Bonny Norton

Title: Identity, Investment, and Storybooks Washington D.C.

Summary:

As language learners navigate changing times, they need to negotiate new identities, investments, and imagined futures (Norton, 2013). Working with Ron Darvin, I have responded to new linguistic landscapes by developing an expanded model of investment that integrates identity, ideology, and linguistic capital in a comprehensive framework (Darvin & Norton, 2015, 2021). Drawing on my recent research on digital storytelling in both wealthy and poorly resourced communities worldwide (Norton, Stranger-Johannessen, & Doherty, 2020), I will discuss how freely available digital stories in multiple languages can harness the linguistic capital of language learners in homes, schools, and communities. My presentation will include a demonstration of Storybooks Washington D.C., one of the freely available sites in our Global Storybooks project. I will discuss how teachers can draw on this resource to promote multilingualism in Washington D. C.

Keynote Biography:

Dr. Bonny Norton (FRSC) is a University Killam Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Canada. Her primary research interests are identity and language learning, digital storytelling, and open technology. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Educational Research Association, she was awarded BC 2020 Academic of the Year for her leadership of the Global Storybooks project (https://globalstorybooks.net/). Her website is https://faculty.educ.ubc.ca/norton/