Below is my reflection of the book Just Girls: Hidden literacies and life in junior high by Margaret Finders as well as my reflection of my group's class presentation on the book. Included along with my thoughts are comments from one of my group members in parenthesis.
In reading and presenting Just Girls: hidden literacies and life in junior high by Margaret Finders, I was able to look, from a different and outside perspective, at high school cliques. Finders was able to put images into my head that made me feel like I actually knew these adolescent girls, but was watching and analyzing them from a place where they could not see me. (I agree that Finders was really able to tap into the girls’ identities and give the reader a sense of who they were and what mattered most to them!)
I was particularly drawn to learning about the social queens simply due to the fact that they have always held a sort of negative stigma in my mind stemming from my own adolescent days. Finders enabled me to step outside of my own stereotypical views of the queens in order to look and study them in a new light. (Its so true that even in adulthood we can hold onto our stigmas over social groups, even from childhood, but I really felt this books was a great read for trying to understand and tolerate those who were seemingly different from us.)
Through the various readings, especially from Hilary Janks and Stephanie Jones, and discussions we have had in class, I knew it was important to critically analyze the study that Finders was presenting in this text. I really zoned in on learning about the three primary literacies that the queens took part in—graffiti, note passing, and teen zines. I realized that these three acts were ways in which the girls used literacy to achieve social power and status among their peers and by subsequently achieving this power, they could do anything they wanted and get away with it. (Yes! The girls could really play with their roles, in that they were able to do so away from the watchful eyes of adults.)
I can personally connect with these acts from my adolescent experience and it was almost as if Finders was studying and writing about my own high school. The social queens, in my case, were called “The Stews” and they were always running around school passing notes, writing messages on the bathroom walls, and wore the latest fashions. At this particular time in my life and up until reading Just Girls, I had never thought too much of these acts, but by stepping back and critically analyzing what was really happening, I can see now how the social queens, just like The Stews, were using these three things to achieve that high power status. (Its small acts that often make the most difference in our lives- even without us realizing it!)
Knowing about these social queens now as an educator, the one question that comes to my mind is should we let these sorts of “underground literacies” and doing only the minimum amount of work in order to pass a class continue? What if teachers persist to close their eyes to these activities as if they are not happening as the teachers did in Finders study? To me the answer is clear—the cycle will continue. (I agree! Nothing will change unless we take steps to change it!) Personally, what I learned from reading this book is that we as educators need to be aware of the happenings of teenage life. Cliques will always exist, but learning how to manage them and acknowledging their existence could help us to get these social queens to want more than a passing grade. For example, it might be a good idea to give reading and writing activities that pertain to the latest pop culture icon or teachers could assign a creative project such as making your own magazine. The options are seemingly boundless, but one truth remains—teachers need to stop allowing these students to sit in class all day long passing notes, gossiping and kissing up in order for them to succeed. (I wonder how the “Tough Cookies” could be challenged as well? )
I felt that my group’s collaborative work on this presentation went extremely well. In order to work around everyone’s schedule, we came up with ways and times that worked for everyone in order to get what we needed to accomplish completed. By staying after class at night and using an email chain, we were able to really pull all of our individual pieces together for what we thought was a successful and entertaining presentation. During our meetings it was extremely important for us, due to the minimal amount of time we had together, to stay on task and listen to one another’s ideas. We respected what one another had to say and offered suggestions and additions to ideas. There are times when I personally do not enjoy working with groups because one person may end up doing more work than another, but in this case, we divided work equally and fairly and I believe everyone enjoyed the time we shared together.
Just Girls truly enabled me to move past the words that these girls were reading and writing on notes and magazine and to look more critically at the world that was surrounding them. To their teachers, their social lives were seemingly much more important to them than their academic well-being, but to the critical eye these social queens have the educational capacity to do great things because after all, they are just girls, just normal girls. (Yes and all girls can do great things! I agree that Finders really made the reader aware of the implications the underground literate practices have on students development that I would have never naturally thought of!)
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