Story Stewardship in Story Circles
Connection in the Multilingual Learner Classroom
On a recent road trip, I listened to the book Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown (2021). The book's last section connected so beautifully with what I have experienced in classrooms with Multilingual Learners that I wanted to share it here.
Primarily, the idea of authentic connection.
At the beginning of most classes I teach, I facilitate story circles. First, I learn each of my students' names and encourage all class members to do the same (more on that here). I instruct them to write their names on index cards with their preferred pronouns. After that, I invite them to move from the desks or tables to a circle of chairs so there are no back rows and everyone can see each other's faces. I encourage them to share a short story that helps us get to know them. I give them time to think and let them share in whatever order they want. As they express a bit about themselves, I model respectful exchanges by asking questions and looking directly at each person as they talk. These stories elicit emotion: laughter, gasps of surprise, frustration, and even sadness. I encourage the students to make connections with their classmates after they share. My goal for the first day of class is to start developing a classroom community. I explicitly tell them that I want them to interact with each other, not just me.
Creating a classroom community where the members continually strive to be inclusive is an overarching goal in every course I teach. I intentionally carve out time and carefully plan for brave spaces within each class session. I use the term "brave spaces" rather than "safe spaces" because I believe that no public spaces are truly safe, especially for Multilingual Learners in mainstream classes (Arao & Clemens, 2013; Coles-Ritchie & Smith, 2019; Dover & Rodrigues-Valls, 2022). It's challenging to speak in a language that is new to you, no matter how outgoing you are in your primary language. Brave spaces are not static. It might mean that students in my class can come together and have difficult conversations by listening to each other even though they might be challenging and sometimes tense, and sometimes it might mean MLs sit in silence. It means that we all sometimes sit with discomfort. When MLs are centered, our White, monolingual English-speaking students are required to sit in discomfort—so the classroom becomes a place of growth for them.
I want to bring that full circle and share a bit about what Dr. Brown shares in her book. She says that we can't recognize, for sure, what emotion people are experiencing at any one time. We can try, but we don't know unless we ask. She explains that
Many emotions and experiences present the same way. I could observe a student with tears in their eyes and try to guess why they are there, but they could result from a speck of dirt, grief, embarrassment, or frustration. I can't know for sure unless I ask.
Even though research shows that there are some universal facial expressions for a small number of emotions, how each student expresses what they are feeling and or how they are experiencing an event can be as unique as they are.
So why does this matter? A meaningful connection that allows us to learn in community requires that we understand our students—not every single thing every day, but in general—connection with them. It's always easier to connect with someone who is more like us. Many teachers have shared with me that they have the closest relationships with students with similar interests, racial backgrounds, religions, or the same hobby. SO, to connect with students from backgrounds different from ours, we need to be critically conscious or have heightened awareness.
To truly know what students are experiencing, we need to ask them in a respectful way. And in a way that avoids assumptions. Only then can we connect with confidence to encourage and support them. When our students tell us
what they are feeling,
what happened,
what they fear,
what they desire,
AND we attentively listen, only then, can we be trusted with their stories and experiences.
Brown writes:
Story stewardship means honoring the sacred nature of story—the ones we share and hear—and knowing that we've been entrusted with something valuable or that we have something valuable that we should treat with respect and care. We are good stewards of the stories we tell by trusting them to people who have earned the right to hear them and telling them only when we are ready. We are good stewards of the stories we hear by listening, being curious, affirming, and believing people when they tell us how they experienced something.
Have you tried story circles?
What has worked?
What has been challenging?
Have you read Brené Brown's story stewardship? What resonates for you? What doesn't?
*Please click on the heart button if you find this useful.
