Storytelling as a Bridge to Literacy: An Examination of Personal Storytelling Among Black Middle-Class Mothers and Children

Abstract

The present article is concerned with the language socialization practices of Black middle-class children and their families. In describing some preliminary results from research in progress its purpose is two-fold: (1) to determine whether stories of personal experience occur as part of the everyday lives of Black middle-class children, and (2) to show some of the ways stories of personal experience function to affirm these children's literate identities. The present study thus investigates personal storytelling as a conduit through which values, beliefs, and identity are transmitted to middle-class Black children. It is a part of a larger ethnographic investigation of personal storytelling in five communities: Black middleclass, White middle-class, Black working-class, and White-working class in Chicago; and Chinese middle-class in Taiwan (Miller et al., in press). Children in each of the five cultural groups were observed in their homes by a researcher who was racially and culturally similar. The overall goal of the larger study is to develop a comparative programmatic for studying the ways in which narratives of personal experience function in the socialization and acquisition processes (Miller & Moore, 1989), with a special focus on personal storytelling as a site of self-construction. This article will present in a preliminary fashioning some of the ways in which stories of personal experience function to affirm the value of schooling and literacy and to create a literate identity in Black middleclass children. Focussing on the personal storytelling practices of the children and their families, it will address the following questions: (1) Do stories of personal experience occur as part of the everyday home life of Black middle-class children? (2) If they occur, are they a major means of communication? (3) Do the children tell literacy stories of personal experience, i.e., stories about their literacy-related experiences in school or church?