Chapter 4: “I’ve Seen You … Even if You Are One”: Affective Literacies for Adolescents and LGBTQA Literatures in Language Arts

Many humans struggle with their public, private, and secret (unmentionable) lives. The realms of the everyday appear and jolt humans as they come of age and into their own emerging and chosen identities, names, and selfhood. For adolescents, in particular, the struggles may not be judgment-free in a normative, rulebased society. In fact, family members, schoolteachers, and even the greater society can imprint specific emotions, interpretations, and values upon adolescents’ affiliations, choices, identities, and representations.

By whom and from what authority are determinations made about identity formation and affective literacies for adolescents and the situations they face? Boler (1999) observed these encounters and conditions and explained, “The determination of the normalcy and deviance of emotions can be generalized to some extent according to social class, gender, race, and culture, but are also highly determined by particular social contexts and power dynamics between given subjects in a situation” (p. 2). Thus, some determinants affect how perceptions and actions connected to emotions unfold for interpretation in society.