478

Challenging the Boundaries between

School-sponsored and Vernacular
Literacies: Urban Indigenous Teenage Girls
Writing in an At Risk Programme
Ellen Grote
Edith Cowan University, Mount Lawley, Australia
Contemporary views of literacy as a wide range of sociocultural practices acknow-
ledge a comprehensive account of adolescents literate lives, which includes previously
unrecognised vernacular literacies. Contrasting descriptors such as ofcial/unofcial
and sanctioned/unsanctioned have been used to describe adolescent writing from
different domains. While these distinctions are useful, the boundaries between them
are subject to transgression. This paper draws on ethnographic data collected in a
vocational education training programme for Year 10 students identied as being at
educational risk. Adopting a communities of practice perspective, the study focuses on
the school-sponsored writing practices of a group of Aboriginal English speaking girls.
It describes how the girls recruited resources from communities of practice in which
they participated outside the classroom. The ndings indicate three ways in which
the boundaries between school-sanctioned and vernacular literacy practices became
disrupted, including: (1) the authorisation of unofcial practices; (2) the authorised
and unauthorised infusion of unofcial content; and (3) the recruitment and accept-
ance of teen writing styles in school-sponsored tasks. It is argued that challenging the
boundaries between ofcial and vernacular literacies may be not only inevitable, but
worthy of encouragement as a strategic way of promoting the participation of disaf-
fected students in school-sponsored literacy activities.
doi: 10.2167/le659.0
Keywords: adolescents, indigenous, literacy, literacy practices, multicultural,
vernacular literacies
Introduction
Current understanding of literacy as a wide range of sociocultural practices
(e.g. Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Baynham, 1995; New London Group, 1996; Street,
1984) enables us to view adolescent literacy practices in more meaningful ways.
In the context of school this perspective acknowledges traditional school litera-
cies and also vernacular literacies, that is, literacy practices which have been
adapted to suit the aims of those to whom the practices have been introduced
(Carrington, 1997). Scholars have begun to explore the relationship between
vernacular and school-sponsored literacy practices (e.g. Anderson & Irvine,
1993; Cummins & Sayers, 1997; Heath & Mangiola, 1991; Knobel, 1999; Myers,
1992), rstly, because it is important to know what adolescents can already do
with literacy (Hinchman et al., 2003; Knobel, 1999), and secondly, because ver-
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LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION Vol. 20, No. 6 , 2006
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Challenging the Boundaries 479
nacular literacies embrace the local knowledges valued by community members
(Camitta, 1993; Heath, 1983; Malcolm et al., 2002a; Shuman, 1986, 1993).
While some argue for the need to make connections between out-of-school
and school-sponsored literacies (e.g. Hull & Schultz, 2002; Knobel, 1999),
others express caution regarding the recruitment of personal literacies into the
classroom (Myers, 1992; Wallace, 2002). Many mainstream students see school
literacy activities as a matter of doing school (Knobel, 1999: 187), but continue
to engage in them because of the value they, their families and/or like-minded
peers attach to them (Knobel, 1999; Myers, 1992). For many Australian Indig-
enous students, there are a number of complex social, economic and cultural
factors that make it difcult for them to see the relevance of school in their
personal lives (Beresford & Partington, 2003). The consistently poor levels
of literacy achievement and participation of Indigenous students in Western
Australias education system continue to provide evidence that the needs of
this minority group remain unaddressed (Department of Education, Western
Australia, 2003; Education Department Western Australia, 1996).
This paper draws on ethnographic data collected for a larger study (Grote,
2004) which investigated the vernacular and school-sponsored writing practices
of a group of Indigenous girls enrolled in a Year 10 vocational education training
programme designed to be sensitive to the needs of educationally at-risk
students. Adopting a communities of practice (CoP) perspective (Lave & Wenger,
1991; Wenger, 1998), the study focuses on the ways in which a group of Indig-
enous girls participated in school-sponsored literacy activities in the classroom.
The ndings highlight three ways in which the distinctions between the girls
school-sanctioned and vernacular literacy practices were challenged, including:
(1) the authorisation of unofcial practices; (2) the authorised and unauthorised
infusion of unofcial content; and (3) the recruitment and acceptance of teen
writing styles in school-sponsored tasks. It is argued here that challenging the
boundaries between ofcial and vernacular literacies may be not only inevita-
ble, but also a practical way of encouraging disaffected students to participate
in school-sponsored literacy activities.
