“I Have a New Understanding”: Critical Narrative Inquiry as Transformation in the English-History Classroom

Abstract

Recent analysis of literacy and literature instruction contends that pluralistic approaches to education require changes in curricular content to include voices of cultural groups who have been excluded from literary study in schools (Applebee, Burroughs, Stevens 396; Smith and Strickland 137). However, the addition of cultural information and multicultural literary texts in the curriculum, by themselves, appears to be insufficient for meeting many goals of multicultural education, where voices interact and students reflect, think critically, increase cultural awareness, decrease ethnocentrism, and create a global perspective. Students limited by narrow cultural perspectives need to engage in discussion, writing, and other dialectical activities which prompt examination of knowledge constructed from multiple perspectives. Developing students’ ability to use cultural knowledge and perspectives to think about literature, history, society, and themselves is emerging as a necessary part of a pluralistic approach to education. Case Study Background This case study of Kris, an eleventh grade student, is embedded in an ethnographic study of an interdisciplinary literature-history class where students had opportunities to reflect about multicultural texts in their historical contexts through open-forum discussion, writing, and other dialectical activities which emphasized thinking critically about perspectives (Miller). The site for this study was a largely white suburban high school in upstate New York located in a community at the state median on measures of wealth. Sharon, an English teacher, and Ron, a social studies teacher, felt these students, in particular, needed a course focusing on multicultural perspectives because the students came from a more or less homogenous community. The teachers believed a goal of their school should be “stating outcomes, developing curricula, and providing experiences that address this imbalance.” Students taking their course—American Dreams, Lost and Found: Interdisciplinary U.S. History and English 11—produced a portfolio of written work, which included a response journal (5-7 pages per week); 2 multiple-source research papers; 22 pieces of writing of mixed creative and expository genres; an extensive multiple source and media anthology representing a selected historical theme, time period, or event(s); and a culminating American Dream paper, synthesizing students’ learning and thinking over the school year (10-15 pages). For an overview of the integrated curricula, please see Appendix A.