Digital storytelling for cultivating a participatory culture in first-year composition

Abstract

This article provides an inquiry-based, participatory framework for incorporating digital storytelling into first-year composition for the purpose of cultivating a participatory culture and empowering students to compose for rhetorical and digital delivery. The framework aims at reifying Henry Jenkins (2009) notion of participatory culture and engaging students with the core media literacies that are central to active participation in the digital age. To gauge the effectiveness of the framework, this study utilizes NVivo to code and thematically analyze 19 students’ reflections based on James E. Porter (2009) theoretical framework for digital delivery: body/identity, access/accessibility, distribution, interaction, and economics. This article also presents three case studies of student-created videos to further demonstrate the robust potential of the framework to foster social activism in the classroom and to spur students to cultivate rhetorical agency and awareness.