In my post yesterday, I wrote about the confusion I had regarding the concept of 'narratives'. I'm glad I got confused because it motivated me to read more on the subject.
I returned to Laboskey and Lyons (2002) and read through the first five chapters, again. I first read this book earlier this year and I must say, I missed a lot of details then! While reading, I reflected back on what I wrote previously. This process helped me realize that what I have been concerned with (yesterday) is the 'form' of which a narrative should be in. This is a concern to me because there are many who still perceive narratives in the form of a story, where you have sections which set the context of the story, sections which introduce the development of the plot, sections which introduce the characters, etc. We are so accustomed to looking at 'narratives' in the story-type genre, which typically appear in one smooth, uninterrupted, cohesive form (unlike a conversation which is punctuated by different speakers' contributions). Not to say that the SUC (smooth-uninterrupted-cohesive) form does not work, but this form may not be necessary in applied linguistics, or teacher education. The SUC form may have become a 'norm' since narrative studies in literature has been around for so long, which in turn created a metanarrative for narratives (see my post on this on June 6).
However, for narrative-type researches in teacher education, what is of concern is not the form of which a narrative appears in. What is important is that a narrative contains a constructive meaning-making process. Hence, it could assume any forms, as long as the content reflects a teacher's understanding of what he or she does in a classroom. Furthermore, in narrating, or storying an experience, archetypal elements found in a literary-type narrative may appear.
Since a narrative in teacher education is concerned in what is contained in the narrative process, Laboskey and Lyons (2002) suggest the following elements: intentionality, relevance to the context (narratives are made together with other stakeholders of the same field), engagement (active interrogating of personal teaching pedagogy), implicating identity (narrators are 'forced' to question their identity throughout the meaning-making process), and constructing/reaffirming (new) knowledge about teaching.
Finally, I like the new acronym I made today. SUC.
I returned to Laboskey and Lyons (2002) and read through the first five chapters, again. I first read this book earlier this year and I must say, I missed a lot of details then! While reading, I reflected back on what I wrote previously. This process helped me realize that what I have been concerned with (yesterday) is the 'form' of which a narrative should be in. This is a concern to me because there are many who still perceive narratives in the form of a story, where you have sections which set the context of the story, sections which introduce the development of the plot, sections which introduce the characters, etc. We are so accustomed to looking at 'narratives' in the story-type genre, which typically appear in one smooth, uninterrupted, cohesive form (unlike a conversation which is punctuated by different speakers' contributions). Not to say that the SUC (smooth-uninterrupted-cohesive) form does not work, but this form may not be necessary in applied linguistics, or teacher education. The SUC form may have become a 'norm' since narrative studies in literature has been around for so long, which in turn created a metanarrative for narratives (see my post on this on June 6).
However, for narrative-type researches in teacher education, what is of concern is not the form of which a narrative appears in. What is important is that a narrative contains a constructive meaning-making process. Hence, it could assume any forms, as long as the content reflects a teacher's understanding of what he or she does in a classroom. Furthermore, in narrating, or storying an experience, archetypal elements found in a literary-type narrative may appear.
Since a narrative in teacher education is concerned in what is contained in the narrative process, Laboskey and Lyons (2002) suggest the following elements: intentionality, relevance to the context (narratives are made together with other stakeholders of the same field), engagement (active interrogating of personal teaching pedagogy), implicating identity (narrators are 'forced' to question their identity throughout the meaning-making process), and constructing/reaffirming (new) knowledge about teaching.
Finally, I like the new acronym I made today. SUC.
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