Identity Through Literacy

Adolescence is a difficult period of everyone's lives; we are all searching for who we are to become, while building out identity in the processes. Let us also add to this process the stress of academic performance, a part time job, family responsibilities, and I am sure we can keep this list going. In the busy life that composes today's adolescents do they ever have time to read? However, not all literacy needs to come in the form of a book as much as many educators wish this could be the case. Instead of pushing are students to read a book, encouraging them to be engaged in literacy, whether that be blogging, social media postings, and others, is at least a step forward. As an educator, specifically in science, I am interested in reading non-fiction texts and science articles. However, why should I expect students to want to read the same texts as I do if they do not identify in any way with these subjects? Would it not be better to encourage them to read texts that they identify with? As educators, we should promote reading in whichever form it takes for our students. We need to act as guides and models for our students when it comes to literacy. An adolescent who is introduced to reading by being around adults who read promotes a healthy literacy environment for our youth.


I always wondered in high school how the varsity football players found the time to read for the next days class after hearing them complain about how long they were at practice the night before. However, I never actually thought that their literacy identity might surround sports related texts. While they are not reading about the Great Depression, they may have been reading about the upcoming predictions for Sunday's games. Educators are now faced with a new dilemma: students are reading, just not the academic texts we have set in front of them. Is this something we should embrace or be concerned about? On one hand we have found how a student identifies themselves (athletic, for example) and how this identity relates to their reading. However, they may have now spent all night at practice and ESPN's predictions for Sunday instead of reading about history for tomorrow's lecture. It might then be a situation handed to the teacher to develop a method for students to read academic texts in a way they can identify more closely.

With the ever growing network of social media and its prevalence in student's lives, there is no way educators can ignore its affects on students. It is now becoming a part of our culture and society. Students express themselves through social media whether they realize it or not and their literacy develops through these same outlets whether educators want to admit it or not. However are students read or write is dependent on how they build their identity; I read and write very different from others in our class based on my identity. However, developing lessons and teaching methods to match and embrace these differences may aid our youth in reading academic texts. If we can identify how students build their own identities, we can match their interests through literacy.