subject: Who May Struggle with A Tension between Learning and Acquiring A Secondary Discourse [print this page] A primary implication of this study is that it may benefit adolescents if teachers and parents are sensitive to and supportive of students who may struggle with a tension between learning and acquiring a secondary Discourse and the potential cost of losing particular friendships. By viewing the data presented in this study in light of Gee's theory, we may notice tensions with which some Breitling Replica students, including John, and other reluctant readers, may be struggling. We cannot, perhaps, conclude in each case whether this is true. Yet, educators and researchers can and should ask, What can teachers and schools do to provide a setting that powerfully welcomes students to acquire and learn the dominant Discourses of academic literacies How can schools work to lessen the tension students may experience between competing identities.
Students must be welcomed into the dominant Discourses valued in schools and literacies and given opportunities to succeed, as each step from a more comfortable primary Discourse may be risking rejection and failure. As Delpit (1995) argued, students may not see themselves in books and topics at school. Perry, Steele, & Hilliard (2003) suggested that African American students must be taught about the literary triumphs of African Americans before them, for example. Teaching strategies may include developing thematic units that focus on cultural minority literary figures and making available ample books and other publications featuring cultural minority characters and written by authors from many cultural backgrounds. Students of Breitling Replica Watches color, as well as poor and working class students of European descent, are often able to see and feel the effects of inequalities in society and in schools. Confronting and addressing inequalities can and should be an important part of an ongoing curriculum. Ignoring these matters in schools allows students of color, who are often underrepresented in books and curricular themes, to arrive at harmful conclusions about themselves, such as "I am not smart" or "School rejects me, so I reject school."
I will end with two recommendations for teachers and schools that are consistent with the key findings and theory of this study: that "independent" reading is social, part of a public identity, and can conflict with the primary Discourses of students, even if parents support and actively encourage reading.
Who May Struggle with A Tension between Learning and Acquiring A Secondary Discourse
