Engaging Urban Youth in Critical Dialogue on Identity Through Digital Storytelling

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

Abstract

This paper focuses on the design of digital storytelling in two urban, after-school centers to promote multimodal literacy practices and identity play in children. I show how youth leveraged new media technologies through digital storytelling, yet and how the design of the learning environment and its social organization of learning made these new media practices meaningful around sensitive issues of youth identity.
Traditionally, the classic model of digital storytelling uses voice narration over still image scenes to tell personal stories (Lambert, 2009); however, with web 2.0 technologies, digital stories can take a variety of forms and use many different communication media and channels (Lundby, 2009). In this study, youth incorporated video, images, music, and text to tell a personal story, either real or fictional, about their interests. They digitized their stories into a two-to-four minute movie format. School-based research shows the potentials of digital storytelling in classroom settings, where students can draw on their own cultural knowledge to reflect on informal activities in an educational context (Erstad & Silseth, 2008; Myers & Beach, 2004). Most often, however, research on digital storytelling takes place in out-of-school settings, such as after-school programs (Hull & Nelson, 2005). Of note is work relating digital storytelling with youth identity and literacy development (Davis, 2004; Hull & Katz, 2006).
My study builds on past research on digital storytelling with a focus on children’s multimodal literacy practices and identity play in culturally diverse after school centers located in urban, low-income communities with Latino and African American youth participants. There were a variety of data sources for qualitative inquiry, including videotapes of the daily processes of digital storytelling and embedded program activities, and digital storytelling artifacts (iMovie projects, storyboards, and the digital stories). To analyze the data, I created activity logs of the video and coded the logs, digital stories, and other data for literacy practices and tools, and narrative themes and structures.
This research addresses how digital storytelling can be organized to support meaningful dialogue around sensitive issues on identity, race, gender, and class in children’s narratives. In this paper, I focus on two small groups of elementary-aged girls who leveraged critical digital literacies to create digital stories about themselves, their lives, and their social worlds. In settings organized around play, these digital literacies helped promote agency and identity development in non-dominant youth, whose life stories and views on their social worlds might not otherwise be communicated. Further, because the type of work done in digital storytelling is by definition highly personal, the space to tell their stories opened opportunities for the children to bring up sensitive topics that can be difficult to address. This paper describes the troubling issues of economic hardship, family struggles, as well as issues of race, gender, and beauty that young African American and Latino girls presented in their digital stories. I show the importance of organizing the learning environment to be prepared for these critical moments, in order to support meaningful dialogue around these issues.

Author

• Althea Scott Nixon, University of Southern California