RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

In this article, we are introduced to three Sudanese boys and how storytelling influenced their lives. I was very intrigued by the look at the differences in the cultures.

For me, reading about how these boys were affected by the stroytelling culture in their own communities was interesting. As an American, I have seen storytelling as important to families and individuals. I have never thought about how storytelling might have influenced a child's literacy experiences.

Storytelling for these boys was second nature. It was in them. They wanted to sit around with each other and tell stories about their experiences. These stories were a way to connect to the people that they respected. It was how they made sense of life and what they knew or were being taught.

This reminds me to some degree of what happens with little kids. It is not uncommon in my house to have a two-year-old or maybe even a seven-yr-old walk up to you and start into a story about something that happened at school or mamaw's (even if you were there). Telling the story is how they process things. I am amazed (just like with this article) how some things come out. The same experiences becomes a different story depending on the needs and processing of that child. I have been blessed enough of the years to hear many of these stories. They give children the connection to the world around them. Two-year-olds (for the most part) can't pick up a pencil and write what she wants to say, so instead they weave this elaborate retelling of what has happened. Sometimes this is true. Sometimes it is obviously invented. It is amazing how these little invented stories mimick the stories that the girls have heard of the years. They even throw in the "once upon a time." This is their connection to the world in which they live.

I am amazed by how this works for the Lost Boys as well. They use these stories as a way to connect to their people/ancestors and to the history that lies within them. In American culture I think that this is a literacy that is slowly slipping away. I have had the opportunity to hear members of a local, "mountan" storytelling family--The Hicks family. Ray Hicks is well-known in these parts for the stories that he tells (He passed away a few years ago). His family has a rich heritage of storytelling (as have many families in generations before). I listened to his stories that dayand was immediately taken back to my grandmother who did the same in her own way when we were little. This type of storytelling has changed though. We have morphed into a written/digital society where these aspects have overtaken the oral tradition. I wonder how our literacies will continue to change as we move even farther away from the stories at grandma's feet. Just as the experiences of the Lost Boys was different than those of their ancestors, ours have been. Those of our children will be as well in ways that maybe we can't even imagine yet.

Christy Laws