Background
Explorations into the writing practices of adolescents have contributed to a
comprehensive understanding of their literate lives. These investigations dem-
onstrate how reading and writing are used to negotiate social meanings and
identities, and enable teenagers to see themselves in relation to their commu-
nities and the wider world (e.g. Camitta, 1993; Finders, 1996, 1997; Malcolm
et al., 2002a; Moje, 2000; Shuman, 1986, 1993). Numerous descriptors such as
ofcial, public, sanctioned, recognised, authorised and/or standard have been used
to contrast vernacular, unofcial, hidden, unsanctioned, unrecognised, unauthorised
and/or non-standard literacy practices. The ways in which these terms have
been applied are discussed below.
Camitta (1993) uses the descriptors vernacular and unofcial to refer to the
notes, letters, diaries, journals and poems of the junior high school students in
her study. She characterises this type of writing as traditional and indigenous
to the diverse cultural processes of communities as distinguished from [italics
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480 Language and Education
added] the uniform, inexible standards of institutions (1993: 2289). Camittas
denition suggests that these practices fall into dichotomous categories;
however, the students vernacular writing exhibited characteristics of academic
texts, e.g. intertextuality in the form of mosaic or patchwork (p. 239) texts in
which students recruited materials from other sources. They also manipulated
institutionalised genres, sometimes combining them, as in the poem/letter
incorporating poetic diction (p. 240) which can be associated with both tradi-
tional literary conventions and popular culture.
In a study of the literacy practices of suburban Euro-American girls, Finders
(1997: 24) also appears to advocate a dichotomous relationship between two
literate systems: sanctioned literacies are dened as practices which are rec-
ognized, circulated, and sanctioned by adults in authority. In contrast, the term
literate underlife (after Goffman, 1961) is used to describe activities designed
and enacted to challenge and disrupt the ofcial expectations (Finders, 1997:
24). In addition, Finders (1996: 97) makes reference to Scotts (1990) terminol-
ogy hidden and public transcripts in her analysis of literacy and power in the
school context. Although Finders suggests that these are divergent concepts,
Scott (1990) points out that they can be equally envisioned as positioned at
opposite ends of a continuum, varying according to the extent to which expres-
sion needs to be censored.
Moje (2000: 651) employs the descriptor unsanctioned in her study of the
grafti, tags, hand signs, poems, stories, journal entries and letters written by
gang-associated youths in Salt Lake Citys ethnic communities. But Moje extends
the notion of vernacular literacy practices to include semiotics such as clothing,
colour, hair and make-up (for girls) which support meanings expressed in written
texts. Juxtaposed by symbols, these texts are seen as powerful tools to commu-
nicate social meaning and values, construct ethnic and gendered identities, and
to position gang-associated youth in relation to the local mainstream society. In a
similar manner to the adolescents in Camittas 1993 study, these youths drew on
adult genres to make meaning, as in their gangsta prayers which parodied a text
structure highly valued by the local dominant church culture.
In Malcolm et al.s (2002a: 11) study of urban Indigenous youth in Perth,
Western Australia, the terms vernacular and unrecognized are used to
describe the community-based literacy practices which employ non-standard
varieties of English [which] are often either unnoticed, ignored, or condemned
as subversive acts. Grafti was the most prominent of the latter and sometimes
included playful texts involving intertextual processes that enhanced meanings
and, as mentioned above, are analogous to those found in academic literacies.
For example, the grafti text NWA Nyoongars with Attitude (Malcolm et al.,
2002a: 78) invokes the name of the African American hip hop group Niggaz With
Attitude to communicate an afliation with international youth culture as well
as a local ethnic identity. Although vernacular and school literacies are viewed
as distinct entities, Malcolm and colleagues propose inviting vernacular literacy
skills into the classroom to approximate a more inclusive curriculum (p. 103).
