"I Can't Do the School Like a House": Out-of-School Literacies and English Learners

• In Event: 46.085 - Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: 46.085-14 - Peer Networks, Out-of-School Literacies, and Translanguaging Practices of Linguistically Diverse Adolescents

Abstract

This paper details the investigation of elementary English learners’ multiple social identities as revealed through their narratives, as told orally and through self-portraits. Exploring students’ out-of-school and school identities in first, fourth and sixth grades as narrated by the students themselves, this study highlights the ways that participants’ narratives shed light on their multiliteracies across contexts and how those multiliteracies may be tapped to support academic achievement. Findings from this study offer opportunities for inviting students to share their wide repertoire of out-of-school literacies in school contexts in ways that can serve as a foundation for new learning and a rich source of information about students’ funds of knowledge.

Author

• Pamela J. Hickey, Towson University