School's Out! Bridging Out-of-School Literacies with Classroom Practice

School's Out! Bridging Out-of-School Literacies with Classroom Practice Edited by Glynda A. Hull and Katherine Schultz. New York: Teacher's College Press, 2002, 288 pp. Reviewed by Alison Trumbull University of California, Los Angeles School's Out! Bridging Out-of-School Literacies with Classroom Practice edited by ing, Glynda A. Hull and Katherine Schultz raises important issues about teach- learning, and defining literacy. The book assumes that traditional American all learners. school-based views of literacy are insufficient to address the needs of As a former public would argue school teacher, I agree with this assumption. Indeed, few people that all schools adequately serve all of their students. Among the literacy pedagogy is which decisions about curriculum, materials, and indeed what constitutes literacy are often made by policy-makers and administrators out of touch with diverse student needs. A more specific problem is inconsistency, not only in the availability of materials, but also in teachers' use of them. While teach- problems with school-based cational system, in the top-down nature of our edu- ing in California, the materials I was given an excellent reading program, but only a little fraction of I and very instruction in how to use them. Furthermore, heard no discussion dents' at either the district or the school level about how to integrate stu- home literacy practices into use of the program. In education, adherence to tradition has degenerated into an ineffective pattern of pedagogy, and we need to reevaluate not only curriculum and learner needs, but also our ways of defining success in literacy. This tion. new book by Hull and Schultz' performs such a reevalua- In each chapter. School's Out! touches on this need to reflect on schools' aim is to introduce the concept of out-of-school literacy, as well as provide examples of how this theory is being implemented and fostered. These examples provide suggestions for concepts and practices that work, routine practices. editors' The as well as some that have failed, provoking thought about and practitioners might use the idea of out-of-school how literacy researchers literacy in their own work. The four programs parts of this book form a conversation about current research and I, in out-of-school literacy. In Part the editors provide a theoretical frame- work for the topic and illustrate it with six vignettes about people who, for various reasons, have struggled with traditional school-based literacy but find empower- ment in their own innovative literacy practices. Parts II, III, and FV incorporate the work of many authors. Part II contains case studies of English language learners' individual literacy practices in Philadelphia and Chicago, while Part III presents adult-youth collaboration in after-school programs in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and the Issues in Applied Linguistics ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 13 © 2002, Regents of the University of California No.