Invisible Girls: At Risk Adolescent Girls? Writing Within and Beyond School

Invisible Girls is an examination of twenty-four at-risk adolescent girls’ writing practices in a Third Space setting located within a school but outside of the confines of a regular classroom. Through a description of the girls’ writing over a three-and-a-half-year period in this setting, Mellinee Lesley details phenomena that both support and suppress at-risk adolescent girls in their quest to achieve academic success through their writing practices. This book offers educators insights into teaching writing to adolescent girls who are falling through the cracks of the public education system in the United States. Much more attention needs to be given to the literacy practices and pedagogical needs of this considerable population of learners. As such, this book is poised to fill a void in the field of literacy for educators who want to prevent the intellectual abandonment of girls drifting invisibly along the corridors of schools.

Mellinee Lesley is an Associate Professor in the Language & Literacy Program at Texas Tech University. Her research examining the literacy practices of adolescents and literacy teacher preparation has been published in Literacy Research & Instruction, The Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and The Teacher Educator.