Personal narratives are studied in many disciplines, but theoretical analysis of the personal narrative in composition classes has lagged behind the research. This qualitative study examines the personal narratives of thirty Black college-aged men. This study presents the feelings and thoughts of Black males through their personal stories and perspectives; in the study, they detail their life experiences. The narratives were analyzed for elements of narrative discourse, which include (1) Thesis; (2) Transitions; (3) Use and Evaluation of Sources; (4) Audience, Tone, and Rhetorical Appeals; (5) Organization; (6) Claims, Warrants, and Support; (7)Paraphrases, Direct Quotes, and Summary; (8) In-text Citations and Works Cited Page; (9) Style and Syntax; and (10) Mechanics (see scoring procedures). Each narrative was analyzed according to the criteria described in the Personal Narrative Rubric; the number of elements was counted for each category. The researcher recommends additional narrative studies of Black men in different age groups, educational backgrounds, social and economic levels, and geographical regions.
{"title":"Black Men Writing, Reflecting, and Discovering Self: Personal Narrative Essays of College-aged African American Men at an All-male Historically Black College or University (HBCU)","authors":"Nathaniel Norment","doi":"10.7202/1111282ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1111282ar","url":null,"abstract":"Personal narratives are studied in many disciplines, but theoretical analysis of the personal narrative in composition classes has lagged behind the research. This qualitative study examines the personal narratives of thirty Black college-aged men. This study presents the feelings and thoughts of Black males through their personal stories and perspectives; in the study, they detail their life experiences. The narratives were analyzed for elements of narrative discourse, which include (1) Thesis; (2) Transitions; (3) Use and Evaluation of Sources; (4) Audience, Tone, and Rhetorical Appeals; (5) Organization; (6) Claims, Warrants, and Support; (7)Paraphrases, Direct Quotes, and Summary; (8) In-text Citations and Works Cited Page; (9) Style and Syntax; and (10) Mechanics (see scoring procedures). Each narrative was analyzed according to the criteria described in the Personal Narrative Rubric; the number of elements was counted for each category. The researcher recommends additional narrative studies of Black men in different age groups, educational backgrounds, social and economic levels, and geographical regions.","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"72 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140983084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article demonstrates and describes an iterative process of narrative analysis for researchers who want to familiarise themselves with this methodology. The method draws on the six-step process of how to analyse a narrative, the four modes of reading a narrative and the three-sphere model of external context. The application of the method is demonstrated through describing the process of analysis of New Zealand school counsellors’ narratives of strengths-based counselling. Furthermore, this article posits that committing to a narrative analysis process of repeated and in-depth engagement with participants’ narrative data may facilitate a more robust and engaging research outcome than may otherwise have been achieved through more prescriptive methods of narrative analysis. Finally, this article highlights the use of story-map grids (tables) and models as visual aids to assist in the process of narrative analysis.
{"title":"Narrative Analysis: Demonstrating the Iterative Process for New Researchers","authors":"Charmaine Bright, Elizabeth Du Preez","doi":"10.7202/1111281ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1111281ar","url":null,"abstract":"This article demonstrates and describes an iterative process of narrative analysis for researchers who want to familiarise themselves with this methodology. The method draws on the six-step process of how to analyse a narrative, the four modes of reading a narrative and the three-sphere model of external context. The application of the method is demonstrated through describing the process of analysis of New Zealand school counsellors’ narratives of strengths-based counselling. Furthermore, this article posits that committing to a narrative analysis process of repeated and in-depth engagement with participants’ narrative data may facilitate a more robust and engaging research outcome than may otherwise have been achieved through more prescriptive methods of narrative analysis. Finally, this article highlights the use of story-map grids (tables) and models as visual aids to assist in the process of narrative analysis.","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"57 19","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140983542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Narrative care, an approach developed from the larger concept of narrative gerontology, considers the importance of stories as a source of identity. A type of person-centered care, narrative care in care settings encourages care workers to elicit stories to gain a more wholistic understanding of the person. Drawing on personal experience in the field, I argue that although “big” story approaches (e.g., grand life narratives) have typically been used in social and healthcare settings, “small” story approaches (e.g., snippets or moments) are more practical for care workers. The expansion of the concept of narrative care to include “narrative engagement” will be explored, which if applied in meaningful ways can promote citizenship, shift power dynamics, generate empowerment, and create systemic change in social and health care settings. Finally, newly developed train-the-trainer narrative care training will be discussed, which is designed to meet the needs of diverse social/health care workers, with a focus on meaningful methods of adopting narrative care and engagement in practice.
