Bob Dylan's "The Times They are A-Changin'" is exceedingly appropriate to characterize today's adolescent generation. Immersed in the digital world, they have been granted opportunities that many Alvermann refer to as "digital immigrants" are unable to keep up with the massive amount of communication. While a part of me would like to join them in their immigrant status--mostly due to the lack of competency that I possess in the technological--I am unceremoniously categorized alongside people such as my sister who can hold a cell phone for five minutes and learn more about it than I can in two years. Alvermann connects this realm of technological literacy with the linguistic literacy challenges in education. The fact Alvermann is trying to make is that literacy is no longer found solely in the classroom; that literacy itself is being reevaluated to exceed mere language.

The old order of adolescents (now today's middle aged and elderly) whose youth was classified as a "purgatory or holding area for not-yet adults by Appleman (2001). Alvermann draws a very depressing picture of how things used to be with langauge and then relates it to how this generation has technicolored the world of langauage. Like Dorothy falling into Oz, we have fallen into an era of creative expression that coincides with the use of language. Using art, music, gestures, and movement, language is being expressed beyond the written word by adolescents. The visual cohesively intertwines with text to create art in ways not previously available.

The extended metaphor created by Steven Johnson in his book Everything Bad is Good for You that Alvermann uses discusses how the world would react to books being introduced AFTER video games. While this is a highly unrealistic concept with superficial justification, he does make a valid point that people would reject such a medium for reading after growing accustomed to not having to rely on one's own imagination and analytical powers. There is a power struggle between the visual and textual where one challenges the other in competency as the source of knowledge for today's adolescent age. Many cases offer compromise, but there is still a question of how both can work together to improve literacy. Perhaps this is due to both my lack of abilities with technology and an absence of hand eye coordination (or any coordination for that matter) but I feel that the text pedagogy, rather than visual should take precedence. We've already proven ourselves to be a visual oriented society; why not challenge ourselves to maintain the skills incorporated into reading- imagination, analyzing, critiquing, etc.