Outlines a method for the study of teaching, which reconstructs the meaning of specific classroom activities for students and teachers in terms of narrative unities (i.e., the union of all that a person has been and undergone with the past of the society that shaped him/her). Contrasts narratives and biographies. (DMM)

Discusses how teachers' and students' personal stories are central to teacher education and to the improvement of schools. The article illustrates how the telling and writing, retelling and rewriting of teachers' and students' stories leads to awakenings and transformations resulting in changes in teaching practices. (SM)

A case study of a Chinese teacher educator illustrates one method of researching the development and expression of teachers' personal practical knowledge by collecting fieldnotes, interviews, conversations, journals, autobiographies, stories, personal artifacts, oral histories, letters, and chronicles. Analyzing this information involves…