“You Just Don't Cross Them”: Adolescent Interactions with Text Across Discourses

Abstract

This article explores how adolescents interact with multimodal texts across shifting contexts, including social, academic, and digital ones. The author considers the ability of teens to articulate the boundaries and fluidity of multiple discourse systems and to maneuver across and within them with ease. The author further explores pedagogical implications, including shifting power dynamics occurring in schools. A new model for schooling is suggested, which incorporates multiple discourses and promotes a new term, “relational neteracy.”

Key words:

• adolescent literacy
• curriculum and instruction
• discourse
• relational neteracy
• secondary education