ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the stories of youth who learned to manipulate traditional print and electronic media to communicate personally meaningful messages. The guiding principle calls on those responsible for schooling youth not only to honor students' everyday literate practices, but to support critical multi-literacies. Some students may be motivated to explore the assumptions that authors, video artists, Web page designers, cartoonists, and so on may have been operating under when constructing their messages. Middle and secondary schools that make it a priority to educate adolescents to make choices and think critically about what they read, view, and hear can help students develop the confidence and conviction that they can make a difference in the world. The teachers in these vignettes designed supportive contexts for learning that allowed teens to think critically about information and messages in print and digital form and to express themselves through those same media.
