Engaging culturally and linguistically diverse youth in semiotic analysis for community-based inquiry

This manuscript examines multimodal storytelling as community inquiry for an urban high school class of 30 first- and second-generation bi/multilingual immigrant students, most of whom maintained transnational connections. We share how these students, in an A.P. Research class, engaged in community-based inquiry and utilized various multimodal artifacts from a university cultural heritage collection, including a field trip to the cultural heritage archives, to analyze signs and symbols. We asked: How did students engage with semiotic resources and approaches to support inquiry about their school and neighborhood communities? Findings showed that students drew upon their linguistic and cultural experiences to analyze signs and symbols, yet in their digital storytelling presentations some student groups chose signs and symbols that reified stereotypical views of their neighborhood despite their insider status in the local community. We offer recommendations for using cultural heritage artifacts to advance multimodal meaning-making in teaching and research.