Shuman (1986, 1993) appears more cautious about characterising the rela-
tionship between vernacular and school-sponsored writing in her study of
collaborative adolescent writing. Although she uses the term vernacular to
describe written texts which value local, rather than academic, standards
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Challenging the Boundaries 481
(1993: 267), she cautions that a lack of correspondence between standard
and non-standard practices should not be construed as a binary opposition
because privileged channels and/or genres (1993: 267) must also be consid-
ered. Although Shuman is concerned with issues of power in relation to orality,
writing, and entitlement (to speak or write), her assertion acknowledges a
complex relationship between vernacular and standardised literacy practices.
This was evident in the writing that students did for fun, e.g. The Constitution
of Love, or to take a more authoritative stance, e.g. a petition addressed to the
principal protesting an unpopular decision. The fact that vernacular texts share
attributes and processes found in standardised literacy practices suggests that
the borders between the two are less distinct than the categorical terms imply.
This paper focuses on school-sponsored texts and practices to provide additional
evidence of how the boundaries between vernacular and school-sponsored lit-
eracies were disrupted in terms of practices, content, and language use.
Theoretical Framework
To facilitate an understanding of the nature of literacy practices within the
sociocultural context of a classroom and to focus the analysis at the level of
the girls group, a CoP perspective (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) was
adopted. This model offers an alternative understanding of learning as par-
ticipatory social practices in which practice is seen as a process by which we
can experience the world and our engagement in it as meaningful (Wenger,
1998: 51). A CoP is characterised by Wenger as comprising three dimensions:
mutual engagement, joint enterprise and a shared repertoire. The shared reper-
toire which manifests itself in the routines, words, tools, ways of doing things,
stories, gestures, symbols, genres, actions, or concepts (p. 83) is seen to emerge
as members participate together and develop relationships that enable them to
work on a common endeavour.
Wenger maintains that CoPs do not exist in isolation, but rather interact with
other CoPs in complex ways. Although boundaries (p. 103) form between
them, the process of brokering (p. 109) facilitates the communication of ideas.
In the context of the school, teachers perform the critical role of brokers as they
mediate the exchange of cultural knowledge between the CoPs of the admin-
istration, adult mainstream society and classroom so that new possibilities of
meaning (p. 109) can be introduced. In the present study, the girls collectivity
was viewed as a small CoP embedded within the CoP of the classroom. The
practices the girls adopted were inuenced by the CoPs of the school as well as
the Indigenous (and other) adolescent groups they participated in outside the
classroom.
The Study
Research setting
The study took place in a school located on the outskirts of Perth, Western
Australia in a community of low socioeconomic status. There were approxi-
mately 835 students in the school, 10% of whom were Indigenous, a relatively
high proportion for a metropolitan school. The upper school (Years 11 and 12)
le20-6.indb 481 30/11/2006 09:44:30
482 Language and Education
had a large vocational education training programme. In 2001 an adapted version
of this was piloted as the WAVE
1
(Work and Vocational Education) programme
for those Year 10 students, aged 14 to 16, who were identied as being at risk of
leaving school with no marketable skills. The programme brochure described
its aim as providing a stimulating and supportive alternative that leads to post-
Year 10 options, TAFE [Technical and Further Education] or employment. In
2002, the second year of the programmes development, permission was granted
by staff, students and parents to allow the study to take place.
Participants
Students were invited into the WAVE programme for reasons that fell along
gendered lines. With few exceptions, the girls were accepted because of frequent
truanting while the boys were admitted for behavioural issues. Five Indigenous
girls, Shauntay, Kyandra, Melissa, Ambryn, and Larissa were the focal group of
the study. Another Indigenous girl, Rachel, was a member of the collectivity for
the rst term, but left school. All six Indigenous girls spoke Aboriginal English,
a non-standard dialect of Australian English (Kaldor & Malcolm, 1991) as their
home language. There were also boys in the WAVE class, but their writing
practices were not considered in the study.
Although some of the girls had been friends before the year began, it was not
friendship that brought them into the WAVE classroom. The group would be
classied as a public rather than private (Hey, 1997: 40) collectivity because it
was on the basis of need that they were accepted into the programme. Admission
was determined by the three WAVE teachers in consultation with two school-
based Aboriginal and Islander Education Ofcers who were members of the
local Indigenous community.
