Enacting Adolescent Literacies across Communities

Through an innovative approach of critical ethnography and literacy research via case-study methodologies, Enacting Adolescent Literacies across Communities: Latino/a Scribes and Their Rites analyzes Latino/a adolescents’ engagement with the elements of literacy for English language arts learning and understanding. How young people enact literacies in their bicultural lives and understand literary traditions today reveals their own interests in democracy, equity, and opportunity. Moreover, the rites they perform often recover buried histories, mirrors, and stories similar to the pre-Columbian scribes whose intellectual legacy is relevant in the twenty-first century. R. Joseph Rodríguez illustrates how adolescents experience scribal identities and language pluralism that sustains their cultural knowledge as they make meaning and enact literacies with diverse audiences in civic and schooling communities.

Enacting Adolescent Literacies across Communities is an engaging and informative book. Rodríguez’s detailed ethnography-based literacy portraits are inspiring. Educators may feel invigorated to foster or nurture adolescent literacies and youth scribal identities. Some readers may also find the theoretical snippets helpful to comprehend Rodríguez’s work, which can in turn illustrate his theoretical framework and his research approach. Plus, researchers may appreciate the transparency of Rodríguez’s research methods. Simply put, almost any reader involved in adolescent literacies can find something of interest in the book.... Rodríguez’s book whispers lessons of hope; it encourages us to engage in socially responsible literacies for and by Latinos., Enacting Adolescent Literacies across Communities: Latino/a Scribes and Their Rites is a powerful reminder of the inherent political commitments embedded in the work of youth as they come into presence both in and out of school. R. Joseph Rodriguez attends to the importance of spaces within and beyond school, where scribal identities, for youth of color in particular, face circumscription. This is a text of resistance and of recreation by and for youth., Enacting Adolescent Literacies across Communities: Latino/a Scribes and Their Rites by R. Joseph Rodríguez is a cutting-edge must read for literacy educators. Dr. Rodríguez provides an excellent narrative of adolescent development covering ELL, language, literacy, and culture. The stories, experiences, and passion in the book illustrate strength and brilliance by the adolescent participants., As teachers of teens, we often struggle with our students' struggles. This book helps us, as classroom teachers, to understand and appreciate our students better. Instead of treating them as empty vessels that need to be filled, this book helps us to see them as they are: people with rich literate lives., R. Joseph Rodríguez’s Enacting Adolescent Literacies across Communities: Latino/a Scribes and Their Rites is a powerful contribution to our continuing work understanding adolescent literacies as sociocultural practices. Documenting the rites of adolescent scribes and exploring the ways that educators might collaborate with adolescent scholars, this book delves into the ways that young people are adapting and adopting literacies to speak to their lived realities. Engaging both the practices of adolescents and the reflexive work involved in the teaching of diverse literacies, R. Joseph Rodríguez highlights how we can value multimodality and identity work in teaching/learning spaces. 

R. Joseph Rodríguez is assistant professor of literacy and English education at the University of Texas at El Paso.