Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T17:17:00.935Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ideas in dialogue: Leveraging the power of child-led storytelling in the multicultural preschool classroom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2018

Erin Elizabeth Flynn
Erin Elizabeth Flynn*
Affiliation:
Portland State University, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Erin Elizabeth Flynn, Child, Youth, & Family Studies, Portland State University, PO Box 751, Mailcode: SSW SSW, Portland, OR 97207, USA[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An investigation into the interactive features of small group, child-led storytelling in preschool classrooms serving lower socioeconomic status (SES), multilingual children shows both the affordances and constraints of positioning children to author their own experiences in the classroom. In story circles, children told stories that included canonical instantiations of story and culturally shaped features. Through their stories, the children advanced ideas, built connections, and evaluated ways of telling stories as they continued ideas like threads from story to story. Child-led storytelling did not disrupt the dynamics of power through which some ways of using language are privileged while others are marginalized. Instead, story circles simply shifted children’ relationship to the process of being and becoming literate such that children did the evaluating, valuing, and promoting of ways of using language, developing literate identities, but potentially forestalling some ways of participating even as shared interactional norms were developed. (Storytelling, multicultural, early childhood education)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , September 2018 , pp. 601 - 633
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Mary Schleppegrell for the insight and feedback that informed this work. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript. Special thanks go to the children and teachers who shared their classroom and their stories.

References

Au, Kathryn H. (1993). Literacy instruction in multicultural settings. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. Ed. by Holquist, Michael, trans. by Emerson, Caryl & Holquist, Michael. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Björk-Willén, Polly (2007). Participation in multilingual preschool play: Shadowing and crossing as interactional resources. Journal of Pragmatics 39:2133–58.Google Scholar
Bliss, Lynn S., & McCabe, Allyssa (2008). Personal narratives: Cultural differences and clinical implications. Topics in Language Disorders 28(2):162–77.Google Scholar
Cazden, Courtney B. (2001). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Cekaite, Asta, & Björk-Willén, Polly (2012). Peer group interactions in multilingual educational settings: Co-constructing social order and norms for language use. International Journal of Bilingualism 17(2):174–88.Google Scholar
Champion, Tempii B.; Katz, Laurie; Muldrow, Ramona; & Dail, Rochelle (1999). Storytelling and story making in an urban preschool classroom: Building bridges from home to school culture. Topics in Language Disorders 19(3):52–67.Google Scholar
Champion, Tempii B.; Katz, Laurie; Muldrow, Ramona; & Dail, Rochelle (2003). Understanding storytelling among African American children: A journey from Africa to America. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cheatham, Gregory A., & Jimenez-Silva, Margarita (2011). What makes a good story? Supporting oral narratives of young children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Childhood Education 87(4):261–68.Google Scholar
Christie, Frances (2002). Classroom discourse analysis: A functional perspective. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Christie, Frances (2013). Genres and genre theory: A response to Michael Rosen. Changing English 20(1):11–22. doi: 10.1080/1358684X.2012.757056.Google Scholar
Delpit, Lisa (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people's children. Harvard Educational Review 58:280–98.Google Scholar
Delpit, Lisa (1995). Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New Press.Google Scholar
Dickinson, David K. (2011). Teachers’ language practices and academic outcomes of preschool children. Science 333:964–67. doi: 10.1126/science.1204526.Google Scholar
Dickinson, David K., & Porche, Michelle V. (2011). Relation between language experiences in preschool classrooms and children's kindergarten and fourth-grade language and reading ability. Child Development 82(3):870–86.Google Scholar
Dyson, Anne H. (2002). The drinking god factor: A writing development remix for ‘all’ children. Written Communication 19(4):545–77. doi: 10.1177/074108802238009.Google Scholar
Eggins, Suzanne, & Slade, Diana (2005). Analysing casual conversation. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
Engel, S. (1997). The guy who went up the steep nicken: The emergence of storytelling during the first three years. Zero to Three 17(3):1, 3–9.Google Scholar
