Teens Talk Back

"Teens Talk Back"

One of the videos I watched was called "Caught in the Middle" and the girl (Charnika) was having a hard time with the fact that her mother now wanted her to live with her. Her mom had left her grandmother to take care of Charnika and raise her for fourteen years and now her mother has now decided that she wants all of her children to live with her. Her mother doesn't understand where Charnika's coming from because when she was younger her mother did the same thing to her. Charnika is dealing with a lot of repressed hurt and anger because not only did her mother leave her, but she never showed up to her graduation or any important events and she always ended up being disappointed.

"Walking Alone"

This video was about this girl Nikki who was diagnosed with depression in 2000. This video was just her showing her typical day and how all she wanted to do was sleep all the time (forever) because nothing can get to her or bother her while she was in bed. Her cousin described her as always crying, being sad, or sleeping. During the video her mother tries to wake her up at 6:30pm and she still refused to get out of bed. She describes it as having no motivation and she feels misunderstood because no one in her family understands how she feels.

"Graffitti Kids"

This video was made by a teen named Andrew Sosa and was actually my favorite out of all the videos I watched. It starts off with him sitting at the bus stop and he picks up a magazine that sitting on the bench next to him (Lifescapes). The magazine gives him ideas and he goes home and starts sketching a design he came up with for graffiti. He joins his ideas and with some of the graffiti he looked at on walls around the neighborhood and spray painted his design on flattened cardboard boxes. In the end of the video he puts the magazine back and another teen sits down and starts looking at the magazine. His message was that you can still express yourself in fun ways without defacing property, teens have creative minds, let them express it.

"A Sign of the Times"

This video was about how negatively Barbies and the media influence young girls and teach them to want it, flaunt it, and buy it. Barbies cause unrealistic images and expectations of what girls should look like. When Daisy (the girl who made the video) asked a little girl if she had a boyfriend the little girl replied, "I did my hair, I went to school, he wanted to come over and spend the night. I humped him and then I kissed him." When she was asked where she learned these things she said that her mother showed her. The point of this video was to show how we need to start paying much more attention to what our kids and generations are watching and doing.

Final Project Outline

Cliques and Subgroups (Influenced by music)

1. Open with a short youtube click of the movie mean girls (Dividing up groups in the cafeteria)
2. Subgroups
a. Hippies
b. Punk Rockers
c. Hip hop
d. Pop
3. Connections to the class literature: Prep, Tricia Rose, Hine, and Facebook and MySpace readings.
4. Use pictures of teens from the different subgroups to show the difference in the lifestyle they live, difference in dress, and differences in attitudes.
5. How music influences these teens lifes and why they conform to the subgroup they do.
6. Use a handout with a trivia on who's who and why teens are conforming into cliques.

The four groups we will be focusing on are:
Hippies: Hemp, pot, drugs, laid back, and peace
Punk Rockers: Tattoos, dark/black colors, angry, and Emo
Hip Hop: Money, women/sex, and alcohol
Pop: angel/virginity, preppy/pink, purity

"MySpace and Facebook Predators and Scandals"

MySpace and Facebook Predators and Scandals" by Henry Jenkins and Gabriel Sherman

"MySpace provides a fertile ground for identity development and cultural integration. As youth transition from childhood, they seek out public enviornments to make sense of culture, social status, and how they fit into the world. Interacting with strangers helps them understand who they are and communities of interest allow them to explore ideas and values. Allow most youth are able to socialize privately with one another in the homes of friends, most are not allowed to spend time hanging out in public, unaccompanied by parents or adults. They view MySpace as a place where they can be who they are, joke around with friends and make certain to stay in the loop about everything that is going on around them" page 3 of Henry Jenkins interview). While teens do have facebook, I think more college students have facebook than MySpace. Youths need to realize that the internet can be a very scary and dangerous place and most of them don't. Anything posted or put on a public page can be accessed and seen by anyone.


I think it's crazy how teens in New York at the Private Horace Mann School made all these groups and pages about teachers and posted them publicly on the internet and didn't expect anyone to see them or report them. A good question raised is should youths be limited to the amount of internet use in schools? While some sites like MySpace may be dangerous, teachers are finding that having assignments that require students to use the internet are actually making them do better in school (like blogging, youtube, and podcasts).

Both this interview and the article about Horace Mann students can be linked to the Digital Natives article and The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager. It's a great think that teachers are finally seeing that kids are learning differently today then they used to. Teachers are finally starting to see kids using technology for homework and learning as a good thing. This is related mostly to what Marc Prensky talks about in his Digital Natives piece. The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager fits into this interview and article because everyone always assumes the worst of teenagers. Just because there are predators on MySpace and maybe offensive pages and sites being posted, doesn't mean every teen is involved.