In “Dear Tupac,” Heidi Hallman illustrates an interesting alternative to teaching “at-risk” students. She emphasizes the need to incorporate out-of-class literacies into the academic curriculum. Hallman provides a powerful example of students from a school for pregnant and parenting teens who use hip-hop to practice and improve literacy skills. While I find her argument salient, especially when considering the marginalization and degradation (academic as well as societal) of teen parents, she doesn’t address too deeply a fundamental issue: academic literacy.

In my opinion, Bob Schaefer’s approach, or at least what Hallman reports of it, is not as academically inclined as it should be. The students do have an opportunity to improve their writing skills through journal writing, narrative writing and poetry, but Hallman makes it seem like these exercises are designed more for therapeutic purposes than for academic purposes. While I completely agree that students labeled as “at-risk” youth deserve the opportunity to learn and express themselves in ways more easily afforded to other students, basic skills are still necessary. It is important for students of all levels to “investigate their individual agency,” but they must also be equipped with the knowledge necessary to succeed in school and beyond. Certainly, we must be careful to not drill basic skills and rote memorization into these students’ heads. It is unfortunate that arbitrary standards are what teachers are forced to focus on in the classroom, but sadly, it is what ensures academic and future success.