Data collection and analysis
The study took place over the course of one academic year. Five data collec-
tion techniques were triangulated: (1) participant observation (265 hours); (2)
the collection of 124 school-sponsored and 152 vernacular written texts; (3) oral
interviews with teachers; (4) written questionnaires eliciting the girls percep-
tions of their out-of-school literacy practices; and (5) a writing activity using
prompts to collect attitudinal data. For the purposes of this paper, however, I
draw mainly on the rst three data sets: participant observation eld notes to
provide background details of the programme and writing practices, written
texts for an analysis of language use, and teacher interviews for their perspec-
tive of tasks.
My role as participant observer could be characterised as ranging from
passive to moderate (Spradley, 1980, 58) because I sat in the back of the
classroom, taking notes as an onlooker. I did not directly participate in classroom
activities, although I spoke with students informally. I also engaged with par-
ticipants when asking their permission to photocopy texts or print out email
and Power-Point presentations. Permission was usually granted. The girls also
offered private writing when no request was made. Electronic versions of data
were entered into the QSR N6 software programme. Sections of texts were
coded as sub-themes under six organising topics: focus group proles, writing
practices, language use, gender, cultures, and teacher proles.
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Challenging the Boundaries 483
In addition to triangulating the different data sets to conrm information (Lincoln
& Guba, 1985), the participants were consulted regularly. However, as in all eth-
nographic studies conducted on communities by an outsider, I was constrained
in my access to insider meanings shared by the girls. As a non-Indigenous
adult researcher, discussing the girls literacy practices and language use with
them was not always productive. Although I felt that I was able to establish a
relationship of trust with the girls, based on my expressed and apparent lack of
authority and unwillingness to report observed violations of classroom/school
rules, there were undoubtedly power issues that remained. Furthermore, the
Western academic practice of making language and literacy practices into objects
of inquiry is a cross-cultural challenge faced by non-Indigenous researchers when
working with Australian Indigenous participant-informants (e.g. Coombs et al.,
1983; Malcolm et al., 1999). An additional problem in eliciting information is that
direct questions are uncommon and considered impolite in the Aboriginal English
speech community (e.g. Eades, 1982). Although it was impossible to completely
overcome these problems, they were somewhat mitigated by consulting the Abo-
riginal and Islander Education Ofcers, who had had training and experience in
cross-cultural communication and could provide Indigenous understandings of
language and literacy practices. Although the interpretations of members of the
same speech community do not necessarily converge, their insights were taken
into account. (For previous uses of this two-way research approach, see Malcolm
et al., 1999, 2002a, 2002b).
Findings/Discussion
Literacy in the WAVE classroom
Literacy development was promoted in the WAVE programme as an important
aspect of its design. Although the timetable dedicated only two hours per week
towards literacy instruction, literate activities were integrated into other com-
ponents. For example, every Monday morning students wrote journal entries
to reect on the past week and set obtainable goals, an activity monitored by
teachers, though students texts remained private. The students Health Studies
and Current Issues projects required the use of library books and the Internet;
and the Life Skills unit used two class sets of workbooks (Netolicky, 1996, 1998)
featuring short readings and open-ended questions about dilemmas faced by
troubled teenagers. Computer literacy skills were allocated two hours per week,
but were also a signicant component of the optional business and tourism voca-
tional education unit, which the girls (and one non-Indigenous boy) participated
in for three hours per week. While these learning activities were ofcially estab-
lished to enable students to meet curriculum requirements, the programme was
exible. Table 1 summarises the main literacy activities of the rst term.
Issues relating to language and literacy practices were never explicitly
discussed in terms of what was ofcial or unofcial; however, students and
teachers acted in ways that suggested a distinction did exist. For example,
students raised questions about writing requirements for school-sponsored
tasks. They were also observed concealing personal email and letters when
they sensed a teacher was looking. If students were caught writing private
messages during class activities, they were asked to put them away or to close
le20-6.indb 483 30/11/2006 09:44:30
484 Language and Education
the email programme. While the distinction between private and school writing
was respected by students and teachers in theory, in practice there was seepage
across boundaries. Analysis of participant observation eld notes and text data
indicate that this was particularly salient in terms of practices, content and
language choices which did not conform to standardised conventions. Although
there was leakage across the boundaries between vernacular and traditional
school-sponsored literacy practices in both directions (Grote, 2004), this dis-
cussion focuses on school-sponsored activities. These are described in terms of
authorised unofcial practices in relation to a writing task, the authorised and
unauthorised infusion of unofcial content, and the recruitment and acceptance
of teen writing styles. The descriptions of writing events and students texts
were selected on the basis of typicality with regard to routine practices, content
and language features.
