'Stories That Are Worth Sharing': Insights from Middle Eastern Refugee Migration Stories through an Inquiry into Narrative

This inquiry into narrative explores the often-silenced migration narratives of three refugee students from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. It is centered around two particular wonderings based in a critical literacy framework. First, what tenets of critical literacy seem most prominent in the narratives of refugee students from the Middle East? Second, what critical understanding of their migration experience do refugee students bring to the classroom? The conceptualized framework is understood as "The Centrality of Experience in Critical Literacy," wherein experience is central and valuable. This study applies the framework using stories as the source from which to better understand how individuals make sense of their worlds. Through a five-phase analysis, which included: free coding, literature derived coding, analysis of time and sequence, narrative pattern coding, and analysis of language, I find rich understandings of 1) the political, non-neutral nature of the world, 2) a fight for access to knowledge, and 3) a hope for envisioned future possibilities as the students seek belonging, refuge, and dreams, reclaiming the power of their own narratives. This inquiry into narrative additionally contributes the three stories and two audio recordings as a cultural data set, which can be used in the classroom.