About

'Children appear to know the importance of storytelling as if by instinct. From a very early age their play takes the form of story; sometimes they term their story play "pretend." … They delight in using what comes to hand; they are small bricoleurs who make barbecues or bowls out of sticks of wood, or who fashion snowballs that make noise and need to be hushed, or who build tents or caves with a blanket… Mallan's book is an important contribution to our understanding of how story works and of how storytelling functions as a social, political, and educative activity.'

Professor Roderick McGillis, University of Calgary, Canada

'…an excellent thesis, written with critical aplomb and insight… '

Professor Richard Andrews, Middlesex University

'Mallan manages to work through difficult theory, methodology and text analysis in ways that are sophisticated, conceptually elegant, and above all, original.'

Associate Professor Nola Alloway, James Cook University

Proudly published by Post Pressed

top

Contents

• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of figures
• PART ONE Beginnings: Storytelling, Narrative, and Play
  • CHAPTER ONE Story, schooling and performance
    • A series of personal beginnings
    • Story(telling) and schooling
    • Narrative knowledge
    • Storytelling as performance
    • The present study
  • CHAPTER TWO Storytelling as cultural practice
    • Introduction
    • Historical origins and social significance of Storytelling
    • Storytelling as 'powerful' social practice
    • Storytelling and children's play
    • Summary
• PART TWO (Re)casting the players - rehearsing the theory
  • CHAPTER THREE Discourses framing research on children's Storytelling
    • Introduction
    • Storytelling as a feature of progressive pedagogies
    • Storytelling as narrative knowledge
    • Storytelling as a communicative act
    • Storytelling as discursive practice
    • Discursive shifts in the research: an overview
    • Conclusion
  • CHAPTER FOUR Ways of reading the performing body
    • Introduction
    • Postpositivist research
    • The limits of structuralism
    • Poststructuralist theories: Making discourses visible
    • Subjectivity and identity
    • Feminisms and the social construction of gender
    • The politics of narrative
    • The body at play: Bakhtin and carnival
    • Foucault, bodies and power
    • Towards a methodology for reading the performing body
    • Summary
  • CHAPTER FIVE The study
    • Introduction
    • Researcher as reteller of tales
    • Phases of the research process
    • The setting: Impressionist tales
    • The tellers, commentators and critics
    • Research methods
    • Assembling the collages
• PART THREE Romance, adventure, and carnivalesque tales
  • CHAPTER SIX Picture stories
    • Introduction
    • A workshop vignette
    • Patterns of cultural representation
    • Tales of love and marriage
    • Tales of adventure
    • Summary
  • CHAPTER SEVEN Familial tales
    • Introduction
    • A workshop vignette
    • Not by words alone: (Re)membering the body and voicing desire
    • Intermezzo
    • Storyplay as carnival
    • Concluding comments
  • CHAPTER EIGHT Body politics
    • Introduction
    • The politics of voice and gesture
    • A storytelling habitus/ethos
    • Humour as a political ploy in gestural and verbal discourses
    • The politics of the gaze
    • (In)conclusion
• PART FOUR Happily ever after?
  • CHAPTER NINE Re/framing the performing body
    • Introduction
    • Framing the performative
    • Student bodies as sites/sights of resistance and compliance
    • Telling signs on the researcher's body
    • Shifting contexts
  • CHAPTER TEN New tales for new times
    • Multiple knowledges
    • New tales for new times: Beyond mainstream identities
• APPENDIX A Series told in two workshops
  • A1: The diamond of the heart
  • A2: The Snooks family
• APPENDIX B Letters seeking consent
  • B1: Letter to Principal
  • B2: Letter to parents seeking consent to videotape workshops
  • B3: Letter to parents seeking consent to audiotape interviews
• APPENDIX C Overview of workshops
• APPENDIX D Sample page from field journal
• APPENDIX E Mapping of a storyplay
• APPENDIX F Pictures used in children's stories
• REFERENCES References and select bibliography
• INDEX

top