Professional Readings for Personal Identity Week

Woah! That was some intense reading and I feel a little bogged down with what I am supposed to do now when it comes to teens and identity and literacy. I thought that all of the writers brought up interesting points and seemed to be in love with “Gee” who I had to look up just because he was referenced so many times.  James Paul Gee seems to be the expert when it comes to identity and literacy spending the last decade writing and studying sociolinguistics and literacies. He is a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and wrote Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul: Pleasure and Learning (a book I think I may have to pick up).

Overall, I felt the pieces brought up good points like self and identity being different. I agree that one’s sense of self is more stable and internal and one’s identity can change to fit the social setting or situation allowing someone to have multiple identities. I think that teens are still trying to figure out their sense of self through trying out different identities if that makes any sense. When you are in such an intense social setting such as high school, it is hard to figure out which will be the path of least resistance and how to hop on that path or if you want to be on that path. I think that this is a struggle that doesn’t really end with one’s teen years. I have a difficult time believing that people are always aware of what role (identity) that are projecting and that it changes with every new situation.

I was a little surprised to read that girls are not as computer literate as boys and that girls are still considered to be good at English and not as good at science and math. Are we still living a society where that stereotype really exists? I thought that was changing and getting better from the teens that I know and interact with, but they are a very small portion of the teen girls out there. I just thought that it was an old way of thinking. I can remember my mother reinforcing that belief when I was younger. And I’m glad I didn’t listen. I’m numbers and math person for the art team at the magazine. Figuring out the budget is one of the most satisfying parts of my job and I usually look forward to it with every issue.

I think it will probably take me a couple weeks to really process all of these readings, but I am glad to have some of these issues back out front. I think I had forgotten that they were still current and need to be addressed.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was a great book and good choice for this week’s theme of personal identity. I thought the text of the story was interesting and good, but it was the drawings that made it really great. I felt like I learned more about Junior from his illustrations than I did from the text. And I thought it was very fitting that was the way I read the book, since the opening of the story addresses why he draws. He wants everyone to understand without facing a language barrier.

Again, this book is difficult to read because of all of the abuse. The scene where his father shot his dog because it was too expensive to take it to the vet may have made me cry and reminded me a bit of Old Yeller.

They way that alcoholism is discussed is really interesting to me. I have to admit that I was surprised in the casual manner in which Junior brought up his parents alcoholism. It was if they were just another couple that had a problem with alcohol but at least they weren’t abusive like Rowdy’s father. It is also the cause of many of the deaths in the book, like Eugene and Junior’s sister, but it always sounds like it is just what happens. I was horrified when I read about Eugene’s death and being out with his friend who shot him and was too drunk to remember or when his sister died in the fire and was too drunk to wake up and get herself and her husband to safety. Alcoholism seemed to be commonplace for the “rez” and the people who lived there. I have always thought of this a total stereotype and couldn’t tell if the author was playing on this stereotype or if there is truth to it. I have to admit, I do not know a lot about Indians and there culture outside of bad John Wayne westerns. There were other Indian stereotypes mentioned like going to work at the Casino and gambling being a part of the culture. I don’t know how I feel about that after living here in the “Happy Valley” where I have been encouraged to always look at people for people and not to believe the stereotypes to the point of being almost overly sensitive to them.

I also like that he was a good student and a good basketball player, yet he was constantly picked on. When I think about stereotypes in the fictional high school environment, usually being really good at school and sports would mean instant popularity. I do realize that it is because of other contributing factors like the lisp and stuttering problem (that I pretty much forgot about after the first few pages) as well as the glasses and clothes that make him the target of every bully except for Rowdy. It was a dynamic that made me really think about Junior fitting in or not fitting to school, the “rez” and his culture.

Alter Ego: Avatars and their creators

This book was especially fun to read because my friend was heading off to the NY Comic-Con this week, so I felt like spirit of this book was there. We talked about whether or not we would create our own avatar. And both of us agreed that we probably would not, but that leads into a discussion about all the friends that we have that have multiple and what that means to us. Both us agreed that part of the beauty of the Internet is that is the one place where everyone starts on an even playing field. When a person is on the Internet they are not defined by sex, race, age, size, sexual preference, or anything. People can be whomever they choose or nothing at all and that is the same for every person when they first log on. There is not a different log-on for people who are less than 5 feet tall and have red hair. And if I wanted to be that when I went online no one would ever be the wiser unless I wanted him or her to know. We also talked about the international and familial aspects of being an avatar. People are playing and communicating with each other from all over the world and making connections with people they may never had the want or means to do.

Both us found it fascinating to look at the professions and ages of the people in this book and then to see what their avatars were. We had a couple personal favorites like Cassien Guir/ La Blonde. My friend thought he was perfect example of what was so great about the Internet and being able to be whomever you choose without public or private repercussions. No one would ever have to know that Cassien was a man. I thought it was really brave of these gamers to expose themselves in this book. Now, anyone who reads it could know who they are and they could face all of the issues that having an avatar can save them from.

This would be a great book for teens if you could get them to read it. My concern would be that only teens interested in gaming would think about picking up this book and checking it out. Also, I don’t know if non-gamers would be able to read it without judging and thinking that gaming is only for geeks as many of them do. I would like to think that it would open their eyes and show them that gaming is for more than just nerds or geeks.

Good Girls

I like the way this book gets right into the action of the story. This seems to be a common occurrence with most teen novels, but it still always gets me every time. I read this book in one sitting and couldn’t put it down. It wasn’t that this the most amazing book I have read all semester. I liked it, but it wasn’t my favorite. It was more that it was like watching a car accident. You don’t want to look, but you just can’t avert your eyes.

