These Are Our Stories: Reimagining a Critical and Healing Lens for Black and Brown Students’ Identities

• In Event: Literacies of Refusal: Writing, Healing, and Creating Outside the White Gaze

Abstract

Objectives or purposes:

The objective of this presentation is to enhance our comprehension of critical literacy practices among Black and Brown children. It explores how these practices serve as a means of inquiry, embracing counter-narratives focused on joy and healing.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework:

In the positioning of narrative research, we find that “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 non-linear theory serves as a reflective tool, guiding researchers through various aspects of their own narrative, including the past, present, and future. By exploring narratives that are closely tied to culture, family, and societies, both the participant and researcher can derive meaning from experiences. Such alignment and connection provide a deeper understanding of personal experiences.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry:

I conducted interviews with four educators who teach Black and Brown students in urban English Language Arts classrooms. These interviews provided a platform for the educators to reflect on “an unplanned and unstructured event that significantly” impacted both their personal lives and teaching approaches (Webster & Mertova, 2020).

Following each interview, I diligently read, analyzed, and transcribed the conversations to identify overarching themes (Blakeslee & Fleischer, 2019, p.172). During this process, I annotated “specific moments, ideas, words, and phrases that support” that supported the emerging general themes (Blakeslee & Fleischer, 2019, p.175). To further explore the data, I employed a “dialectical” process of thematic color coding to identify sub-themes (Seidman, 2006, p.134).

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials:

This study employs qualitative research methodologies, utilizing various data collection methods. These include conducting interviews with teachers from grades 7 to 12 in urban schools, observing classroom interactions, analyzing writing samples from Black and Brown students, and gathering narratives from both Black and Brown students and teachers.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view:
In my research, I delve into counternarratives and collaborate with educators who teach Black and Brown students in urban classrooms. The outcome is an enhanced comprehension of effective teaching methods that foster critical literacies, with a particular focus on culturally responsive pedagogy. These narratives offer valuable insights into critical narrative inquiry, humanizing the literacies of Black and Brown children both within and beyond the classroom environment.
Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work:

This research holds significance in continuously advancing our understanding of the literacies of Black and Brown children in educational settings. Notably, a shared interest among the scholars cited in this study and the present narrative research is the desire to equip Black and Brown students with the necessary tools to critically analyze their surrounding society and actively pursue social change.

Author

• David O. Beauzil, Teachers College, Columbia University