ABSTRACT
The Literacy and Community Initiative works with two community-based organizations in North Carolina to empower the voices of historically underserved and underrepresented youth of color as well as immigrant and first-generation students through a publishing curriculum. Employing our Write, Engage, and Lead model, the collaborative partnership explores what happens when youth write their stories, engage with educational stakeholders, and lead in their communities. The project investigates and promotes literacy as a means of increasing advocacy, developing leadership skills, and enhancing social and emotional well-being among traditionally underserved students while exploring how critical literacy and written expression can give power to marginalized youth. For traditionally underserved students, we see freedom in community-based organizations (CBOs) to promote critical literacy that engages students with centering themselves in their communities. In this chapter, we describe the project’s design and address the following research questions: What are the narratives and literacy experiences of underserved youth in CBOs and how does the narrative writing process empower youth to improve literacy learning and engage with multiple stakeholders in their community?
