Through a critical analysis of Classroom Connect's Quest experiences from 1998-2002, this study provides a framework for using narrative theory to guide the design and evaluation of educational multimedia and online education. Narrative theory, derived from literary and media studies and influenced by cultural studies, offers numerous parallels to…

The National Center for Accessible Media has developed a technology and protocol for inserting extended, enhanced descriptions of visually based concepts into artificially paused digital video. These "eDescriptions" describe material not fully explained by a narrator and provide analogies and explanation specifically designed for…

The use of rhetorical voice in literature and news reporting is examined and its implications for classroom study of literature are discussed. Analysis is based on Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the novel and the definition of "voice" as an identifiable social role or position that a character enacts, and "ventriloquation" as the…

This paper provides information concerning preschool narrative development in typically developing North American children, stressing previously documented links between early narrative skills and literacy development. Methods are provided for assessing narrative skills of language-impaired children. The methods involve eliciting from the children…

This study investigated the effectiveness of color coding, accomplished by highlighting, used to help students differentiate between exact meaning (explicit information) and implied meaning (implicit information) in both narrative (short story) and expository texts. Subjects were 78 sixth-grade students randomly enrolled in four language arts…

The conversational narratives of 17 Japanese children aged 5 to 9 were analyzed using stanza analysis. Three distinctive features emerged: (1) the narratives are exceptionally succinct; (2) they are usually free-standing collections of three experiences; and (3) stanzas almost always consist of three lines. These features reflect the basic…

A computer program devised to analyze text by the use of case grammar is described. The program tests a text against the expectations created by a narrative situation and by the connotative values in the narrator's choice of words. It determines spatial concepts attached to various English words and analyzes the spatial relationships in syntactic…

A collection of 23 brief texts in Guinaang Kalinga (called Guininaang by native speakers), gathered in the Guinaang region of the Philippines, are presented with ethnographic and linguistic notes and translations. The texts address topics of common cultural patterns, history, and storytelling. An introductory section describes the sources and…

Group activities in the classroom can be a useful way to explore various standard rhetorical patterns. For descriptive writing, students can select and write about unsigned collages made by classmates. The writer can try to find a unifying theme that characterizes the artist's personality. A narrative component can be added to descriptive writing…

This book offers 46 children's camp stories, including stories about ghosts, adventure, other lands, humor, Indian fables, and stories with a moral. An introduction offers some background of the publication and a few tips on successful story-telling. The stories include: A Full Meal; A Fuzzy Tale; An Ameri-Indian's Ecological Lament and Prophecy;…

Reflecting the concerns of researchers and practitioners about children's text comprehension, this book defines and provides examples of narrative and expository text and describes research-based strategies for helping children comprehend these two types of text. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "Research on Stories: Implications…

This article discusses editorial "filters" in folktales, specifically the changes ("orientations") which editors deliberately impose on a tale because they want to reach a specific audience. A case in point is the tale called "Allerleirauh," in the Grimm collection, which not only is highly illustrative of editorial…

A German language class project designed to develop individual learner autonomy involved a third-year class and a sixth-year class of girls in the production of a fashion show using slides and narration. A variety of related class activities were used: choosing pictures, making suggestions to people about what to wear, analyzing clothing types,…

A study was conducted to determine if instruction in schematic aspects of narratives would enhance children's knowledge of story constituents and their interrelationships and to assess the effect of instruction in narrative schema on the reading comprehension of average and below average readers. Subjects were 20 fourth grade students who had been…

Designed to stimulate reluctant writers in grades five through eight, these 40 uncompleted stories were written by a teacher who has used them with success in the classroom. The stories are arranged by length and complexity, and topics range from tales of childhood experiences to accounts of history, nature, and science fiction. A section…