Reading and Relevance, Reimagined

What do we mean when we say that a text is relevant to a young person or to a group of young people? And how might a reimagining of relevance, shaped through the voices of young men of color, enhance literacy teaching and learning? Based on case studies of six young Black, Latino, and South Asian men and their reading experiences, this book reconceptualizes the term relevance as it applies to and is applied within literacy education (middle school through college). The author reveals how four dimensions of relevance—Identity, Spatiality, Temporality, and Ideology—can guide educators in supporting the reading and meaning-making experiences of students in ways that honor the complexities of their lives and enhance their criticality. Sciurba frames relevance from a student-centered perspective as conditions that are practically, socially, and/or conceptually applicable to one’s life. Readers can use this book to disrupt problematic enactments of relevance in literacy spaces that are rooted in assumptions about who young people are, culturally or otherwise, as well as how they think and maneuver through their complex worlds.

Book Features:

• Provides a nuanced understanding of relevance in literacy education in order to successfully enact culturally relevant pedagogy.
• Draws on scholarly literature from a broad range of fields, including sociology, cultural studies, literary studies, and physical science studies.
• Showcases what a nondeficit approach to working with Black, Latino, South Asian, and other young people of color can look like in educational contexts.
• Examines data from longitudinal qualitative studies with six students and young men of color that took place across 10 years beginning in a New York City middle school.

Katie Sciurba is an assistant professor of literacies and children's literature at the University of Georgia.

“This text challenges the limited understanding of relevance and offers the rich complexity of a boys-into-young-men journey with reading and texts in focus. Katie Sciurba brilliantly responds to one of the questions that grounds this book: How might a reimagining of relevance, shaped through the voices of young men of color, enhance literacy teaching and learning for all students? . . . I found the text spot on.”
—From the Foreword by Alfred W. Tatum, president, Literacy Research Association; professor of literacy, Metropolitan State University of Denver; and author of Teaching Black Boys in the Elementary Grades

“Katie Sciurba gets it! She understands that it takes more than phonics and the so-called ‘science of reading’ to get kids, especially Black boys, to become avid readers with strong, comprehensive literacy skills. Katie understands that it is essential for Black boys to develop their voice when they write, and that if they are exposed to books that speak to their hopes and dreams, they will also recognize the power of the word. A talented educator, writer, and mother of Black boys herself, Katie Sciurba has provided us with a book that is full of passion and useful ideas. For educators who are tired of the same old repackaged b.s., and for parents who want to see their kids thrive, this book will be an invaluable resource and a treasure.”
—Pedro A. Noguera, dean, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, coauthor of City Schools and the American Dream

“As informative and enriching as it is imaginative and even stirring, Katie Sciurba’s Reading and Relevance, Reimagined offers not only a useful literacy guidebook, but also a beautiful celebration of the light nestled deeply within the souls of boys and young men of color. While paying homage to a legacy of assets-based pedagogies, Sciurba maps out a new path for us that is simply irresistible. Filled with equal parts scholarly innovation, astonishing creativity, and palpable love, Sciurba’s book is a refreshing reminder of the power of text in our lives and a plea for stakeholders to better respond to the multifaceted—and not singular—literacies of boys inside classrooms and beyond.”
—Roderick L. Carey, assistant professor, College of Education and Human Development, University of Delaware

“In Reading and Relevance, Reimagined, Sciurba skillfully examines the concept of textual relevance in literacy education. She offers a unique and nuanced approach to understanding how diverse reading experiences shape and are shaped by young men's lives. This beautifully crafted book provides strategies to foster more equitable and meaningful educational practices for young boys of color in our schools."
—Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, professor, Teachers College, Columbia University, coauthor of Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education

“This celebration of the literacies and brilliance of young men of color revels in new pathways for supporting all students in our classrooms today. This work does not so much reimagine ‘relevance’ as much as it completely upends past definitions. With four carefully described dimensions for supporting reading and relevance, Sciurba sets the table for myriad acts of celebratory literacy instruction to come.”
—Antero Garcia, associate professor, Stanford University, coauthor of Pose, Wobble, Flow

“Sciurba’s book is as necessary for its complex rendering and corrective of our understandings of textual relevance as it is an example of responsible scholarship. I wish I had this book as a new teacher facing struggling reading students, because it would have given me a blueprint for getting to know my 7th graders deeply, and connecting them with books, rather than superficially through ostensible racial or gendered traits. This book is immediately relevant to literacy teaching at all levels, given what is at stake in not hooking readers to appealing texts in and out of schools.”
—Sophia Sarigianides, professor, Westfield State University, and coauthor of Letting Go of Literary Whiteness