Authorised unofcial practices
The WAVE girls Monday morning journals provide clear examples of the
authorisation of unofcial practices in terms of their status. Students were issued
with exercise books for journal writing and instructed to keep them in classroom
binders. However, the prevailing procedure within the girls CoP was to either
keep journal entries in their bags or take them home. While writing entries, the
girls usually sat together around a table in the back of the room discussing past
and future weekend events. Melissas texts were typically minimal, non-reec-
tive recounts using fairly standard English, as shown in Extract 1. (To facilitate
reading and the discussion, longer extracts of the girls writing are divided into
numbered idea units [Chafe, 1982]).
Extract 1: Melissas journal entry
1 On the weekend, I went to my friends house.
2 We were going to go to the movies
Table 1 WAVE class literacy tasks for Term 1
Type of
Literacy
Tasks
Traditional
print
Weekly Monday morning journal entries
Short answers to questions in the workbooks Teenage Survival Guide
(Netolicky, 1996) and Teenagers Learning About Life (Netolicky, 1998)
Five-Task Literacy Project: (term long)
1. critical evaluation of a website
2. business letter
3. informal letter
4. word sleuth (word search puzzle) on a topic of students choice
5. poster on a topic of students choice
Rsum building tasks
Applications and form lling related to work experience placements
Computer PowerPoint presentation on an admired person (computer skills class)
PowerPoint presentation on a country of interest (tourism)
le20-6.indb 484 30/11/2006 09:44:31
Challenging the Boundaries 485
3 but we ended up staying home!
4 Then at 8.00 we went for a walk
5 and ended up sleeping over another friends house . . .
6 On Sunday I went to go see my Best friend
7 who I havent seen in 3 weeks.
Despite Melissas fairly standard English grammar, she tended to dispense
with standard writing conventions, in particular capitalisation and punctua-
tion. Melissa capitalised the proper noun Sunday, but contrary to convention,
also the common adjective Best. There is an absence of apostrophes showing
possession in the word friend (lines 1 and 5) and the contraction of have and
not (line 7). Perhaps the most unconventional punctuation is the use of a series
of full stops at the end of line 5. The practice of using a series of full stops to
separate clauses is one that appears to have crossed over from her vernacular
email writing. An example of one of these texts is shown in Extract 2.
Extract 2: Melissas email
1 wass up?
2 so did u go 2 karaz party on Monday nite?
3 i didnt
4 . . . i heard it was pretty good!
5 guess what
6 bonnie was wearing my jumper . . .
7 no thanx 2 u!
While Extract 1 deviates from standard writing conventions in terms of punc-
tuation and capitalisation, by contrast, Extract 2 shows minimal adherence, as
would be expected in an email text written to a friend.
Kyandras journal writing was similar to Melissas in her minimal use of
language. One entry was a mere ve words: On the weekend I did nothing.
Unlike Melissas journal entries, however, Kyandras texts showed more seepage
from vernacular practices, particularly in her use of colloquial language. This is
illustrated in Extract 3, which was written following an eventful weekend when
Kyandra had something to write and reect on.
Extract 3: Kyandras journal entry
1 well on friday I did Jack shit
2 ON saturday night some one broke into my house
3 + trashed my room
4 + tryed to burn it down
5 the pigs the dumb sluts didnt do anything
6 so I stayed up all night with a knife in my hand
7 waiting for them to come back
8 but IM over it now
9 I dont mind
10 I got my pay back for all the fucking shit I ever did.
The appearance of unconventional punctuation and capitalisation in both girls
journal entries (Extracts 1 and 3) and the swearing and colloquial language in
Kyandras texts indicate that the girls interpreted the private school-sponsored
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486 Language and Education
task as one that would allow for such practices. With the exception of the nal
full stop in line 10, Kyandra dispensed with punctuation and her use of capital
letters was irregular, e.g. ON (line 2) and the letter m in IM (line 8). In regard
to Kyandras use of shit (line 1) and fucking shit (line 10) it is relevant that
swearing was frequently discussed in relation to school rules and, in terms of
these rules, considered inappropriate. Yet, swearing was very much a feature
of the WAVE students discourse, where explanations are that it is an acceptable
Aboriginal English discourse practice in many Aboriginal homes and communi-
ties (Langton, 1988), and inappropriate language in school is common among
Australian adolescents (Oliver et al., 2003).