{"title":"Narrative Care and Engagement in Social and Health Care: Enhancing Identity with a Small Story Approach","authors":"Michelle Greason","doi":"10.7202/1111284ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1111284ar","url":null,"abstract":"Narrative care, an approach developed from the larger concept of narrative gerontology, considers the importance of stories as a source of identity. A type of person-centered care, narrative care in care settings encourages care workers to elicit stories to gain a more wholistic understanding of the person. Drawing on personal experience in the field, I argue that although “big” story approaches (e.g., grand life narratives) have typically been used in social and healthcare settings, “small” story approaches (e.g., snippets or moments) are more practical for care workers. The expansion of the concept of narrative care to include “narrative engagement” will be explored, which if applied in meaningful ways can promote citizenship, shift power dynamics, generate empowerment, and create systemic change in social and health care settings. Finally, newly developed train-the-trainer narrative care training will be discussed, which is designed to meet the needs of diverse social/health care workers, with a focus on meaningful methods of adopting narrative care and engagement in practice.","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"16 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140981933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Three book reviews and an afterword: Hanna Meretoja’s The Ethics of Storytelling, Peter Brooks’ Seduced by Story, and Florian Fuchs’ Civic Storytelling: The Rise of Short Forms and the Agency of Literature","authors":"Arthur W. Frank","doi":"10.7202/1111285ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1111285ar","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"55 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140984886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper considers memes through the lens of riddles and discusses the generative or creative aspect of the meme format as applied in the classroom. In a literary studies course on cultural narratives, ranging from canonical to bestselling fiction, we critically discussed the genre-specific potential of memes, which students were encouraged to explore both intellectually and experientially. In addition, we asked students to create memes in their assessment of the course. The results were highly ambivalent, ranging from humor to seriousness, self-critique to critique of the course, panic (regarding the final exam) to playful exaggeration of said panic. This ambivalence, often accentuated by irony and excess, challenges any definitive understanding of the memes’ content and meaning. Rather than dismissing memes as a flawed, imprecise tool, this article examines them as riddled forms and hypothesizes that, due to their ambivalence, they may actually be closer to a student’s “truth.” The connection between memes and meaning-making is especially relevant to courses that, like the one in this article, foreground semantic ambiguity and an explorative habitus.
{"title":"Memes in the Literature Studies Classroom","authors":"Bryan Yazell, Anita Wohlmann","doi":"10.7202/1111279ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1111279ar","url":null,"abstract":"This paper considers memes through the lens of riddles and discusses the generative or creative aspect of the meme format as applied in the classroom. In a literary studies course on cultural narratives, ranging from canonical to bestselling fiction, we critically discussed the genre-specific potential of memes, which students were encouraged to explore both intellectually and experientially. In addition, we asked students to create memes in their assessment of the course. The results were highly ambivalent, ranging from humor to seriousness, self-critique to critique of the course, panic (regarding the final exam) to playful exaggeration of said panic. This ambivalence, often accentuated by irony and excess, challenges any definitive understanding of the memes’ content and meaning. Rather than dismissing memes as a flawed, imprecise tool, this article examines them as riddled forms and hypothesizes that, due to their ambivalence, they may actually be closer to a student’s “truth.” The connection between memes and meaning-making is especially relevant to courses that, like the one in this article, foreground semantic ambiguity and an explorative habitus.","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"5 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140982508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
“Fairy tales begin with conflict because we all begin our lives with conflict,” famously states Jack Zipes. And yet, this statement does not always seem to apply to non-Western story structures, such as the Asian kishōtenketsu, which implies a story development that does not necessarily revolve around conflicts. In many of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies (e.g., My Neighbor Totoro; Spirited Away, The Secret World of Arietty), it is possible to detect, on the one hand, the kishōtenketsu-based plot, and,on the other hand, the widespread presence of Western fairy-tale tropes. Conflicts in traditional Western fairy tales may sometimes manifest in the form of riddles to solve. Although Miyazaki’s stories do not shun away from riddles, how do these riddles relate to conflicts? How are Western and Asian story structures bound together in Miyazaki’s narratives, and what effects does this hybridization generate in their audiences? This article argues that: 1.) Riddles based on Western fairy tales in Miyazaki’s work do not necessarily involve conflicts, and are recast and re-elaborated in highly unusual ways; and 2.) The employment of these unusual patterns, mixing up together Oriental and Occidental frames of reference, gives rise to stories that puzzle the mind of spectators, working as complex narrative riddles.
