Chapter 9: Blogging as Civic Engagement: Developing a Sense of Authority and Audience in an Urban Public School Classroom

High school students are sprawled across a computer lab in a comprehensive high school in the middle of a high poverty neighborhood in a Northern California city. Each person is in front of a computer, although periodically several students cluster around a single computer to help a friend or exclaim about a new site someone has just discovered. Wearing earphones plugged into the computer monitor, many gaze at their smart phones, while a music video plays on the larger screen of the computer. The rubric for the assignment is displayed on these students’ smart phones, which they claim is easier to type on than the computer because it self-corrects and they “thumb” more quickly than they type. Initially, it is surprising to see so many smart phones in an impoverished high school with a large number of new immigrants and youth from homes where food is sometimes scarce. Later in an interview, their teacher, Johanna Paraiso, explains that students have realized the value of smart phones as a tool and many will trade their daily snack or breakfast at the corner store for minutes on their phone. On days when the computer classroom is closed because of a power outage, students can be seen lined up against the outside wall of the room, continuing to work on their assignments on their phones.