Deepening Explorations of Racial and Linguistic Representation in Picturebooks through Critical Translingual Literacies

• In Event: Emancipatory Pro-Black and Pro-Latinx Reading Research and Teaching

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framework
Embracing picturebooks as sociopolitical art and positioning ourselves as critical picturebooks curators in the classroom (Rodriguez & Osorio, 2024; Author, 2022; 2024) has the potential to bring needed awareness to anti-racist and anti-oppressive education, amplify translingual literacies, and support children in developing their toolkits as critical readers. This paper highlights the practices of teachers preparing and executing picturebooks read-alouds that amplify critical translingual literacies.

We approach the work of amplifying the racial, linguistic and ethnic lives of historically marginalized children in schools through a lens of critical translingual literacies (Author, 2020; de los Riós, 2022; Seltzer, 2020). Drawing on the scholarship in composition studies and rhetoric, and a global literacies perspective that foregrounds the relationships among languages, language varieties, and the material and semiotic nature of communication, translingualism was a generative thinking tool given its attention to the following three concepts: the fluid movement within one linguistic repertoire, the spatial dimensions of languaging, and the inherent criticality of translingualism.

Methods, Data Sources, and Analysis
The analysis presented here draws from observation video data and transcripts of teacher-researcher collaborative meetings from two years, as well as 175 pages of field notes and 133 analytic memos that document teachers’ experience picturebooks, a total of 457 pages of data for analysis. We utilized an iterative process of inductive analysis (Saldaña, 2021) to identify critical components of critical translingual read-aloud practice. We see these as interactive and intersecting components but present them here as distinct for readers’ clarity.

Findings
Nested within a Critical Translingual Framework for early years classroom (Author, 2020), analysis points to the significance of the following when preparing read-alouds that amplify the critical translingual features of the text. When preparing BEFORE sharing a read aloud, teachers engaged a critical Mindset, critically selected texts, considered curricular objectives, deepened learning about the language community featured in the picturebook, and prepared critical translingual language and literacy arrows for discussion. DURING their engagement with the read aloud, teachers positioned themselves as learners, held themselves accountable to children’s responses, and welcomed children as leaders in the discussion. AFTER the read aloud concluded, teachers took time to highlight children’s responses, debrief critical translingual literacies learning, and engage in self-reflection.

Significance
Analysis has made clear that there is crucial labor that must happen in the preparation (BEFORE), execution (DURING), and the reflection (AFTER) of read-alouds that amplify critical translingual literacies. The most substantial portion of this effort is rightfully in the preparation of read-alouds (within a critical mindset) that explores translingual literacies, but these efforts only come to have meaning in the execution and reflection of the read aloud. Having the privilege of being in community with other critical picturebook curators through a collective mediated interrogation and refining of practice through each of these stages together. Doing so would not only scaffold critical social educators’ journeys, but also center more liberatory language and literacy instruction through picturebooks.

Authors

• Angie Zapata, University of Missouri

• Adrianna González Ybarra, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley