Reaching for the Top

Passing the Literacy Key to Marginalized Adolescent Boys

Abstract

This paper draws attention to the important role school libraries, teacher-librarians, and principals can and need to play in the lives of marginalized adolescent boys in order to advance the goals of social justice and equity, and to make school libraries more relevant to citizens and communities. As an illustration of how teacher-librarians can intervene in the lives of such students, the author presents preliminary insights from a recent literacy research project that involved a school principal, a professor/school library specialist, and a professor in school leadership. Using a modified, contextually tailored version of literature circles, the researchers explored ways of enhancing the critical literacy engagement of marginalized adolescent boys in an urban school in western Canada.