Welcoming Counterstory in the Primary Literacy Classroom

Abstract

Counterstories are a tool used by minoritized communities to tell stories that reflect their experiences and knowledge. Counterstories challenge the stock stories and grand narratives accepted by the majority and put forth in school curriculum. As young children tend to speak openly and share their responses to literature candidly, counterstory can be a powerful tool for empowering children in the primary literacy classroom. The author reflects on her experience in primary literacy classrooms engaging children in telling their counterstories in response to children's literature. The pedagogical promise of counterstory and ways of eliciting and welcoming counterstory in the primary literacy classroom are discussed.

Teaching Contentious Books Regarding Immigration: The Case of Pancho Rabbit

“…Thus, one set of arguments available to defenders of this book is found in these valuable classroom applications. For example, teachers seeking a means to open a conversation about immigration can present the book as a form of counter‐storytelling to challenge stereotyped perspectives (Kelly, ). Similarly, Clark and Davis () emphasized the power of Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote to build empathy for others, and Cipparone () described how it can open new global perspectives to students.…”

Ignite some agency: how teaching assistants engage whiteness at a South African university

“…Many CWS projects investigate students' lived experiences based on the antiracist affordances of specific courses (Mueller 2020(Mueller , 2017Kelly 2017). To my knowledge, no discourse analyses scrutinise narratives collected from contractually-employed teaching assistants in South African departments of English.…”

“…Broadly, this study uses CWS to chart how whiteness truncates encounters with knowledge about racism during tutorial sessions on postcolonial literature. Earlier studies have mapped discourses that equip everyday white actors to deny the systemic dimensions of racism by atomising it as individual prejudice and by exculpating whites as passively enacting racism out of habit (Kelly 2017). Even universities that prize critical thinking and diversity can still develop novel forms of resistance against uncomfortable learning about racism.…”

A community cultural wealth analysis of newcomer student writing: Identifying strengths

“…This framework "conceptualizes community cultural wealth as a critical race theory challenge to traditional interpretations of cultural capital" (Yosso, 2005, p. 69) by critiquing the assumption that students of color enter the classroom with cultural deficiencies and instead identifying their cultural assets. Critical race theory welcomes "counterstories," or personal narratives reflecting the "experiential knowledge of people of color" (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 26;Kelly, 2017). Building on Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977), Yosso described six dynamic and interrelated forms of capital: Aspirational capital describes hopes, dreams, and future possibilities.…”