Articles about Teenagers

I found a few articles about teenagers one was from ProJo. com it was about a teenage boy from Lincoln that was found guilty of driving to endanger death resulting and driving to endanger, serious injury resulting, from a car accident that happened on Oct. 15, 2007. His cousin died as a result of the accident and he was overheard prior to the accident bragging about how he got his Chevy Cavalier up to 106 mph on Route 295. The front page of the articles shows a picture of him crying in the courtroom, which I find ironic considering he looks like a big, strong guy. Another article I found was from abc news. com and it was titled, "Why Teens Act Like Teens". It included information that scientific research may explain why teenager do the things they do. Scientists are saying that teens brains will not be fully developed until the age of 25. The third article I found was from projo.com and it was about an 18 year old girl that stabbed another woman during a confrontation, killing her. The woman is being charged with first degree murder and the altercation the two women got into was said to be over a man. These three articles are all very different in the way they portray teenagers, but they are all facing the consequences for their careless actions.

Choice Assignment #2 The Plastics a.k.a Rulers of the School

For the second choice assignment I decided to do an analysis of the teen film "Mean Girls". I focused my analysis on teenage cliques and how they influence the high school culture, since most of the film is about a teenage girl, Cady, becoming one of the popular girls at school know as "The Plastics". The Plastics set the rules for the rest of the school. They are the most fashionable girl's in school with designer clothes and handbags and expensive cars, all of which their parents spoiled them with. They are the ones that every teenage girl aspires to be and every teenage boy wants to date. The Plastics sit at their own special table at lunch and have certain rules that each in the clique has to follow. The ring leader of The Plastics is Regina and she tells the other members of the clique what to do, what to say, what to wear, who to date. When The Plastics walk through the hallway the whole school stops and stares at them in amazement. They are the coolest in school and if you aren't with them then you are a nobody. Cady is new to the school and when trying to find her place among the social groups in the school, somehow ends up falling under Regina's spell and joining The Plastics. So much of this film reminds me of when I was in high school and seeing the "popular girls" dress the same, act the same, walk the same, thinking they are the queen bee's of the school.
The name Plastics is so critical of what the clique is all about. To me, plastic means fake, artificial and the girls in this clique are exactly that. There is no individuality or self-expression among the plastics. They are in a sense clones of each other and feel that they have to live up to what everyone else in the school thinks they are. I feel that The Plastics are completely self-centered and have in a sense, lost their identity. They would betray each other in a heartbeat, if it meant that they were going to get what they wanted. The Plastics give us a glimpse of what it is like in the world of teenager girls. To them image is everything and social status defines who you are. So many teenage girls change who they are, just so they can fit in with the popular clique, not realizing that being popular means nothing once you are in the real world. This film shows us how evil and destructive teenage girls can be to one another and how they can be a menace to their environment. If something goes on within their group, the whole school hears about it and then rumors and lies begin a vicious cycle of betrayal and deceit. I believe that this film teaches us that being a teenage girl and being part of the popular clique is a way of life that leads to the lose of identity and caring only about yourself and your own needs. Being in a popular clique forces you to change the person you are deep down inside and judge others around you not by why they are inside, but by the superficial things such as appearance and what social group they belong to. They look past the uniqueness of individuality and see conforming to each other's norms and rules, as the most important thing in life.
A course text that relates to this is "The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager" by Thomas Hine. There is a quote in this reading that I feel relates to the idea of teenagers trying to fit into social groups and it says, "Figuring out where they fit in-to the universe, the world, the economy, their social circle, their family-is a project on which teenagers spend a lot of their time and energy." (Hine 2) Another quote I found in the reading says, " The teen years have become defined not as an interlude but rather as something central to life, a period of preparation and self-definition, a period of indulgence and unfocused energy." (Hine 11) This relates to the teenage girls in the film, who are indulging in all that popularity has to offer them and not focusing on the important things in life such as true friendship and respecting others.
Another course text that relates to the film is found in the Preface to fast forward, by Lauren Greenfield. She says that, "... young people are preoccupied with becoming other than they are." This is true for The Plastics, as their only concern is looking perfect and acting like each other. They are not showing any individuality as they dress the same, talk the same, walk the same, which occupies their whole existence. Another quote about teens that relates to the film says," They have spent less time with their parents than children of previous generations and have been increasingly socialized by the media and by each other." The teenage girls in the film are influenced by each other's appearance, attitude, and the way they act. Their main focus is to be something they are not. They are not being true to themselves, but to the social clique in which they belong to.

