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Street Literature: Why Street Lit?

This is a guide to help Street Lit fans find the books they want to read

What's the Problem with Street Lit?

Woman thinking

 

Some librarians and educators are uncomfortable with the idea of promoting street lit in their libraries. These stories feature gritty and realistic depictions of the seedy side of street life, including drug use, violence, and graphic sexual encounters. Plus, many of these titles are written using regional dialect and slang, which appears to some critics as poor writing. So why should an institution of higher education, like FSCJ, collect street lit titles?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Image by 1899441 used under Creative Commons CC0.

The Value of Recreational Reading

  • Recreational reading has been found to improve reading comprehension, writing style, vocabulary, spelling, and grammatical development (Krashen, 1993).
  • Recreational reading is strongly correlated with academic achievement (NEA, 2007).
  • Offering titles for recreational reading (including street lit) may bring students into the library who wouldn't otherwise be exposed to library services.

 

The Value of Street Lit

  • Street Lit tales feature African-Americans as the principal players rather than as peripheral characters (Zellers, 2016).
  • Unlike many canonical works of African-American literature, street lit books are written in an accessible and contemporary style featuring modern scenarios that readers can relate to (Zellers, 2016).
  • Many readers of street lit view these novels as "cautionary tales" that inform their everyday decision making (Morris, 2012).
  • 65% of college freshman read for pleasure less than one hour per week or not at all (NEA, 2007). Offering popular street lit titles at FSCJ may increase the amount our students read for pleasure.

Further Reading

Dewan, Pauline. "Reading Matters In The Academic Library." Reference & User Services Quarterly 52.4 (2013): 309-319. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Jan. 2017.

Gibson, Simone. "Critical readings: African American girls and urban fiction: urban fiction can encourage and enhance learning opportunities and draw important parallels between texts that readers willingly engage with and those forms that they rebuff." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, vol. 53, no. 7, 2010, p. 565+. Academic OneFile, db08.linccweb.org/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com.db08.linccweb.org/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=lincclin_fccj&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA224989401&asid=be5b31bc5cdcd0bd7c58ffa4ed635950. Accessed 1 Feb. 2017.

Krashen, Stephen. The power of reading: Insights from the research. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. Print.

Morris, Vanessa. The reader's advisory guide to street literature. Chicago, IL: American Library Association, 2012. Print

To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence. Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2007. Web.

Zellers, Jessica. "Getting Up to Speed in Urban Fiction." Novelist Plus. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.