Critical Literacies as Communal Narrative Construction in a Role-Playing Game

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: Worlds, Narratives, and Stories: Adolescents' Space-Making

Abstract

While traditional conceptions of critical literacy have often focused on youth individually consuming and critiquing texts, scholars have called for an understanding of critical literacies beyond deconstructive critique. This qualitative study draws on over 50 hours of audio-recordings in a year-long YPAR project centered on a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing adventure game in an afterschool space. This study details how youth engaged with critical literacies in shared and creative ways as they constructed and negotiated critical communal narratives. Findings demonstrate how youth built on critique by creating shared accountability for language norms, collaboratively imagining narrative possibilities, and negotiating critical narrative construction. These findings help to move critical literacies toward more communal understandings of critical production.

Authors

• Scott Storm, New York University

• Karis Michelle Jones, Hobart and William Smith Colleges