Moje

My first thought, after reading Moje’s article about Adolescent Literacy, was to wonder whether technology has changed so much in such a short time.  Though the article was written in 2008, it seems as if these five years have changed drastically when it comes to digital literacy.  A conversation between a young girl, Valerie, and her interviewer shows that she rarely uses the internet.  When she does, she says that she does not usually “play,” but rather, uses it (the internet) to “take information out.”

Of course, I am not an eleven year old girl in an underdevoped neighborhood suffereing in an underperforming school, but I use my computer frequently throughout the day.  I definitely use it to play.  I probably play on my computer more than I do anything else.  I don’t play games, but I do surf through comic sites like Tickld, sift through garbage on Youtube, and spend more time than I would really like to admit to on Facebook.  I’m not a twitter person, but I use it on occasion, usually when I’m bored of my other sites.

But moving past the technological changes that have happened over the last several years, I am reminded of the Gender and Literacy article group presentation.  Some girls interviewed are involved in a book club.  They share books, vote on books, discuss books.  The girl in the interview mentions a book they read called “The Skin I’m In.”  Curious, I looked up the book on Amazon.  It is a coming of age novel about a girl who has spent the last two years caring for her despondent mother, struggling through school in an underprivileged area.

When a boy is asked if he tells his friends about books he likes, he responds “Yeah, kind of; like when we go to the library and I tell them about joke books or books they might like to read.”  He does not mention any specific titles, just “joke books or books they might like.”  Whether because he is enduring the social construct that reading is something girls like to do rather than boys, or simply because he doesn’t read as much, his response can be taken to mean that he doesn’t share books the same way that the girls do.