"Bobo and Lola's Experience in Mexico": Co-Narrating Story Elements in a Multilingual Family Literacy Program

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: Support Home-School Cultural Connections

Abstract

This ethnographic case study observed a focal group of three teachers and one family of Mexican descent during a family literacy program in order to investigate the collaborative literacy task of narrating a story. The study reveals that teachers and family members completed complex literacy tasks such as establishing author-protagonist relationships, negotiating the scope of narratives, and translanguaging while drawing from multilingual repertoires as they co-constructed and narrated a story about the family’s history of traveling to Mexico. The study contributes to our understanding of family literacy programs and practices that draw on the culturally and linguistically diverse strengths of immigrant families, while demonstrating the multilingual literacy practices of one immigrant family as they complete a literacy task of narration.

Authors

• Sora Suh, Fairleigh Dickinson University

• Meredith McConnochie, University of Saint Joseph