These Are Our Stories: Reimagining a Critical Lens for Black and Brown Scholars' Identities

• In Event: The Truth Is in Our Stories: Advancing Humanizing Narrative Research Methods in Teacher Education

Abstract

Objectives or purposes:

The purpose of this presentation is to expand our understanding of Black and Brown children's critical literacy practices as a mode of inquiry that embodies counter narrative.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework:

In outlining the positioning of narrative research, “narrative research takes as a premise that people live and/or understand their lives in storied forms, connecting events in the manner of a plot that has a beginning, middle, and endpoints (Sarbin, 1986, p. 224).” This theory is non-linear and can be used as a reflection piece as it moves researchers to different parts of their narrative pasts, present, and futures. narratives that are aligned and connected with culture, family, and societies allow the participant and researcher to make meaning of an experience.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry:

I had interviewed four educators over Zoom about their experiences within urban English Language Arts classrooms. Through these interviews, they were able to reflect on these experiences that were “an unplanned and unstructured event that significantly” impacted not only my participants’ life but the way they teach (Webster & Mertova, 2020). After each interview, I read,analyzed, and transcribed the conversations in order to determine general themes (Blakeslee & Fleischer, 2019, p.172). I annotated, “specific moments, ideas, words, and phrases that support” the general themes that emerged (Blakeslee & Fleischer, 2019, p.175). Afterward, I looked for sub-themes through thematic color coding. In order to do this, I labeled excerpts in a “dialectical” process with my data (Seidman, 2006, p.134). The next section of this methodology will show how narrative theory advances the shared accounts of these educators.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials:

This research draws specifically on qualitative research methodologies through multiple forms of data: interviews with urban school teachers, classroom observations, Black and Brown student writing samples, and narratives of Black and Brown students and teachers alike.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view:
My study engages counternarratives and seeks insights from educators who teach Black and Brown scholars in urban classrooms. The result is a better understanding of how to improve teaching that cultivates critical literacies, primarily through culturally responsive pedagogy. Through these stories we gain a vision of critical narrative inquiry that humanizes the literacies of Black and Brown children in and out of the classroom.
Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work:

This study is important for the continual understanding of Black and Brown children’s literacies in the classroom. A common interest that is highlighted between each of the scholars referenced in this work and this original narrative research study is that each want to empower Black and Brown students with the tools to critically analyze the society in which they exist while striving for social change.

Author

• David O. Beauzil, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author