ABSTRACT
Storytelling is both a taken for granted part of literary study (Juzwik, 2010) and a ubiquitous practice and resource for engaging in and reflecting on social life. In this three-year ethnography of youth storytelling and reading, I draw on narrative theory and global discourse analysis to highlight the ways immigrant and non-immigrant youth initiate, support, question, develop, and tell interrelated stories from different “street scenes” in their community and countries of origin, that parallel the forms of talk, listening, and inquiry valued in the study of literature. I highlight four ways youth’s everyday co-narration practices parallel the world-crossing demands of transcultural literary reading: narrative backgrounding (Minks, 2007), telling “small” second stories (Bamberg, 2011; deFina & Georgakopoulou, 2011), forming well-told stories (Hymes, 1996), and evaluating their own and one another’s beliefs and practices (Bruner 1986; Lee 2007; Ochs & Capps 2001).