Kyandras use of trashed (line 3) and the derogatory references to police,
i.e. pigs and dumb sluts (line 5), are examples of colloquial expressions more
common in adolescent speech than in school-sanctioned texts. While colloquial
language is normally discouraged in school-sponsored writing, its presence in this
text can be explained by the very purpose of the activity described by the teacher,
i.e. to provide opportunities for students to externalise emotional responses to
weekend events. The fact that journal entries remained under student control
might also have facilitated an understanding that they could ignore standardised
writing conventions and use expressive colloquial language.
The inclusion of swear words and colloquial language in Kyandras texts and
the rejection of standardised writing conventions in both Melissa and Kyandras
journal entries provide linguistic (and graphic) evidence of authorised unofcial
practices (e.g. swearing among Indigenous and non-Indigenous adolescents)
seeping into ofcial writing practices in the WAVE classroom, and thereby
blurring the distinction between vernacular and ofcial writing practices.
From a CoP perspective, the CoPs of Aboriginal communities and adolescents
at large were reected in the CoP of the focal group. Further, the inclusion of
inappropriate language in written rather than spoken texts is explained by the
inherently ambiguous nature of the journal task, a school-sponsored task for
which writing was respected as being private.
Authorised and Unauthorised Infusion of Unofcial Content
Set tasks
Providing opportunities for students to choose topics for their computer
skills projects facilitated the recruitment of what is traditionally viewed as non-
academic content into the ofcial arena, most notably in the form of popular
culture. In a project aimed at developing skills associated with the Microsoft
PowerPoint programme, the teacher instructed the students to research an
admired person on the Internet and to record handwritten notes and plans in
computer class journals. PowerPoint presentations were subsequently assessed
by the student writer, fellow classmates and the teacher on the basis of the docu-
mentation of the process, design, time management and the demonstration of
skills which contributed to the nal product. In addition to teaching computer
and oral language skills, the teacher explained that the project gave him the
opportunity to get to know individual students interests to facilitate the devel-
opment of positive relationships.
le20-6.indb 486 30/11/2006 09:44:31
Challenging the Boundaries 487
Hip hop celebrities were chosen as topics by all but one girl. Their choices
reected/ constructed their afliation with American hip hop culture observed
in other practices in and out of class. The teacher sanctioned the use of hip hop
celebrities as topics and authorised students to search for websites on them.
However, while the teacher was helping a student or was distracted by school
business, the girls took liberties to download music videos, games and sites
unrelated to their presentations. Allowing students to choose hip hop celeb-
rities, as opposed to the more traditional icons, such as politicians, scientists,
social activists or literary gures, is somewhat controversial. From this tradi-
tional perspective, the use of popular culture celebrities as the focus of a school
task provides evidence for the authorised infusion of unofcial content. The
girls surreptitious appropriation of class time to download sites which did not
directly contribute to their projects can be viewed as the unauthorised infusion
of unofcial content into classroom activities. While the infusion may be seen as
a classroom management issue, it also appears to be an inevitable reality of class-
rooms in which students outnumber the teacher who is expected to monitor the
group while attending to individual student needs or routine school business.
In another class, the teacher allowed students to choose their topics for the
ve-task literacy projects shown in Table 1. In response, the girls chose hip
hop themes. In the word sleuths that Shauntay, Melissa, Kyandra, and Rachel
designed, each girl concealed hip hop celebrities names in a lettered grid.
Kyandra, Ambryn, and Shauntay applied the hip hop theme in their posters and
Shauntay used it in her informal and business letters. The inclusion of hip hop
themes in literacy tasks is generally not advocated in traditional school literacy
practices and may be seen as additional evidence of the authorised infusion of
unofcial content in a set task.
