Writing with Dignity Among Youth in Urban Communities: Using Mentor Texts as a Reflective Tool for Transformation

Abstract

This article describes a three-year qualitative study on how youth of color in one community-based organization, Durham Community Youth, used the mentor text, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “What’s your life’s blueprint?” speech, as a reflective tool to transform themselves and their community. Using a critical literacy framework, the authors situate the study within the rich history of the Black community in Durham, North Carolina and examine how students’ writing advocated for their communities by speaking out against oppressive forces. The article offers implications on how educators can reimagine the implementation and intentionality of mentor texts for youth.

Composing college identities: Latina girls writing their way to the Universidad

“…Writing provided Yazmin a space to find the language to name the ways her mother supported her and nurtured her goals and aspirations. In this way, writing and creating art in Somos Escritoras is transformative in that it supports girls in examining their lives and relationships while illuminating new ways of seeing and being in the world (Lee et al , 2022; Muhammad, 2012).…”

“…These texts included poetry, digital narratives, and artwork written and created by Women and Men of Color, including Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Michele Serros. Their writing and art served as mentor texts to hold a mirror up to girls’ lives and historicize their experiences, providing them a window into new perspectives and worlds (Bishop, 1990; Lee et al , 2022).…”

“…Community-embedded scholars have documented the transformative and worldchanging power of intentionally designed arts-based and literacy spaces that center on the rich cultural, linguistic, and familial assets of Girls and Youth of Color (García and Gaddes, 2012;Guti errez, 2008;Lee et al, 2022;Muhammad, 2012Muhammad, , 2014Player, 2022;Wissman, 2011). In these spaces, Girls and Youth of Color join in community to examine their histories by reading and discussing culturally relevant texts rooted in their experiences, composing personal narratives, and engaging in various performative acts.…”

Writing to grieve: Solidarity in times of loss in educational community spaces

“…By connecting with their sensory experiences through personal reflection, adolescents have the potential to find healing and a sense of groundedness that is rooted in place‐based personal experiences (Brannon, 2018) which can lead students to consider the spatial dimensions of critical literacy (Comber, 2016). When sense‐based storytelling is shared within communities of trust and vulnerability, there is a potential for “a network of solidarity and resistance [which] can destabilize institutional inequity for women and provide a space for entering relationships between women and strengthening a reimagining of the self” (Lee et al., 2022, p. 96), which are the ideal outcomes of critical literacy.…”

“…In contrast to traditional writing curriculum, Flint (2022) articulates that students, “create and control what semiotic resources are used and what is produced” (p. 90). Writing spaces then become places where students are free to build and amplify their own voices to ultimately transform the world around them (Flores, 2021; Lee et al., 2022; Muhammad, 2015; Woodard et al., 2020). These agentive stances can also disrupt the hierarchical relationships between youth and adults present in traditional education (Freire, 2000) as youth are positioned as leaders.…”