In this essay, Carola Conle and Michael deBeyer describe their efforts to find a conceptual approach and methodology for the appraisal of the ethos of experiential narratives presented in a particular curriculum context. The language of "implied authorship," "the patterning of desire," and "friendships offered and received," first introduced by…

Concern about the impact of narrative worlds and their heroes offered by the media prompted research on encounters with moral models in experiential, narrative curricula. Researchers tracked the extension of a mandated Language Arts curriculum on "heroes" through the experiential narratives of four local heroes chosen collaboratively by teacher,…

The issue of being "practical" presents a continuous challenge, because student teachers' meanings for that word tend to be in sharp contrast to meanings that allow inquiry and are connected to personal and cultural histories. Instructor and student perspectives elucidate the struggle to find a compromise within this tension in the form of a…

Scanning my own academic work to discover hidden agendas revealed underlying issues that seemed important in cultural pluralism. They included the need for recognition and for public spaces in culturally pluralistic environments where the experiences of individuals from very different backgrounds are listened to and valued. It was particularly…

Examines the process of resonance through an examination of the experiences shared by four preservice teachers. The role of experiential storytelling, and the connection of specific items in current or past experiences to a narrative of their own or someone else's experience are discussed. (MAK)

Reviews several narrative practices in relation to the narrative functions they rely on, noting how those functions point to potential curricular results. Uses Schwab's commonplaces as common denominators that cut across practices to determine different locations for curricular gain, examining narrative curricula as narrative, story, and…

Describes the development of narrative inquiry, highlighting one institutional setting, and discussing how narrative inquiry moved from being a research tool to a vehicle for curriculum within both graduate and preservice teacher development. After discussing theoretical resources for narrative inquiry, the paper examines criteria and terms…

Using Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action and concept of communicative rationality, the paper proposes that narrative inquiry can be a rational enterprise, presenting narrative inquiry as a narrative discourse which has the dual function of being a method of inquiry and a means of personal and professional development in teacher education.…

Folk models have been called unspecified programs that are passed on and learned experientially. Through a narrative reconstruction of a participant observer's fieldnotes on an eighth-grade teacher's professional activity, the researcher sensed two folk models at work: (1) knowledge as corpus, hierarchically organized; and (2) knowledge in…