This is my story: Latinx learners create digital stories during a summer literacy camp

Abstract

Educators need to create opportunities to develop English language learners’ (ELLs’) language skills through creative multiliteracy projects, identify ways to avoid summer loss, and harness the potential of parental engagement. The authors propose the use of a creative digital storytelling (DST) project to achieve these goals. The present case study draws upon a new literacy perspective to examine the impact of a DST project on a group of Latinx students in a summer literacy camp. Through examining the process of designing their own family‐inspired digital story, the present study investigates whether a DST workshop, taught within a multiliteracies framework, can (a) serve as a creative space to encourage language use, (b) foster multimodal communicative competence, and (c) engage parents during a summer literacy camp for Latinx students. Specifically, we take multiliteracies as the pedagogical foundation guiding the DST project.