Flynn, Erin E. (2013). What story circles reveal about preschool children's storytelling. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan dissertation. Online: http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/102401/erinfly_1.pdf?sequence=1.Google Scholar
Flynn, Erin E. (2018). Storying experience: Young children's early use of story genres. Text and Talk, to appear.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie H. (1993). Tactical uses of stories: Participation frameworks within girls’ and boys’ disputes. In Tannen, Deborah (ed.), Gender and conversational interaction, 110–43. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gynne, Annaliina, & Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta (2013). Young people's languaging and social positioning: Chaining in ‘bilingual’ educational settings in Sweden. Linguistics and Education 24:479–96.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. (1975). Learning how to mean: Explorations in the development of language and meaning. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K., & Matthiessen, Christian M. I. M. (2004). Introducing functional grammar. New York: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Hasan, Ruqaiya (1984). The nursery tale as genre. Nottingham Linguistics Circular 12:71–102.Google Scholar
Heath, Shirley Brice (1983). Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hoff-Ginsberg, Erika (1991). Mother-child conversation in different social classes and communicative settings. Child Development 62(4):782–96.Google Scholar
Huttenlocher, Janellen; Vasilyeva, Marina; Cymerman, Elina; & Levine, Susan (2002). Language input and child syntax. Cognitive Psychology 45(3):337–74. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0285(02)00500-5.Google Scholar
Hyon, Sunny, & Sulzby, Elizabeth (1994). African American kindergarteners’ spoken narratives: Topic associating and topic centered styles. Linguistics and Education 6(2):121–52.Google Scholar
Jimenez-Silva, Margarita, & McCabe, Allyssa (1996). Vignettes of the continuous and family ties: Some Latino American traditions. In McCabe, Alyssa (ed.), Chameleon readers: Teaching children to appreciate all kinds of good stories, 116–36. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Justice, Laura M.; McGinty, Anita S.; Zucker, Tricia; Cabell, Sonia Q.; & Piasta, Shayne B. (2013). Bi-directional dynamics underlie the complexity of talk in teacher-child play-based conversations in classrooms serving at-risk pupils. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 28:496–508. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2013.02.005.Google Scholar
Khimji, Fatima, & Maunder, Rachel E. (2012). Meditational tools in story construction: An investigation of cultural influences on children's narratives. Journal of Early Childhood Research 10(3):294–308.Google Scholar
Küntay, Aylin C., & Şenay, İbrahim (2003). Narratives beget narratives: Rounds of stories in Turkish preschool conversations. Journal of Pragmatics 35(4):559–87.Google Scholar
Kyratzis, Amy (2000). Tactical uses of narratives in nursery school same-sex groups. Discourse Processes 29(3):269–99.Google Scholar
Labov, William, & Waletzky, Joshua (1967). Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In Helm, June (ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts: Proceedings of the 1966 annual spring meeting of the American Ethnological Society, 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Martin, James R. (1984). Types of writing in infants and primary school. Paper presented at the Reading, writing, spelling: Proceedings of the Fifth MacArthur Reading/Language Symposium.Google Scholar
Martin, James R. (2009). Genre and language learning: A social semiotic perspective. Linguistics and Education 20(1):10–21.Google Scholar
Martin, James R., & Rose, David (2008). Genre relations: Mapping culture. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
McCabe, Allyssa (1997). Cultural background and storytelling: A review and implications for schooling. The Elementary School Journal 97(5):453–73.Google Scholar
McCabe, Allyssa; Bailey, Alison L.; & Melzi, Gigliana (eds.) (2008). Spanish-language narration and literacy: Culture, cognition, and emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McCabe, Allyssa, & Peterson, Carol (1991). Getting the story: Parental styles of narrative elicitation and developing narrative skills. In McCabe, Alyssa & Peterson, Carol (eds.), Developing narrative structure, 217–53. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
McNamee, Gillian D. (1990). Learning to read and write in an inner-city setting: A longitudinal study of community change. In Moll, Luis C. (ed.), Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology, 287–303. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McNamee, Gillian D. (1992). Vivian Paley's ideas at work in Head Start. The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition 14(3):68–70.Google Scholar
Michaels, Sarah (1981). ‘Sharing time’: Children's narrative styles and differential access to literacy. Language in Society 10(3):423–42.Google Scholar
