Journal Article

Digital Participation, Agency, and Choice: An African American Youth's Digital Storytelling About Minecraft

Ellison, Tisha Lewis

2017

Overview

This case study examines one African American adolescent male's digital choices and experiences during the creation of a digital story about Minecraft. This study introduces digital participatory choice cultures as a framework to consider how he might recognize and use existing meaning‐making and composition strategies to bridge what young people know, do, and learn both within and outside educational settings. Data include interviews, observations, photo elicitation, digital photos, and digital and nondigital texts. First, the author highlights the student's choices to create a topic and digital story. Second, the author examines how the student's digital choices illustrate the literacies, agency, and identities inherent in digital participatory choice culture, which helped him express himself in both cultural and digital ways. The analysis demonstrates how race mattered in the student's digital composition, which suggests that literacy educators can design instruction to learn about and build from their students’ already existing funds of knowledge.

• Publisher: Wiley Subscription Services, Inc,Wiley-Blackwell,Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subject: 3‐Early adolescence / 4‐Adolescence / Action research / Adolescent boys / Adolescents / African American Children / African American Students / African Americans / as inquiry < Assessment / Black students / Black youth / Case Studies / Case study < Research methodology / Child psychology / Choice / Choices / Computer & video games / Computer Games / Computer Use / Content literacy / Cultural identity / Digital storytelling / Digital/media literacies / Elicitation / Ethnic identity / Ethnography / Ethnography < Research methodology / FEATURE ARTICLES / Field work < Research methodology / Gender/race/class/sexual orientation / Identity / Information and communication technologies < Digital/media literacies / Instructional strategies / Instructional strategies; methods and materials / Instructional technology < Strategies, methods, and materials / Interest < Motivation/engagement / Interviews / Literacy / Motivation/engagement / New literacies < Digital/media literacies / Observation / Photography / Popular culture < Digital/media literacies / Postmodernism < Theoretical perspectives / preference < Motivation/engagement / Qualitative < Research methodology / Race / Selection / Sociocultural < Theoretical perspectives / Specific media (hypertext, Internet, film, music, etc.) < Digital/media literacies / Story Telling / Storytelling / Strategies methods and materials / teacher research < Research methodology / Teachers / Teaching / teaching strategies < Strategies, methods, and materials / To inform instruction / Visual Aids / Writing instruction / Youth