Narrating Cultural Legacies: Eighth-Grade Students Cultivating Care and Connection Through Crafting and Sharing Stories

• In Event: Adolescents’ Intellectual and Emotional Communion: Exploring Shared Vulnerability and Connection in Literacy Learning

Abstract

This paper focuses on students’ experiences participating in a storytelling project centering the cultural and historical contributions of Black hair salons and barbershops. Taking place in an 8th-grade Ethnic Studies classroom in an urban city in Rhode Island, the storytelling project offered an understanding of struggles for racial justice, emphasizing the role salons and barbershops played in cultivating safe spaces for Black people to organize, connect, share resources and reflect on the full spectrum of their lived experiences. A vital project component involved students interviewing their parents and family members about memorable experiences associated with salons and barbershops. To better understand the relational and affective possibilities of the storytelling project, I examine how the curriculum and pedagogical moves utilized shaped students’ interactions and responses throughout the process of constructing, sharing, and listening to each other’s personal and familial stories.
I employ the theoretical lens of figured worlds to investigate how the social dynamics within the 8th-grade ethnic studies classroom at the center of this study influence how students “conceptually and materially perform new self-understandings based on their interactions with adults and peers” (Hines-Datiri & Carter Andrews, 2020, p. 12). The data collected included field notes based on classroom observations and focus group interviews with the students, along with their written stories and video recordings of their performances. In alignment with the theoretical framework of figured worlds, I applied a narrative analysis of the data given that “narratives represent how we make sense of what we know, what we feel, and experience in the world in which we live” (Souto-Manning & Ray, 2007, p. 283).
The findings highlight how support and encouragement from educators and peers bolstered students’ confidence in incorporating their multiliteracies in their writing and oral presentations of their stories. Additionally, empathy and vulnerability were cultivated through listening and crafting stories about their parents and family members and their childhood experiences in barbershops and hair salons. These findings illustrate that storytelling can serve as a conduit to foster care, connection, and community across generations. The findings have implications for educators and researchers working to foster culturally sustaining and humanizing literacy practices and spaces for and with youth of color. The insights shared in this paper can also inform the conceptualization and implementation of learning opportunities that allow students to bridge school and home knowledge.

Author

• Tashal Brown, University of Rhode Island