Reflections on Adolescent Literacy

Adolescent Literacy is an artisan's toolbox.

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The complexity of adolescent literacy deserves much care; much like an artisan would care for his toolbox. There are so many aspects of literacy that students need to refine in order to become literate in accessing multiple types of texts and making sense from that.

At first glance, all of the tools look familiar-paint, brushes, glue; however, even though the tools are familiar, the user may not know the exact way to utilize the tool. This connects to adolescent literacy because students have learned to read throughout their time in elementary school. They’ve learned all about different strategies in order to understand a text—but when they get to adolescence, literacy shifts from learning to read to reading to learn. Students have to be able to understand which tools they need to use for different texts and they need to do this without a teacher telling them to.

Looking at the image above, it seems as though the toolbox is messy and that there is no method for organization. However, each tool has an intended purpose and the artisan or adolescent reader is fluid in understanding what strategy to use for different types of texts.

The different tools are like the different disciplines in which students need to learn how to access. For example, reading like a mathematician is way different than reading like a historian. Just like using a flat brush will give you a totally different product than using a fan brush. Students need to know what specific tools they need to take out of their toolbox in order to understand what they are reading.

It isn’t just what the tools from the artisan’s toolbox do, but it’s about the process in which the artisan creates a product. Sometimes, the artisan might need to confer with a colleague about what type of technique to use on a piece, much like academic conversations. Other times, the artisan might be combining to different techniques to synthesize into one product, just like having multiple text comprehension.

No matter how long the process takes, there is a masterpiece that is in the making, all because of the tool box. All of the tools work together in order for students to understand any type of text.