The use of unofcial content in the form of popular culture remains contro-
versial. Popular culture as a classroom resource has been advocated by some
(e.g. Buckingham & Sefton-Green, 1994; Doecke, 2003) and criticised by those
who argue that it is not our role to nurture those sites (Wallace, 2002: 111). Yet
it seems that being allowed to choose their topics encouraged the WAVE girls
participation and made it possible for them to appropriate the activities and
make them their own. From a CoP perspective, the girls enthusiasm for intro-
ducing content associated with hip hop culture reected their membership in
the adolescent CoPs they participated in outside of school where aspects of hip
hop culture appeared to be valued commodities (cf. Cutler, 1999).
Grafti
Another way in which unofcial practices permeated the boundaries of
school-sponsored practices was the way in which grafti was written on school-
issued materials during class time. Inscriptions often featured the names of hip
hop icons and local boys such as the following which appeared on the inside
of Kyandras le cover: Melissa z tupac + Nelly + JaRule + Andrew + Sam
D. All ly sings. The heart symbol () was used to represent the word love,
and according to the Aboriginal and Islander Education Ofcers, the expres-
sion lovely thing or the alternative Aboriginal English pronunciation lovely
sing was frequently used by local Indigenous girls to refer to boys of interest.
The substitution of the alveolar fricative [s] for the dental fricative [] occurs
le20-6.indb 487 30/11/2006 09:44:31
488 Language and Education
in the speech of some Aboriginal English speakers (Malcolm, 2003). Its alpha-
betic representation in the written expression All ly sings illustrates how the
girls used writing to construct an Indigenous identity, while the inclusion of the
names of male hip hop celebrities (and local boys) communicates heterosexual
feminine identities and an alignment with international youth culture.
From a CoP point of view, the construction of multiple identities through
writing practices may be seen to be inuenced by the CoPs they belonged
to outside the classroom. These would include the local Aboriginal English
speaking community and their adolescent peer groups which aligned them
with hip hop culture. The construction of heterosexual feminine identities may
be seen to have been inuenced by these CoPs as well as the mainstream school
culture in which students are socialised into the traditional heterosexual and
hierarchical social order (Eckert, 2003: 383). The construction of multifaceted
identities was common in other vernacular texts the girls produced during
appropriated class time, e.g. personal email (Grote, 2005). The fact that unof-
cial practices took place during school time on school-issued materials (e.g.
grafti) or using school equipment (e.g. email programmes) provides other
evidence for the unauthorised infusion of unofcial content.
The Recruitment and Acceptance of Teen Writing Styles in School
Tasks
Discussion about language use in the classroom was part of the daily WAVE
classroom experience, but (as mentioned above) it usually focused on rules
regarding inappropriate language and was rarely in reference to written
work. One exception was when the teenage life skills workbooks (Netolicky,
1996, 1998) were rst introduced, and one girl asked if full sentences were
required. When the teacher established that this was not the case, it seemed
to signal that informal writing conventions could be used. The girls not only
responded to questions using short phrases, but also employed other non-
standard writing conventions characteristic of a teen style. For instance, in her
response to a workbook question about what would make the reader happier,
Shauntay wrote: MY FAMILY ing me & probaly going shopping most of the
time. Hence, Shauntay was inconsistent in applying the conventional rules of
capitalisation, spelling and standard English grammar. However, not all her
non-standard practices can be attributed to her developmental stage of acqui-
sition, inattention, or resistance to the standard; rather, her writing reected a
teen style.
In response to a question in the same workbook regarding whether or not
two story characters had really stolen items from a shop, Shauntay wrote, No
because they are Just doggs to the narrator. and they just wanted her to get
caught from the guy at the store. Shauntays use of the double g in doggs was
found elsewhere in her email and letters to peers; it is the spelling used in hip
hop celebrity Snoop Doggy Doggs name. From a CoP viewpoint, Shauntays
adoption of this spelling for a school-sponsored task illustrates the inuences
of the adolescent CoPs that she belonged to outside of school which aligned
with hip hop culture. Although the act of engaging in the school task posi-
tioned her as a student, her language choice enabled her to claim ownership of
le20-6.indb 488 30/11/2006 09:44:31
Challenging the Boundaries 489
the task by re-positioning herself as an afliate member of international youth
culture in which the writing conventions of mainstream culture are frequently
subverted.
