The last two decades have seen a burst of renewed interest in narrative theory across many academic disciplines as scholars analyze the power of storytelling in print and other media. Teaching Narrative Theory provides a comprehensive resource for instructors who aim to help students identify and understand the distinctive features of narrativity in a text or discourse and make use of the terms and concepts of the field. This volume in the Options for Teaching series is organized to assist teachers at different levels of instruction and in different disciplinary settings. In twenty-one essays, the contributors discuss narrative theory's various teaching contexts (e.g., classes on literature, creative writing, and folklore and ethnography); key concepts and terms (e.g., story and plot, time and space, voice, perspective); applications beyond printed texts (e.g., film and digital media); and impact on other areas of theory (e.g., gender and ethnic studies). A glossary provides a guide to the challenging technical terminology characteristic of the field, and the volume as a whole emphasizes the importance of understanding and implementing technical terms in learning narrative theory.

The past several decades have seen an explosion of interest in narrative, with this multifaceted object of inquiry becoming a central concern in a wide range of disciplinary fields and research contexts. As accounts of what happened to particular people in particular circumstances and with specific consequences, stories have come to be viewed as a basic human strategy for coming to terms with time, process, and change. However, the very predominance of narrative as a focus of interest across multiple disciplines makes it imperative for scholars, teachers, and students to have access to a comprehensive reference resource.

What is the role of narrative in how people learn throughout their lives? Are there different patterns and forms of narrativity? How do they influence learning? Based on data gathered for the Learning Lives project, which sought to understand learning by questioning individuals about their life stories, this book seeks to define a new learning theory which focuses on the role of narrative and narration in learning. Through a number of detailed case-studies based on longitudinal interviews conducted over three and four-year periods with a wide range of life story informants, Narrative Learning highlights the role of narrative and narration in an individual’s learning and understanding of how they act in the world. The authors explore a domain of learning and human subjectivity which is vital but currently unexplored in learning and teaching and seek to re-position learning within the ongoing preoccupation with identity and agency. The ‘interior conversations’ whereby a person defines their personal thoughts and courses of action and creates their own stories and life missions, is situated at the heart of a person’s map of learning and understanding of their place in the world. The insights presented seek to show that most people spend a significant amount of time rehearsing and recounting their life-story, which becomes a strong influence on their actions and agency, and an important site of learning in itself. Narrative Learning seeks to shift the focus of learning from the prescriptivism of a strongly defined curriculum to accommodate personal narrative styles and thereby encourage engagement and motivation in the learning process. Hence the book has radical and far-reaching implications for existing Governmental policies on school curriculum. The book will be of particular interest to professionals, educational researchers, policy-makers, undergraduate and postgraduate learners and all of those involved with education theory, CPD, adult education and lifelong learning.

As diversity continues to increase in classrooms, teachers need to be culturally aware and sensitive in order to ensure student success. It is important to understand what best practices are available to support this ever-increasing awareness of learning to respect those who are different and to understand how this is key to orchestrating a series of social interactions and social contexts. Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning in Higher Education is an essential scholarly reference source that provides comprehensive research on culturally responsive teaching and the impact of culture on teaching and contextualizes issues related to cultural diversity and inequity in education. Featuring a broad range of topics such as gender bias, STEM, and social media, the goal of the book is to build transformative educators and administrators equipped to prepare 21st century global citizens. It is ideal for faculty, teachers, administrators, principals, curriculum developers, course designers, professionals, researchers, and students seeking to improve teaching methodologies and faculty development.

Narrative is everywhere and has unique powers: to enchant and inspire, to make sense of our lives and ourselves and to afford us an enriched understanding of alternative worlds and lives and of better futures – though narrative also has the potential to coerce and oppress. Narrative is at the centre at all stages of the English curriculum and has been the subject of a burgeoning critical industry. This timely volume addresses the many ways in which recent thinking has informed the teaching of narrative in university classrooms in the UK and the USA. Distinguished teachers from both countries range widely across narrative topics and genres, including the opportunities opened up by new technologies, and chapters articulate students’ own individual and collaborative experiences in the teaching/learning process. The result is a volume that explores the pleasurable challenges of working with students to help them appreciate and assess the power that narrative exerts, to become reflective critics of its inner workings as well as exponents of narrative themselves.

It is widely recognised that we are living through an 'age of the narrative'. Many of the constituent disciplines in the social sciences resonate with this trend by using life history and narrative approaches and methods. As we move on from the modernist period which prioritised objectivity into the postmodern regard for subjectivity, this resort to narrative is likely to become more apparent and explicit in academic as well as social and commercial discourse. One aspect of this narrative form which is commonly overlooked is that of the pedagogic encounter. This is the phenomenon which is addressed by all narrative and biographical research. Fundamentally reflecting and examining the narrative of our lives in the process of learning, this book provides a series of studies and guidelines for what we have termed 'narrative pedagogy.' It presents a resource for an exploration of those narrative processes that can lead to meaningful change and development for individuals and groups within a learning environment and in life-learning. This focus on life history allows us to identify and support routes to learning within the narrative landscape of learners and through these pedagogic encounters.

This best-selling book is an easy-to-read introduction to the ideas and practices of narrative therapy. It uses accessible language, has a concise structure and includes a wide range of practical examples. What Is Narrative Practice? covers a broad spectrum of narrative practices including externalisation, re-membering, therapeutic letter writing, rituals, leagues, reflecting teams and much more. If you are a therapist, health worker or community worker who is interesting in applying narrative ideas in your own work context, this book was written with you in mind.