A Single Story Across Genres: Katy's Writing Expands Journalism and Pushes Toward Participatory Narrative Analysis

• In Event: Literacy Lives Across Spaces, Genres, and Action

Abstract

This study followed 15 secondary students across a multi-space writing program—journalism summer writing camp; social-justice oriented educational online community for youth; and school year, drop-in writing workshop sessions—and aimed to understand how adolescent writers shifted participation and writing across these spaces. Students perspectives are centered, aligning with YPAR methodological and epistemological framing and theoretical framings focused on movement in relation to power asymmetries. Data collection and analysis were individual and collaborative with youth, involving open, in-vivo coding and narrative analysis. Findings examine interplays between journalism as a shifting genre and our liminal spaces, describing youth journalistic engagement as personal and social, specifically creative, narrative, and activist. Implications point to participatory narrative analysis as future directions for participatory work with youth.

Author

• Emily Plummer Catena, Florida State University