Title: Creating Narrative Spaces for Teaching, Learning and Engagement
Author(s) name, Institution: Holly Larson Lesko & Jon Catherwood-Ginn, Virginia
Tech
Abstract, not to exceed 300 words: Among many reasons, humans create stories to make
meaning of lived experiences. The narrative process and how individuals tell and hear
stories are diverse.. The sharing and recording of individuals’ narratives can catalyze
empowerment and reveal mutual strengths and vulnerabilities. By shaping common
ground through subjective points of view and then connecting data to those voices,
teachers and students can better contextualize learning and more deeply engage with local
and global issues and ideas. We believe that as participatory researchers, teachers and
learners, we can co-curate a place where our voices and values can expand a classroom
experience past a data-point and leverage those experiences to interpret, challenge and
more deeply understand the dominant narrative within disciplines, communities and
cultures. Personal and national narratives often serve as “internal operating systems,”
shaping perspectives and guiding behaviors, for better or worse. Starting inquiry from a
place of knowing within community is a critical component of the methodology of
storytelling praxis. The subjectivity and authenticity of personal narrative—which roots
expertise in the individual’s voice—allows stories to break down the rhetoric and
polarization that often divides groups and communities. Claiming personal voice for both
articulating issues and naming assets is elemental in seeding a more civil, engaged
conversation within local and global contexts.
Literature Review:
We cannot move theory into action unless we can find it in the eccentric and wandering
ways of our daily life… Stories give theory flesh and breath.
- Minnie Bruce Pratt, S/HE, 1995, p. 22
A narrative ecosystem surrounds us in personal and professional settings as well as local
and global contexts (McQuillan, 2000). How do these stories influence individual
behavior, and how are narratives influenced in turn by power and structures outside the
immediate community? We would argue that stories are powerful because through stories
individuals know themselves, come to know each other, and build a shared vision of the
world. John Boswell speaks to the importance of constructing and “controlling” the
narrative in democratic debate. From a social justice and participatory research model,
understanding this structure and supporting community engagement in reclaiming voice
and power through narrative is key (Boswell, 2012). Narrative is a crucial device for
supporting deliberative ideals and the ways of knowing must be honored and more
effectively incorporated into the meta-narrative of our politics and economy. Divergent
stories within a community then become an interesting place to examine values’ conflict
and can be illuminating in understanding differences among positions of those held in the
same communities. This conflict and incongruence is most readily felt among
marginalized and oppressed populations, though transparency about the oppressive nature
of these narratives is rare in academic, economic and even social literatures (Bonilla-
Silva et al, 2008). The narrative praxis is rooted in dialogic inquiry within a participatory
research framework. Engagement in this form of individual, classroom and community
collaboration is grounded in the ideals of shared knowledge creation within a belief that
expertise is found in all learners and teachers. Thus, learning is not a separate and
independent activity, but an integral aspect of participation in any community of practice.
Nor is learning dependent on teaching in the most traditional sense of that term. The most
serious problem is in treating knowledge as some thing that people possess. Knowledge is
created and recreated between people, as they bring their personal experience and
information derived from other sources to bear on solving a particular problem. (Wells
1999).
Goals and objectives for the practice session (what should the participants know or
be able to do after the session?): Facilitators will offer context and methods for using
storytelling in the classroom to develop community, engage students, foster peer learning
and teaching, create safe spaces for engaging in controversial and potentially divisive
topics and support reflexive practice.
Description of practice to be exemplified: In practical terms, this session will include a
participatory storytelling component, based on Roadside Theatre’s Story Circle
Guidelines. The roots of this practice reside in many places and peoples - most
immediately in the work of theater artist/community organizer John O’Neal who
developed a story-circle practice in the 1960s with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) and his allied Free Southern Theatre, and refined his practice through
his subsequent company, Junebug Productions. Through guided inquiry, the facilitators
will lead participants in story circles with subsequent dialogue about the revelation of
shared values or concerns, divergent perspectives, and emerging perspectives on others’
view of the world. Additionally, examples of captured narrative work (video and audio)
will be shared along with a brief overview of the tools and process used to create these
digital artifacts.
Discussion: The narrative process honors the truth that each story, each person, brings
wisdom to the whole. By starting from a place of honoring self-knowing, we find that
learning and education occurs without fear of self-loss. We must continue to evolve our
notions of Storytelling like other behaviors, to ensure our survival. Narrative is a place
where indigenous and marginalized populations can anchor or challenges widely
accepted data/information, rather than have others tell their story. We are all storytellers
and gatherers. The key to building community in this context is to honor the individual
narrative and provide context and space for sharing and knowing each other in this
powerful medium and method. The classroom is an idealized place to practice this
important community engagement and learning tool.
References:
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo and Tukufu Zuberi, 2008; “Toward a Definition of White Logic
and White Methods.” pp. 3-27 in White Logic, White Methods: Racism and
Methodology, edited by Tukufu Zuberi and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Boswell, John, 2012. “Why and How Narrative Matters in Deliberative Systems.”
Political Studies, Political Studies Association.
Chase, Susan E. 2005. “Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices.” pp.
651- 679 in Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd edition, edited by Norman K.
Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cook, Samuel R., 2009. “The Collaborative Power Struggle.” Collaborative
Anthropologies 2: 109-114.
The Narrative Reader, edited by Martin McQuillan. London and New York. Routledge,
2000.
Pratt, M.B. 1995. S/HE. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books.
Rappaport, Julian. 1995. “Empowerment Meets Narrative: Listening to Stories and
Creating Settings.” pp. 795-807 in American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol.
23, No. 5.
Roadside Theater. “Story Circle Guidelines.” roadside.org.
http://roadside.org/asset/story-circle-guidelines.
May
1,
2014.
Salzer, M. S., 1994. Seeing the picture in our heads: Narrative and trait adjective
stereotype research methods. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign.
Wells, George, 1999. Dialogic Inquiry: Towards a Sociocultural Practices and Theory of
Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.