{"title":"Miyazaki's Hybrid Worlds and Their Riddle-Stories","authors":"Francesca Arnavas, Mattia Bellini","doi":"10.7202/1111286ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1111286ar","url":null,"abstract":"“Fairy tales begin with conflict because we all begin our lives with conflict,” famously states Jack Zipes. And yet, this statement does not always seem to apply to non-Western story structures, such as the Asian kishōtenketsu, which implies a story development that does not necessarily revolve around conflicts. In many of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies (e.g., My Neighbor Totoro; Spirited Away, The Secret World of Arietty), it is possible to detect, on the one hand, the kishōtenketsu-based plot, and,on the other hand, the widespread presence of Western fairy-tale tropes. Conflicts in traditional Western fairy tales may sometimes manifest in the form of riddles to solve. Although Miyazaki’s stories do not shun away from riddles, how do these riddles relate to conflicts? How are Western and Asian story structures bound together in Miyazaki’s narratives, and what effects does this hybridization generate in their audiences? This article argues that: 1.) Riddles based on Western fairy tales in Miyazaki’s work do not necessarily involve conflicts, and are recast and re-elaborated in highly unusual ways; and 2.) The employment of these unusual patterns, mixing up together Oriental and Occidental frames of reference, gives rise to stories that puzzle the mind of spectators, working as complex narrative riddles.","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"13 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140982166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article uses the short story, “Her First Ball,” by Katherine Mansfield to demonstrate how fiction could be an effective tool in the process of deconstructing and transforming the master narrative of old age among secondary students of English as secondary language (ESL). The story not only offers some language points to focus on and some reading skills to develop, but it also provokes some pertinent questions about the image and meaning of old age. Aging themes in “Her First Ball” could serve as an excellent starting point for discussion among adolescent learners about old age. Moreover, such an open-ended approach to Mansfield’s story could potentially lead to a deepened awareness of the social impact of the semantics of old age as well as the transformation of students’ conceptualization of becoming mature and growing old. In addition, this article is devoted to rebuke such a purely didactic approach by presenting the literary text as a tool for complex pedagogical practices.
本文以凯瑟琳-曼斯菲尔德(Katherine Mansfield)的短篇小说《她的第一场舞会》(Her First Ball)为例,说明小说在解构和改变英语为第二语言(ESL)的中学生对老年的主叙事过程中如何成为一种有效的工具。这个故事不仅提供了一些需要关注的语言点和一些需要培养的阅读技巧,还引发了一些关于老年形象和意义的相关问题。她的第一个舞会》中的老年主题可以作为青少年学生讨论老年问题的一个很好的起点。此外,对曼斯菲尔德的故事采取这种开放式的方法,有可能加深对老年语义的社会影响的认识,并转变学生对成熟和变老的观念。此外,本文还致力于通过将文学文本作为复杂教学实践的工具来反驳这种纯粹的说教方法。
{"title":"Drill Hall or Ball Hall? On Pedagogical Implications of the Old Age Motif in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Story “Her First Ball”","authors":"Eliza Gładkowska, Anna Kwiatkowska","doi":"10.7202/1111283ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1111283ar","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses the short story, “Her First Ball,” by Katherine Mansfield to demonstrate how fiction could be an effective tool in the process of deconstructing and transforming the master narrative of old age among secondary students of English as secondary language (ESL). The story not only offers some language points to focus on and some reading skills to develop, but it also provokes some pertinent questions about the image and meaning of old age. Aging themes in “Her First Ball” could serve as an excellent starting point for discussion among adolescent learners about old age. Moreover, such an open-ended approach to Mansfield’s story could potentially lead to a deepened awareness of the social impact of the semantics of old age as well as the transformation of students’ conceptualization of becoming mature and growing old. In addition, this article is devoted to rebuke such a purely didactic approach by presenting the literary text as a tool for complex pedagogical practices.","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"20 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140984245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The essay examines the interdependences between experience, narration, and dialogue. I begin by reflecting on my early work, The Wounded Storyteller, and progress to my current work on vulnerable reading. Questions raised include the extent to which people can tell stories they call their own, and where people acquire the resources to tell stories. Responses to these issues depend on the distinction between stories as particular, local, and contingent, and narratives as generally available cultural resources. Shared background knowledge of narratives makes specific stories tellable and recognizable. Experience, I argue, is given shape as it is articulated in stories, but it always exceeds what a story can tell.