From the moment Audrey comes on the scene, she is a likable character who seems a bit naive and a little unsure. I was worried for her from the start. I try not to read the back covers or front flaps, so the book is always a surprise. But I knew as soon as she entered the bedroom that everything was going to go horribly wrong for her and it did. I felt like Ruby was consistent in her message about people’s perceptions and also that mistakes made can sometimes linger for longer than they should. I also liked how the author tried to work within the stereotypes of student’s at a high school and break through them, even though I was able predict most of the character development. I don’t know if a teen would read it the same way I did though.

I can see some people shying away from having this book in their collections due to some of the more graphic passages and the trip to the gynecologist. Again, I think this would be a mistake. There are lots of teens out there going through some of the same issues as Audrey (maybe not having their photo taken) like wanting to have sex, being unaware of some of the emotions and consequences that having sex can have, fitting into a stereotype and being seen as nothing more. Overall, I would say that I think teens would enjoy this book. I think that they will get the messages in without realizing that they are there.

Fanboy and Goth Girl

I was worried when I started this book that I was entering the world of Jodi Picoult and 19 Minutes all over again. After the first couple chapters, the bullet, and “The List”, I was waiting for the shooting to begin. I was hopeful when I read that he would never do that because it wasn’t worth him dying over. But still every time the bullet made it on to the scene or his hatred of the Jock Jerks a.k.a. the JJs were mentioned my stomach would tighten. I was worried about all the way to end and the playground scene with Kyra. And the terrorist fantasies did not help at all. It seemed like danger and darkness was lurking on almost every page of this book. Luckily for me, it never turned as dark as I thought it would.

Overall, I liked the book despite feeling nervous through most of it. Fanboy was an interesting character that had moments of feeling real. It was interesting how he could have so much self confidence when it came to his studies and comics, but would turn into a puddle of goo when challenged by a bully and not do stop the situation. He could be really quick and cruel and then a few pages later be really scared and quiet. I found it all kind of fascinating. I would sometimes get the feeling from him that if was too hard or too unknown that he would just shut down and hide. This would kind of irritate me. I just wanted to reach into the book and smack him. There were a couple times that I almost couldn’t feel bad for him, because I felt like he didn’t help himself and would make things worse by not doing anything. I also thought his friendship with Cal seemed too strange to be real (I know it’s fiction). There were things about it that seemed too strange but I think were there to show that even the popular jocks struggled to be their true selves and that the society of high school can stifle anyone and everyone.

I also went and checked out the web site for this book hoping to gain more insight and closure to a book that left me lacking in both departments. The book seems to have a really big following and the teens that posted on the site seem to feel a real connection to Barry Lyga and his book. And I found some of the dialog on there from them really interesting. They talked to him like I have heard teens talk to their friends. There doesn’t seem to be that gap where they think of him as an adult. It is like they see him as Fanboy, a teen author trying to figure it out just like they are. I don’t think that I have seen that with any of the other sites of the books we have covered in class yet.

Gossip Girls

This book wasn’t what I expected. I thought that it would only be an entertaining story about the glamorous lives of young rich teens in the city living like they were 25. I thought I would find it a little shallow and unrealistic in its portrayal of the teens living the high life in New York city and there would be little that teens not living that life would really be able to relate to. I was wrong. I don’t know if it is because I am an older woman reading this book and not a teen, but there was a constant sadness that I couldn’t get away from. Here were these characters who seemed to have everything that a teenager could dream of: money, popularity, perfect looks, great clothes (I didn’t know half of the designers but they sounded impressive). But their lives were still extremely complicated and hard despite all of their advantages. There were so many different mini drama tornadoes through the entire book that I could fill the whole posting with the different issues brought up by Cecily von Zieger, who seems to sound like she may have been similar to the Serena character in her own life. There was love, sex, drugs, alcohol, bulimia, sexuality, divorce, smoking, body image, popularity, and so on. I felt like I was in some kind of crazy soap opera New York where life was never as perfect as it seemed.

I was talking with a friend of mine who has two teenage daughters one morning at work about the Gossip Girl series and television show. She was saying how she would never tell her teenagers not to read it, but she hoped that they never would. I told her that it wasn’t what she thought and that the book would be a great way to open up conversations about a number of issues that her teenagers may be dealing with and that it was actually a very sad book. She said that she could see my point of view, but that she thought that I would be able to see that the lives of the characters in the book were sad because I am older and have more experiences. She said that most teenagers she knows, including her children to a certain extent, would admire the fabulous lives that these teens were living and wouldn’t see the unpleasant things that I was seeing. She feels that are no real strong female characters or celebrities out there for teenagers and a book series like this only reinforces that. She said that there are teenagers who are actually looking up eating disorders on the web because they want to have one. I still tried to argue that she should have her girls read it and then talk to them about the book making sure that some of the messages cleverly weaved between Tiffany’s and vacations in Sun Valley wouldn’t be lost on them. We continued to disagree and discuss until we realized that we were never going to come to an agreement. I will be giving her this book to read on her own on Monday and she said she would at least give it a chance and read it herself but she wouldn’t pass it on to her kids.

While I can understand where she is coming from, I still don’t agree. I think that the snippets of the television program that she has seen may have something to do with it, but I have also only seen snippets so I don’t know. I will be interested to see what other people thought of this book tomorrow in class. I for one was pleasantly surprised.