Talking Points #6-Preface to Fast Forward by Lauren Greenfield

Some things I understand- I believe that Greenfield's main ideas that she wants to portray in her book are to show how teenagers in L.A. are growing up very fast and the media has a significant influence on that. By taking photographs of the teenagers she is trying to capture their early loss of innocence. Greenfield says, that L.A's teens, " Like young people, everywhere, L.A.'s teens are greatly influenced by the television and films they watch, the magazines they read, and the music they listen to. If anything, Hollywood's proximity amplifies its import and influence."(page1) I think that what Greenfield is trying to say is that teenagers everywhere are influences by the media, but in L.A. especially, the media plays an even bigger influence because those teenagers are closer to the source. When interviewing one of the teenagers, one boy said, "If you are doing a story about growing up in L.A., you have to show money. That's what it's all about." (page 1) I think that this quote is evident in the photographs Greenfield took, as many of them showed teenagers at fancy parties and driving around in expensive cars. Greenfield also says how MTV has had a major influence on the culture and that kids from all different walks of life are embracing the hip hop culture, when she says that, "Affluent kids dressed and talked like gangsters, inner-city kids simulated the trappings of wealth."(page 2) The different teenagers she interviewed introduced her to different things such as, party crews, gangsters, hip-hop culture , gangster rap and fashion. One thing that Greenfield found throughout her project was, "A striking commonality throughout was the importance of image and celebrity. L.A.'s kids are engaged in the age-old Hollywood pursuit of making a name for themselves." (page 2) In L.A. teenagers are struggling even more to find their own identity.
Some things I don't understand- There were some vocabulary words that I found difficult in the reading such as rudimentary, serendipitous and epitomizes.
Connections to to other texts or course themes- A connection to another course text is in Tricia Rose's piece where she discusses hip hop fashion and the influence it has by saying, " Hip hop artists use style as a form of identity formation which plays on class distinctions and hierarchies by using commodities to claim the cultural terrain. Clothing and consumption rituals testify to the power of consumption as a means of cultural expression. Hip hop fashion is an especially rich example of this sort of appropriation/critique via style." (page 409) This relates to what Greenfield is saying in her piece about hip-hop that, " In music, fashion, attitude and language, its influence (hip hop) was apparent and widespread... the desire to be "hard", the extravagant materialism expressed in hip-hop culture all had an appeal that seemed cross socioeconomic divisions. Kids from all sides of the tracks idealized the images of gangsta rap and mimicked those that were missing in their own lives." (page 2)
Question/ Comments/ Points to Share in Class- A quote that I found interesting in this reading was when Greenfield said, " I was intrigued by the role of the media as a homogenizing force. " (page 2) Although the teenagers she photographed and interviewed were from diferent backgrounds, they are all brought together by the culture that they share and are influenced by.

Talkin Points #5 "Don't Believe the Hype"-Ann Ferguson

Some things I understand-I believe that Ferguson is saying that African American males in school are labeled as not being able to achieve or reach any type of success. She says, " In the course of my study it became clear that school labeling practices and the exercise of rules operated as a part of a hidden curriculum to marginalize and isolat black male youth in disciplinary spaces and brand them as criminally inclined."(page 2) She explains the study she is doing on this at Rosa Parks Elementary School as, "This study investigates punishment through an exploration of the meaning of school rules and the interpretation of trouble from the youth's perspective. "(page 2) From doing her fieldwork at the school she found that, "Through a combination of participant observation at the school and a wide range of interviews and conversations with kids and adults, i examines the beliefs, the social relationships,and the everyday practices that give rise to a pattern in which the kids who are sent to jailhouses and dungeons in school systems across the United States are disproportionately black and male." (page 7) She also finds that the staff at the school does not take concer that the majority of students that are failing or at risk of falling are mostly black and male. She also did interviews with ten students she calls schoolboys that are doing well and ten that she called troublemakers that are getting into trouble. She came to understand the students and what they were going through and one of the students in particular, Horace helped her witht that. She says, "With his help I came to see kids not as humans-in-the-making but as resourceful social actors who took an active role in shaping their daily experiences." (Page 15) When she listened to the music that the boys listened to she, "...Discovered a potent alternative site of knowledge for youth about bodies and beauty, sexuality, gender relationships, racial identification, authority, justice and injustice, loyalty and friendship, style and address, transmitted through a vehicle that simultaneously engaged pleasure and fantasy." (page 6) Her study shows how, "Institutional norms and procedures in the field of education are used to maintain a racial order and how images and racial myths frame how we see ourselves and others in a racial hierarchy." (page 19)
Some things I don't understand- There were a few vocabulary words that I had difficulty with: deleterious, ribald, misogynist, hegemonic, inveterate truants. Also there was a quote on page 20 that I had some difficulty understanding, " The racialization of cultural forms and practices not only extracts behaviors and attitudes from the social matrix in which they are embedded, but tranforms them into immutable racially linked characteristics that produce poverty and bad citizens."
Connections to other texts or course themes- This reading relates to Thomas Hine's "The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager" in the fact that both black males and teenagers are stereotyped to be a certain way and society expects certain things of them that not all of them may do. Society expects black males to be a certain way and expects them to fail, just like socity expects teenagers to be irresponisble and careless.
Questions/Comments/Points to Share in Class: One question I have is why are the educators in this piece not doing something to help these students succeed and do better and break through the stereotypes and expectations that are placed on them?