The effects of neoliberal ideologies infiltrate all aspects of the teaching-learning environment, including academic practices of reading and writing. Writing, more than simply a demonstration of academic proficiency, represents a means of thinking--an opportunity to develop critical thought, build resistance to neoliberal individualism through collective action, and deepen one's sense of self-worth through self-expression. If writing is taught and experienced in accordance with the banking, or transmission-model of education, in which learners are taught to repeat facts deems important by authoritative forces, writing can contribute to schools as sites of social reproduction. Critical pedagogies that privilege the voices of youth, rather than excluding them on the basis of their incomplete stage of development (Deutsch, 2006), provide hope for creating resistance and building solidarity. By focusing on student participants in a larger critical ethnography, this article highlights two themes that emerged from youth voices in the study. The first focuses on students' perceptions of writing in school, and the second centers on glimmers of resistance narrated by youth in relation to effects of neoliberalism.