Supporting language diversities through story circles

Abstract

This current study shows the range of culturally-shaped, storytelling patterns present in three multicultural, multilingual preschool classrooms serving children from families with lower socioeconomic status in the U.S. Stories were collected in the context of a small group, child-led storytelling activity called story circles. Results show that story circles encourage diverse story forms and topics that reflect interdependent conceptions of self in young learners. In their stories, young children demonstrate the early emerging potential for cultivating linguistic and cultural dexterity in early childhood by surfacing and centering multiple meaning-making patterns in the classroom, rather than solely topic-centered, linear, temporal stories that predominate in U.S. schools.