“This Changes His Story”: Critical Digital Literacy in the Alternative School Context

• In Event: Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis: Intersections and Challenges

Abstract

What literacy story(ies) do the students bring with them into the alternative-outreach school (Kim, 2008)? How do students discuss the consequences of CDL in their alternative-outreach school with regard to their learning? How does CDL trouble, re-inscribe and offer new insights into student’s in-school literacy engagements (Hughes, King, Perkins, & Fuke, 2011)? The purpose of this qualitative inquiry study (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) was to explore these questions through analyzing the CDL engagements of young people in a Canadian alternative-outreach high school context. I use a CDL theoretical perspective (Hull, Zacher, & Hibbert, 2009; Lankshear & Knobel, 2008; Muspratt, Luke, & Freebody, 1997; Vasudevan & Campano, 2009). I drew upon the observations, workshops, interviews and student produced digital artifacts (digital story) that serve as the field texts I collected during the course of my research.
In this chapter, I pay particular attention to one of my participants, Shawn, whose story is particularly generative in illustrating what is enabled and constrained when the introduction of CDL into his alternative school English Language Arts class “changed his story”. Specifically, Shawn’s story cuts across the questions above and helps us begin to tease out the role of CDL in this context. For this purpose, I first situate both Shawn and the school literacy practices examined in this chapter by exploring the geopolitical context of this alternative school. I then examine the role of this analysis of context in shaping the challenges and possibilities of Shawn’s conceptualizing, conducting, and reflecting upon the CDL English Language Arts project. I conclude by offering implications for practice, policy and further research into the CDL practices of young people like Shawn who are educated in alternative-outreach schools.

Author

• Dana E. Salter, The Beyond the Bricks Project