This report considers some of the expectations, conventions, and strategies relied upon by Anglo children when they are participating in the speech event of storytelling, with particular focus on the children's interweaving of narrational and metanarrational speech. The data were obtained from white middle-class schoolchildren, aged six through…

Formulae in composition can be derived and applied through a three-part process: first, analyzing passages and deriving formulae; second, writing sentences from formulae; and third, writing a composition using only sentences derivable from the formulae. Student participation in all three parts provides better motivation and demonstrates to…

This paper presents the results of a quantitative analysis of the historical present tense (HP) in English. The tokens of HP in narrative clauses, such as "he's smiling, an' he picks up the card," are referentially equivalent to their past tense alternants in the phrases, "he was smiling an' he picked up the card." Previous…

Intended for beginning and nonprofessional film makers interested in making the educational film, this book explains the technical aspects of film making, the roles of the specialists responsible for it, the types of film treatments (expository, narrative, and dramatic), and the various types of educational films. Some of the technical aspects…

This paper discusses the rationale and teaching methods for a six-week unit, for a high school freshman English Class, on perception, semantics, and writing, which places special focus on developing tension in student writing. The first four objectives of the course focus on perception and the next two focus on semantics. The seventh…

This book considers the right and the wrong ways to approach different types of novels. Trollope's "The Way We Live Now" is the starting point for chapters dealing with the conventions of realism as they are revealed in the presentation of characters, in the novelists' language, and in the tension between the autonomy of character and the demands…

"The Hope Chest," a short story by Jean Stafford, offers a challenge to the oral interpreter of literature because it demands that the performer demonstrate its complex narrative levels. There are five distinct facets in the personality of the central character, Miss Bellamy: a lonely, fearful old lady; a shrewd, hospitable mistress of…

Examines the "Evagoras" from the perspective of contemporary narrative theory, inquiring into internal adjustments that the encomium underwent as epideitic rhetoric sought to play a role in state affairs. Claims uniqueness for the narrative structure of Isocrates's encomium: a combination of fictional narrative (quest for virtue) with…

Examination of the productive narrative competence of three five-year-olds revealed that the children routinely and regularly produced a striking variety of 14 narrative forms. Seventy percent of the narratives took anecdotal form, and original fantasy narratives occurred only rarely. (Author/CB)

Describes a psycholinguistic investigation of children's competence in the production of extended discourse, concentrating on discourse form (narrative versus expository) and production modality (written versus spoken). (SKC)

A review of research concerning bilingual (English and Spanish) Chicanos' use of code-switching during spontaneous oral narrative indicates that such code-switching may be organized to achieve more dramatic effects through personalizing (as opposed to objectionalizing) certain parts of the narrative and through techniques of foregrounding and…

Considers how foreign language students can be trained to apply focalization to get beyond the mere content-oriented teaching of literature and work toward understanding what authors do in their texts and appreciate how they do it. (CB)

Proposes a classroom technique that has students examine texts from different points of view by changing the narrator. The method is an amusing, motivating, and challenging exercise in French composition, and is illustrated in an excerpt from a Camus novel. (MSE)

The difficulties hearing impaired students experience in acquiring the conceptual information underlying narratives is discussed in terms of schemata development and the role of incidental learning. Principles for teaching concepts and labels, elaborating the schema, using questions to fill in conceptual gaps, and using imaginary play and…

Offers a proposal for an integrated reading and writing curriculum that emphasizes essay and other informational writing. (HOD)