American Indian narrative uses a rhetorical conception of narrative action, following one of two basic types of recurrent formal pattern of lines and verses and sets of verses, in pairs and fours or threes and fives, using pauses and/or syntactic particles to define the patterning, varying between different languages. (MH)

Drawing on the Kreilters' work with the psychology of adult artists, the authors show how children's story drawings develop the same four types of realities: origins, everyday experiences, normative realities (rules), and prophetic (anticipatory) realities. Illustrations are included. (SJL)

Retention of prose is examined as it is affected by (1) outlines as advanced organizers; (2) preexperimental familiarity with the material; and (3) text genre. Findings are discussed in the context of current theories in cognitive psychology, particularly those of structure, organization, and representation of knowledge and prose. (Author/GK)

Describes a game which can be used to acquaint students with the basic elements of narrative fiction. (DD)

This longitudinal study assessed the narrative language development of primary grade children with slow expressive language development (SELD) as toddlers who either had or had not moved into the normal range of expressive language by early school age. Deficits in narrative skills tended to disappear in children with a history of SELD, though…

Comparison of 14 verbally gifted 6-year olds with equal numbers of chronological-age and mental-age controls using a structural-developmental analysis found that the gifted children organized story plots in ways typical of children 2 years older, elaborated on basic plot structures more than control groups, and demonstrated advanced language…

Examined three- to five-year-old children's understanding of pretense and deception in folktales in which a villain deceived his victim by pretending to be someone else. Found that the three-year-olds were able to follow the pretense but were not able to grasp the false belief integral to the deception. (MOK)

Three strategies are suggested for teachers to use in developing the critical imagination of students: (1) the deconstruction of lived and told storylines; (2) the development of reflective ethical practice in line with post-structuralist understanding; and (3) the writing, telling, and adapting of stories that interrupt binary thinking. (SLD)

Discusses how narrators (distinct from authors) emerged in English prose works during the last decade of the sixteenth century. Reports that instances of the use of narrators can be found throughout the seventeenth century, but that it was another hundred years before the technique developed fully enough to constitute a recognizable narrative…

A computer program titled "The Bald Headed Chicken," written for the Apple IIE and Apple IIGS, is described. The program enables primary-level students, as well as limited-English-speaking students, to manipulate graphics and text to create their own stories which can then be saved on disk or printed. (Author/JDD)

Primary school children, after viewing a silent film, were asked to narrate a segment of the film and recount its events both as a news story and as an embellished story. The results indicate that primary school children have only nascent ability to apply genre knowledge to school language tasks. (55 references) (Author/JL)

Examines Biblical apocalyptic theory and secular apocalyptic literature. Proposes a new theory of apocalypticism in secular public discourse derived from those two major theories. Provides examples of apocalypticism in secular public discourse. (MM)

Uses a rhetorical analysis of a storytelling process presently ongoing about artificial intelligence to reveal the communication patterns which are used to maintain and shift ideologies. Suggests an extension of Fisher's narrative paradigm of the processes of continuity and change underlying storytelling, via Brown's conception of ideology as…

This study compared the use of reference cohesion in oral narratives produced by 93 students with and without learning disabilities (LD), ages 8-13 years. Results indicated significant group, age, and task effects. The specific kinds of reference cohesion problems exhibited by LD students involved accuracy of use and distance between reference…

Explores the ongoing debate over quantitative versus qualitative research, arguing that qualitative research has evolved from a methodological approach into a social and political ideology. The current emphasis on narrative ways of sharing knowledge raises concerns about evaluation and hypothesis testing. (SLD)