Youth Learning on Their Own Terms: Creative Practices and Classroom Teaching

Situated in a framework of new literacy studies, youth cultural studies, and theories of extracurricular learning, this rich ethnography explores the creative subcultural practices of three teenage boys. Leif Gustavson reveals how teenagers from different racial and class backgrounds become involved with, refine, practice, and learn from three distinctive creative forms: zine writing, graffiti, and turntablism. The book shows how these young men appropriate time and space in school to practice their craft in ways that disrupt the distinction between literacy practice inside and outside of school. Readers will come to understand that subcultural practices allow youth to determine their own learning trajectories, involving communities of practice, rituals, materials, tacit knowledge, performance, improvisation, and evaluation. Developing a respect and understanding of youth-initiated creative practices and their importance in young people’s lives offers educators the opportunity to see how adolescents teach and learn of their own accord.