Food for Thought on Teaching Reading to Struggling Learners:
Rosen (in MacLure) refers to the concept of narrative as the ‘irrepressible genre’; it is international, transhistorical , transcultural: it is simply there like life itself....There are widespread claims that the real significance of narrative is that it is a fundamental way in which the mind works... [which] suggests that narrative is at the heart of our mental and social processes.
“The inner speech we use is learned in social interaction. We use the experiences of such discourse to handle our experience narratively in our minds. It would be unusual to find people who would not admit to telling stories in their heads. We daydream and dream in narratives. No one seems to take much notice of this but narrative is the fundamental way in which the mind works, according to Bakhtin (1886)” (p.3).
What Rosen said must be. We all enjoy a good story. Before print was invented, a people culture and folklore were passed down from generation to generation via stories. It certainly is irrepressible. Children's eyes light up when they are being read to. I can still remember years ago when I was a first year infant teacher, how the students would rush to view the book that I read the story from. I believe that it was in an effort to relieve the story experience.
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