There was other evidence of informal teen writing conventions, which can
be theorised as being part of the girls shared repertoire (Wenger, 1998). For
instance, the teacher said nothing about Rachel, Kyandra and Shauntay using
the abbreviation INFO to substitute for the word information on slide headings
in their respective PowerPoint presentations. In Shauntays logbook of skills
learned at her work experience placement at the local social services ofce, she
recorded debt stuff as one of the tasks she had performed that day. From a CoP
perspective these examples of informal language use in school-sponsored texts
can be seen as inuenced by the adolescent CoPs they belonged to outside of
school. Embedding informal abbreviations (e.g. INFO) and colloquial language
(e.g. stuff) in school texts may be seen as further evidence of the recruitment of
vernacular language practices, specically teen writing, into school-sponsored
texts in which standard Australian English and its associated formal conven-
tions are usually expected.
It should be noted that not all practices and texts exhibited the features
described above, particularly when out-of-school reader-audiences were
involved. For example, supervised editing took place when students drafted
articles for a newsletter distributed to Indigenous families and when they
prepared insurance forms and applications for their work experience
placements. However, for teacher-assessed tasks there is substantial evidence
that the boundaries between vernacular and school-sponsored practices became
porous.
While the practice of challenging the boundaries may be inevitable and
possibly strategic in an at risk programme, it is important to maintain a view of
the multiliterate skills that students will need to succeed in their post-school lives
(Elkins & Luke, 1999; Gee, 2000; Heller, 2000; Lankshear, 1997). Students in pro-
grammes such as this could benet from activities explicitly aimed at extending
their existing levels of language awareness. While discussions about appropri-
ate language use in school may be necessary in the context of the institution,
students could benet from a broader understanding of language awareness.
To extend their language awareness, teachers in their role as boundary brokers
might guide students in an exploration of language use within different CoPs
within the community at large (cf. Anderson & Irvine, 1993; Heath, 1983; Heath
& Mangiola, 1991). Examining the language use in their work experience settings
and other workplace contexts could provide students in vocational education
training programmes a good place to start.
Conclusion
This paper has attempted to demonstrate that while the terms referring to
vernacular and ofcial literacy practices are useful descriptors, in the context of
a CoP of Indigenous girls enrolled in a programme for at risk students, these
categories were not always distinct. Many of their school-sponsored writing
practices seemed to be hybridised as they appeared to privilege meaning-making
and identity projection rather than strictly adhering to standardised language
le20-6.indb 489 30/11/2006 09:44:31
490 Language and Education
use and writing conventions. In light of the fact that engaging these students
in school-sponsored writing activities was not only a challenge, but also the
reason they were brought into the programme, these issues were not seen by
teachers as top priority in the tasks described here. The study suggests that
allowing the distinctions between school-sponsored and vernacular practices
to be challenged might enable students to claim ownership of their schoolwork,
communicate social identities and make school a more personally meaningful
and relevant place to be.
I would argue that fostering the development of standardised language and
literacy practices should remain a long-term objective (Wallace, 1999, 2002),
but it should not come at the expense of the immediate needs of disaffected
students. Adapting what counts as doing school to the needs and personal
interests of at risk students might keep some of them engaged in literacy
learning activities. Facilitating participation long enough so that they can
develop existing competencies further and build condence in their abilities
(Smith & Wilhelm, 2004) can encourage students to remain at school beyond the
compulsory years. Indeed, three of the ve Indigenous girls stayed to complete
Year 12 in an extended enhanced programme, with one enrolled in a university
bridging course following graduation. Romanticising the value of either ver-
nacular or school-sanctioned literacy practices is neither useful nor constructive
(Anderson & Irvine, 1993), particularly for students who have become disen-
chanted by school experiences and marginalised by the school. However, a
more inclusive approach to literacy practices would actively acknowledge what
students can already do with language and literacy. By recognising students
vernacular literacy skills, teachers can extend existing competencies toward a
wider range of the multiliterate skills and understandings students will need to
participate in the CoPs of further education and/or the workplace.
Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Dr Ellen Grote, Edith Cowan Uni-
versity, Centre for Social Research, 2 Bradford Street, Mount Lawley, WA 6050,
Australia (e.grote@ecu.edu.au).
Notes
1. Pseudonyms are substituted for real names throughout this paper; those referring to
the girls were suggested by the participants.
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