The historical transition from the 20th Century to the 21st has sparked a boom in identifying names and classifying characteristics of the young American adults and teens coming of age at that time. Though there is much discrepancy about the starting birth year and the life span parameters of "Generation Y", generalizing descriptions abound in an effort to capture their influential "historical location"--context, opportunities, and experiences that members of this group share, particularly in their formative years. Defining qualities that are largely agreed upon among researchers include an inclination for "digital media, their confidence and optimism, and their orientation towards collaboration" (Donnison). Most pertinent here are Donnison's ideas about what could be a truly transformational pedagogy: empowering students to be reflective, critical, and ethical community activists and advocates of social justice. Donnison presents educators with the task of looking beyond students' generational attributes to encourage greater critical, productive, and creative application of their technological proficiency. The aim is to achieve a genuine empowerment and self-determination that is absent from the writings of Millennial authors. The challenges are to disrupt students' absorption in emotionally-vacant, dehumanized violent narratives, permeating their mass media culture, and invite them to creatively re-vision their "real" worlds.