ABSTRACT
And so goes the conversation during a Language Arts youth radio program, as one middle school student works with a local broadcaster to edit the interview she had previously conducted and recorded. This dialogue illustrates not only how students were learning to read and see images of voices onscreen, but also how they were developing new literacy practices and ways of seeing (Berger, 1972). In this chapter, we explore how English-language learners (ELLs), through a dialogic process of writing and speaking for youth radio, came to visualize voice, both literally on screen and symbolically, as related to language practices and identity. We begin with an overview of the complementary theories on learning, language, and literacy that inform our conceptualization of the issues and research approach used to study youth radio as an educational intervention. Then, we introduce the classroom radio project, its specific design features, and pedagogical goals. Next, we describe our qualitative research methodology, followed by an analysis of collaborative activities in youth radio. We present examples of oral and written texts mainly from two students, Maria and Andres, to illustrate how students drafted scripts for radio, how voice came to be viewed as an artifact and object of activity, and to consider the consequentiality of viewing voice. The discussion explores further the significance of multimodal literacies, and implications that can be derived by pushing the boundaries of what counts as literacy in the classroom.