Michaels, Sarah (2005). Can the intellectual affordances of working-class storytelling be leveraged in school? Human Development 48:136–45. doi: 10.1159/000085516.Google Scholar
Michaels, Sarah (2006). Narrative presentations: An oral preparation for literacy with first graders. In Cook-Gumperz, Jenny (ed.), The social construction of literacy, 110–37. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Peggy J.; Koven;, Michele & Lin, Shumin (2011). Narrative. In Duranti, Alessandro, Ochs, Elinor, & Schieffelin, Bambi B. (eds.), Handbook of language socialization, 190–208. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Miller, Peggy J.; Chian-Hui Chen, Eva; & Olivarez, Megan (2014). Narrative making and remaking in the early years: Prelude to the personal narrative. Rereading personal narrative and life course: New directions for child and adolescent development 145:15–27.Google Scholar
Minami, Masahiko (1996). Japanese preschool children's narrative development. First Language 16:339–63.Google Scholar
Minami, Masahiko (2002). Culture-specific language styles: The development of oral narrative and literacy. New York: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Minami, Masahiko, & McCabe, Alyssa (1991). Haiku as a discourse regulation device: A stanza analysis of Japanese children's personal narratives. Language in Society 20(4):577–99.Google Scholar
Nelson, Katherine (ed.) (2006). Narratives from the crib. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nicolopoulou, Ageliki; McDowell, Judith; & Brockmeyer, Carolyn (2006). Narrative play and emergent literacy: Storytelling and story-acting. In Singer, Dorothy G., Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick, & Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy (eds.), Play = learning: How play motivates and enhances children's cognitive and social-emotional growth, 124–44. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Paley, Vivien Gussin (1984). Boys and girls: Superheroes in the doll corner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Paley, Vivien Gussin (1986). Mollie is three: Growing up in school. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Paley, Vivien Gussin (1990). The boy who would be a helicopter: The uses of storytelling in the classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, Carol, & McCabe, Alyssa (1983). Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a child's narrative: New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, Carol & McCabe, Alyssa (1991). Linking children's connective use and narrative macrostructure. In McCabe, Alyssa & Peterson, Carol (eds.), Developing narrative structure, 29–53. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Plum, Guenter A. (2004). Text and contextual conditioning in spoken English: A genre approach. Vol. 1: Text. Sydney eScholarship Repository. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/608.Google Scholar
Rogoff, Barbara (2003). The cultural nature of human development. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rothery, Joan, & Stenglin, Maree (1997). Entertaining and instructing: Exploring experience through story. In Christie, Francis & Martin, J. R. (eds.), Genre and institutions: Social processes in the workplace and school, 231–63. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Schick, Adina, & Melzi, Gigliana (2010). The development of children's oral narratives across contexts. Early Education & Development 21(3):293–317.Google Scholar
Schleppegrell, Mary J. (2004). The language of schooling: A functional linguistics perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Snow, Catherine E., & Beals, Diane E. (2006). Mealtime talk that supports literacy development. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 111:51–66. doi: 10.1002/cad.154.Google Scholar
Souto-Manning, Mariana; Dernikos, Bessie; & Yu, Hae Min (2016) Rethinking normative literacy practices, behaviors, and interactions: Learning from young immigrant boys. Journal of Early Childhood Research 14(2):163–80.Google Scholar
Stein, Nancy L., & Albro, Elizabeth R. (1997). Building complexity and coherence: Children's use of goal-structured knowledge in telling stories. In Bamberg, Michael (ed.), Narrative development: Six approaches, 5–44. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Stein, Nancy L., & Glenn, Christine G. (1979). An analysis of story comprehension in elementary school children. In Freedle, Roy O. (ed.), Advances in discourse processes: New directions in discourse processing, 53–120. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Strategies, Teaching (2013). The creative curriculum for preschool. 5th edn. Washington, DC: Teaching Strategies.Google Scholar
Vygotsky, Lev S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Weizman, Zehava O., & Snow, Catherine E. (2001). Lexical input as related to children's vocabulary acquisition: Effects of sophisticated exposure and support for meaning. Developmental Psychology 37(2):265–79.Google Scholar