Narrative across Learning Contexts

3 credits · Graduate

The study of narrative has solidified into an important body of literature that is of particular relevance to educators. Across learning contexts, narrative is a ubiquitous literacy tool, and as such, it underlies many learning activities. We tell narratives for their potency to explain, rationalize, and delineate past, present, and possible experience. This narrative act is a collaborative undertaking, co-told and designed with the audience's input, addressing an audience's present and future concerns. Narrative can thus potentially create shared understandings and community among those participating in narrative activity, yet narratives can become sites for rejection and contestation. Narrative is also a socializing tool. The course will also address methodological approaches to the study of narrative that are relevant to the field of education. Students enrolled in this course are expected to collect narrative samples from naturally occurring interactions (video and audio-taped conversation, classroom interaction), written narrative texts, or other.