Situated Small Stories Told by High School Seniors in Multiple Contexts and the Making of Meaning

• In Event: Poster Session 5
  In Poster Session: Literacy Research Issues in the 21st Century

Abstract

This study examines the situated small stories used by students during an experiential educational program called Walkabout. Based on my study conducted over the past two years, I know that the telling of small stories is shaped by context. For this paper, I will review three contexts: Seminar (a weekly class), journal exchanges between students and faculty mentors, and the research interview. Each context carries differing rules for tellability, identity claims, and projections of the future. What defines this study is not the experience of a single student but the characteristics of the different “narrative environments” (Chase, 2011, p. 430) experienced by multiple students. This approach examines how meaning is presented, interpreted, and understood in differing ways in differing contexts.

Author

• Larkin Weyand, The Ohio State University