The article discusses cultural variation in narrative genres, use, and learning. The ethnocentricity of many current approaches to the study of narratives is pointed out. Four universal types of narrative are identified (recounts, eventcasts, accounts, and stories). Teachers should not assume a common cultural background in children's access to…

Strategies for gathering narratives from children are described. Two analysis approaches (narrative level and story grammar) are recommended for discriminating between the narratives of normal and handicapped students at various ages. (Author/DB)

Using an anthropological approach to folklore, the article views children's development of fictional narratives as performances that accentuate prosody. When viewed as performance, the meaning of stories is seen to be not just in the underlying structures, but also in the social and cultural contexts of the story. (Author/DB)

High quality children's literature should be used to facilitate language-learning-disabled children's narrative abilities in the areas of structure, content, values, and aesthetic appreciation. Using the macrostructure of the story can lead to the exploration of feelings and values in real or imagined situations. (DB)

The article explores the development of children's understanding of causality, its effect on narrative development and organization; and the development of intentional, goal directed behavior. (Author/DB)

The literature on how children begin understanding subjectivity and point of view in fictional stories is considered. Examination of the oral stories of a five-year-old child indicated the ability to depict the beliefs, intentions, feelings, and perceptions of the story characters. Implications for assessment and interventions to help children…

Narratives of children from different Spanish-speaking backgrounds illustrate that children's atypical narrative performance may reflect individual or cultural differences. It is suggested that static assessments may not differentiate narrative differences from disorders. A dynamic assessment model to predict the child's true language learning…

After describing the principles of culturally compatible education, the characteristics of Native American and mainstream narrative discourse are compared, and teaching the structure, content, and style of mainstream narratives is advocated. A program designed to facilitate Native American elementary school children's abilities to comprehend and…