was “inspiring” (Angel)
- others, like Elijah and Janelle, liked the flexibility reading alone offers for people to apply their own techniques, like visualizing (Janelle) and reading at various paces (Elijah)
- many of us, including Nayely and Leslie, mentioned the importance of finding the work interesting and ‘relatable’. Sometimes that had to do with content (Nayely’s “Leap of Faith” for example) and other times that had to do with form (“voice” and “motive” in the example Leslie brought up, A Long Way Gone.
Today in class, we’ll look at the opening pages (79-87) of a peer-reviewed scholarly article. There were some embedded questions in Hypothes.is that I asked you to look at, and these questions will shape our conversations today.
“These analytic conversations can shape and reshape adolescent identities as they learn to trust and affirm their own voices, take risks to act in new and positive ways, and analyze the texts and their own and others’ perspectives.”
(Polleck & Epstein 79)
This was a popular line for response, based on the annotations you made for homework. So let’s use this as a jumping off point. What is the author saying here? Which of these three elements (trusting your voice, taking risks, and analyzing perspectives) resonate most for you with your past experiences? Has one of these skills been hard for you to do when reading in school, but more possible when reading outside of school? In your experience, what other activities besides reading that “can shape and reshape adolescent identities”?
We’ll start class with some freewriting in response to those questions. Take your writing where it goes — that’s what freewriting is for. We’ll share in pairs and I’ll ask you to post a line or two in the reply box in the last few minutes of class.
I believe the author is saying that complex conversations with others can shift the way one thinks. Most ideas come from a bias perspective but having a complex conversations can open up your field of your view and change the way you think, act and speak.
The author is saying that analyzing literature has the ability to be instrumental in determining aspects of one’s identity and call to action. Trusting one’s voice resonates with me the most because as time goes on, I have learned that it is special to be an individual and interpret things the way I do.
In this one line the author is saying how conversations in book clubs or other forms can impact young adult identities with texts as they learn from other’s perspectives in different ways.
The author is saying when adolescents are having a conversation, it helps them find the action they will take when it comes to having a conversation and by having conversation it helps them find what kind of person they are. One of the three elements that resonate with me in my past experience is trusting my voice since my words or action could be useful and will be interesting towards others when it comes to having conversation.
Specifically for me, trusting my voice resonates most with me because of my past experiences, since everyone at one point tends to doubt themselves and or not want to stand up for themselves. Trusting your voice is essentially trusting yourself, and that’s one of the most important things you can do. If you can’t trust your voice, how and why can you expect others to trust yours?
The author is saying “our voice, point of view and perspectives” can shape and reshape our identities. For me my voice was a problem since the start, first I don’t know how to put together the words in my Head and second I can project my thoughts out loud.
just by socializing and talking about certain topics can help adolescents in school and outside of school. without having those skills it can become a struggle to communicate and analyze text and other things.
Other activities that can shape one’s adolescent identity would be basic interactions with other people. Although it may sound simple, it has definitely been a factor in my life that has either weighed me down, or boosted my confidence.
Something that resonated with me the most is trusting my voice because it’s something I struggled with in the past and I think what the author is trying to say is these conversations can help these young adolescents learn to use and trust their voices.
For me it is very important to raise our voices because we can defend ourselves from others, and fight for the right we deserve. Sometimes we hurt others when we act unequal, because of our race type or our sexuality. When we do not raise our voices we are with crossed arms and without expression of freedom, we have to learn to be aware of our strengths, knowledge, values and unity. We must learn that working together we learn more and the contribution is better so that our voices rise more.