Interviews as Contextualization: Expanding Metalanguages to Examine the Strategies of Culturally/Linguistically Diverse Authors

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Literacy and Culturally Responsive Schooling (Table 6)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the use of interviews to provide contextualization when developing a multiliteracies metalanguage to analyze strategies used in multiform texts by culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) writers from the Taíno Community to express non-Western worldviews in Western contexts. Employing Brayboy et al.’s (2012) theoretical framework of Critical Indigenous Research Methodologies, the researcher analyzed participants’ texts alongside three open-ended interviews, each with a different focus, to ensure that findings accurately reflected participants’ perspectives.  The researcher found that the interviews assisted her in determining strategies' purposes and refining her initial conceptualization of strategies. The paper advocates for inclusion of contextualization methods when developing metalanguages so that educators can better understand CLD writers' strategy use before introducing them to students.

Author

• Martha Rosas, Lehman College - CUNY