Teaching migration narratives in today’s sociopolitical context

• In Event: Teaching, Learning and Understanding students, including young children

Proposal

The United States is nation of immigrants by number and historical development. Furthermore, migration is on the rise internationally (International Organization for Migration, 2020). With European countries (BBC News, 2022), especially Moldova (Dunmore & Odobescu, 2022) and Poland (UNHCR, 2022b), welcoming refugees from Ukraine, and arrivals in the United States from Central America, which began to rise in the 1980s (Franco, 2020), to millions of Afghan refugees dispersed worldwide (UNHCR, 2022a), and the Rohingya peoples’ refugee crisis (OCHA, n.d.) to name some pertinent groups, newly arrived peoples are increasing globally.

In schools, new arrival students, some of whom are refugees, Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education, and undocumented status individuals, bring complex life experiences and their journeys are often colored with conflict, trauma, and loss (Student Achievement Division, 2014). Pedagogies in school increasingly focus on supporting students to tell these stories in what are called ‘migration narratives’ (Custodio & O’Loughlin, 2017, p. 78). Migration narratives are written or oral non-fiction texts, centering the lived im/migration experiences of people groups and are often found in History, English, or Humanities related courses at the secondary school levels (Stewart, 2015, p. 151). This tool offers newly arrived students a way to share life experiences and increase confidence, while also deepening reading comprehension, improving writing and lexical abilities, and gaining valuable academic knowledge. A pathway for exchanging stories allows students' funds of knowledge to be recognized by their learning community (Custodio & O’Loughlin, 2017). Teachers are using migration narratives beautifully for curricular and community building purposes, in the United States and internationally.

At the same time, teaching migration narratives is often uncharted territory given how these stories have the potential to reveal our students’ status as undocumented, which has been increasingly criminalized. In addition, the topical instruction that supports students writing of migration narratives—literature focused on migration, race, and structural inequalities—is increasingly controversial. For instance, in the United States, Jeffrey Sachs has been tracking legislation related to education censorship and writes, “35 states have introduced 137 bills limiting what schools can teach…” (as cited in Gross, 2022, p. 2). Meanwhile, we see from the stories of the deported (Human Rights Watch, 2017) that misdemeanors have devastating impacts on undocumented lives. As teachers we are trained to create spaces in which every voice is heard and hope to empathize with our students. Yet what happens if in creating these contexts that center student experiences, we also place them at risk?

This paper shares a theoretically supported framework for teaching the migration narrative while drawing attention to considerations for learner safety, of which teachers need to be cognizant when designing migration narrative lessons. We argue that thinking socio-politically in addition to socio-cognitively and socio-culturally about migration narrative instruction promotes rigorous literacy skills, encourages bilingualism and biculturalism, and underscores safe teaching practices.

A Framework for Teaching Migration Narratives

Below, we present a framework for teaching migration narratives in formal and informal learning spaces. We describe each step briefly, including relevant theory triangulation from socio-cognitive-cultural-political scholars to add nuance to the lessons and plans. We suggest these guidelines be personalized, based on your expertise, and class needs.

Step 1: Relevant Reading of Mentor Text
Reading a migration story is one of the best modelling techniques to share the art of narrative and autobiographical writing (Custodio & O’Loughlin, 2017). In selecting text, culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) encourages teachers to think about the contexts impacting their students (Ladson-Billings, 2006). For instance, Enrique’s Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother (Nazario, 2013) is a migration narrative for high school readers that is relatable to undocumented youth and newly arrived immigrant students. The graphic novel The Arrival (Tan, 2007) embraces SPRP (Bajaj et al., 2017) as the wordless book generates rich discussions of immigration because features in the book are left open to interpretation.

Step 2: Connected Multimodal Content & Interpretation
Teachers’ careful selection of visual and audio stimulation adds another modality to migrative storytelling that may captivate students and increase creativity. For example, Which Way Home or He Names Me Malala (Guggenheim, 2015), are two compelling documentaries with authentic dialogue, footage, photos, and maps that can spark class discourse. Step 2 is the interpretation phase where socio-political reckoning and response would help both students and teachers. How does the migration narrative, poem, documentary, clip, or article you selected illuminate race, class, gender, religious, or ethnic inequities? Born from CRP, culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) works to dismantle deficit narratives and shed light on topics problematic to newly arrived students and teachers’ safety (Paris & Alim, 2017). This involves socio-political responsiveness to the immigration laws, educational book bans, social media postings, and rhetoric today.

Step 3: Planning and Drafting
The following graphic organizer (embedded Table) is one tool you can use to listen and assist students organizing their thoughts. What we don't see in instructional frameworks are the embedded layers of empathetic teaching and listening. Translating this resource into other languages or providing instruction in students' first language via story maps or journal prompts is beneficial. Research suggests a greater understanding of cognitive knowledge and academic skills is possible when utilizing a student's home language in the classroom (Cummins, 2000).

Step 4: Writing Time
Finally, engage students in writing or recording their migration narratives. Providing the space for students to develop individual writer identity is a form of advocacy and benefits development. Home language is often a crucial component to narrative writing, especially when supporting bilingual students.

The research of socio-cognitivists, asset and action-oriented approaches of socio-culturalists, and critical social-political example all bolster migration narrative instruction for newcomer, refugee, and immigrant students. Rather than utilizing already created curricula or outdated textbooks that may not be attuned to the needs of your students or context, theory provides the broad and refined angles necessary to design meaningful content. This work contributes to the migration conversation and underscores ways in which educators can safety and ethically invest in the intellectual growth and individual humanity of all students.

Author

• Rachel Marie Siegman, Vanderbilt University