“like a prison”. Wrought iron gates enclose it, several security guards patrol it, and occasionally drug-sniffi ng dogs scour it. Such security and punishment are part of what has been called a discipline regime in public school

Peanuts cartoonist, Charles Schulz, never forgot the day the yearbook staff rejected his cartoon; actor Gregory Peck was regarded as least likely to succeed;

care little about, or hardly know. Rushing from class to class, adolescents create a world of unique norms, rituals, and vocabulary, a place where even time is trans-formed from hours and minutes to periods

Volk 79Benny’s family belonged to a Pentecostal Spanish-speaking church, and this was his most important community literacy space, providing an array of experiences with oral, written, visual, and gestural texts, some constructed on his own and some mediated by others, using materials from the church and brought from home. For example, Benny and his grandmother brought their own Bibles as did many other congregants and they followed along when psalms were read. The services they attended on weekday evenings and weekends were in Spanish but, as many younger congregants spoke English more fluently, English translations were provided by a man in a booth while receivers and head phones were given to those who needed them. A large LCD screen hung over the altar with announcements and the words of hymns that were sung over and over many times by the congregation as they raised their hands in a supplicating gesture. On one occasion, Benny and his grand-mother went to the front of the congregation and she testified about her recent surgery and how well he was doing in school. Together they sang a hymn. On another occasion, adults performed a skit for the children to help them under-stand key religious lessons. When he was bored, Benny wrote in his notebook or listened to Christian songs on his grandmother’s iPod. Sunday School and weekday Bible study classes were conducted primarily in English, with chil-dren reading from and coloring worksheets and listening to short lectures outlined on the board. Prayers were recited in unison in Spanish.When Benny was asked to draw a picture of himself reading, he hurriedly sketched himself in his room, next to his bed, with a copy of the World Wildlife Fact File (see Figure 3). Typically, he was more interested in demon-strating his self-taught ability to write in cursive than draw. And he insisted on recreating his drawing, asking to be photographed in the same position (see Figure 4). His room with his books and access to the virtual world, a place where he used multiple literacies to learn about topics of interest, was a significant literacy space for Benny.Perspectives of Urban Community MediatorsTo better understand the library, the recreation center, and the church a

Miguel’s grandfather who worked in a recycling plant explained that he had never attended school in El Salvador and could not read.

Other work looks at children’s out-of-school learning in only one setting such as religious contexts or commu-nity schools emphasizing language and culture