Utilizing Student’s Cultural Capital in the Teaching and Learning Process: “As If” Learning Communities and African American Students’ Literate Currency

In the first edition of Reconceputalizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives, I (Jennifer Obidah) examined African American students’ use of what I termed literate currency (Obidah, 1998).I used this term to describe the multiple and interactive forms of literacy that students bring into the classroom and that their encounters with the myriad people and processes of everyday schooling. As noted in the first edition, students’ literate currency encompasses more than the literacy acquired in schools. Although significant elements of literate currency are acquired as students engage in the schooling processes, literate currency is also gleaned through their personal, familial, and social interactions, both within and outside of schools.