MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Keywords: Autoethnography, change, student engagement, restorying, subversive narratives

Question: What does student engagement look like when we apply autoethnography to high school curriculum?

Context: Beyond sharing factual events, storytelling lived experience is the opportunity for youth to make sense of their lives (van Manen, 1997); to think critically on how they have come to be who they are, and to attribute meaning to their experiences (Brookfield, 1995). Storytelling is the opportunity to tune in to the authentic self that contributes to shared culture in a way that is real and meaningful (Freire, 1970/2000), and the reflective thinking helps bring to the surface the ideologies, structures, and myths that perpetuate our cultural norms and prevent social change (McLaren, 1998).

Implementation: Autoethnography was utilized as a tool to advance student engagement by analyzing narratives imbedded within popular culture (including gender/race/sexuality/health/social norms and expectation) and writing their lived experiences. Students weave together their lives, the structures underlying our shared culture, and subversive narratives that question the status quo (Muncey, 2010).

In this presentation I borrow the terms broadening, burrowing, and restorying from Connelly and Clandinin (1990) as three narrative threads to share my autoethnography, link literature, and share my experience of autoethnography in the high school classroom as part of my professional practice.

Conclusion & Significance: We shifted classroom expectations and created space for community within the classroom where stories and freethinking thrived on a daily basis. We built bridges between theory and practice. Teaching staff reported enhanced student engagement with the curriculum and depth of work, engagement in classroom relationships, and students’ abilities to make thoughtful connections between curriculum, their school work, and home lives.