{"title":"Why Wounded Storytellers Need to be Vulnerable Readers","authors":"Arthur W. Frank","doi":"10.7202/1108954ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1108954ar","url":null,"abstract":"The essay examines the interdependences between experience, narration, and dialogue. I begin by reflecting on my early work, The Wounded Storyteller, and progress to my current work on vulnerable reading. Questions raised include the extent to which people can tell stories they call their own, and where people acquire the resources to tell stories. Responses to these issues depend on the distinction between stories as particular, local, and contingent, and narratives as generally available cultural resources. Shared background knowledge of narratives makes specific stories tellable and recognizable. Experience, I argue, is given shape as it is articulated in stories, but it always exceeds what a story can tell.","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"133 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140485385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this intellectual autobiography, I trace the development of the idea of narrative identity as manifest in personality and developmental psychology. As far as my own work in this area is concerned, the story begins in the early 1980s when my students and I struggled to understand the meaning of Erik Erikson’s concept of identity. Early work on a life-story model of identity aimed to situate the concept within the rapidly transforming field of personality psychology, first articulated as an alternative to the ascending conception of the Big Five traits. Eventually, I turned my attention to the redemptive life stories told by highly generative American adults, as my understanding of narrative identity came to be more fully contextualized in culture and history. While hundreds of nomothetic, hypothesis-testing studies of narrative identity have been conducted in the past two decades, the concept has also proven useful in the realm of psychobiography, as illustrated in my case studies of the redemptive life story constructed by the American President George W. Bush, and in my research into the strange case of President Donald J. Trump, whose most striking psychological attribute may be the near total absence of a narrative identity.
{"title":"Narrative Identity and the Redemptive Self: An Intellectual Autobiography, with Occasional Critique","authors":"D. McAdams","doi":"10.7202/1108951ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1108951ar","url":null,"abstract":"In this intellectual autobiography, I trace the development of the idea of narrative identity as manifest in personality and developmental psychology. As far as my own work in this area is concerned, the story begins in the early 1980s when my students and I struggled to understand the meaning of Erik Erikson’s concept of identity. Early work on a life-story model of identity aimed to situate the concept within the rapidly transforming field of personality psychology, first articulated as an alternative to the ascending conception of the Big Five traits. Eventually, I turned my attention to the redemptive life stories told by highly generative American adults, as my understanding of narrative identity came to be more fully contextualized in culture and history. While hundreds of nomothetic, hypothesis-testing studies of narrative identity have been conducted in the past two decades, the concept has also proven useful in the realm of psychobiography, as illustrated in my case studies of the redemptive life story constructed by the American President George W. Bush, and in my research into the strange case of President Donald J. Trump, whose most striking psychological attribute may be the near total absence of a narrative identity.","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"375 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140480012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
For many people, aging is perceived and experienced in implicitly tragic terms: as a narrative of decline, as little more than a downward trajectory toward decrepitude and death. Such a way of storying later life can set us up for (among other things) narrative foreclosure, which can fuel the mild-to-moderate depression to which older adults are susceptible in the face of aging’s many challenges. Insofar as our experience of aging is inseparable from our story of aging, this paper argues for an alternative narrative of later life. Drawing on concepts from narrative gerontology and narrative psychology, it outlines how later life can be re-genre-ated from tragedy to adventure in at least four inter-related directions: Outward, Inward, Backward, and Forward.
{"title":"Age as Adventure: Restorying Later Life","authors":"William Randall","doi":"10.7202/1108955ar","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7202/1108955ar","url":null,"abstract":"For many people, aging is perceived and experienced in implicitly tragic terms: as a narrative of decline, as little more than a downward trajectory toward decrepitude and death. Such a way of storying later life can set us up for (among other things) narrative foreclosure, which can fuel the mild-to-moderate depression to which older adults are susceptible in the face of aging’s many challenges. Insofar as our experience of aging is inseparable from our story of aging, this paper argues for an alternative narrative of later life. Drawing on concepts from narrative gerontology and narrative psychology, it outlines how later life can be re-genre-ated from tragedy to adventure in at least four inter-related directions: Outward, Inward, Backward, and Forward.","PeriodicalId":501346,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Works","volume":"221 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140480690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}