English 881: Narrative Inquiry — Family Stories Part 2

Required Materials and Tasks

Due July 8 Tuesday: Required Readings on Family Story Telling

All these articles are posted in the D2L Class Website.

• Book Chapter: Pagnucci, G.S. (2004). Living the Narrative Life: Stories as a tool for meaning making. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Boynton/Cook. (Part Four: “Telling Family Stories,” pp. 88-104).
• Article: Hammill, Bobbi Ann. “Teaching and Parenting: Who Are the Members of Our Profession?” CCC 59.1 (2007): 98-124.
  • This article by IUP alumna Bobbi Ann Hammill is drawn from her dissertation research on the role of mother/daughter relationships in the field of Composition Studies
• Wallace, Robert. (2004). Chapter 4 narrative methodology. This Wild, Strange Place: Local Narratives of Literacy Use in Appalachian Families over Three Generations. (pp. 68-90).
  • This link takes you to Rob’s dissertation which is housed on ProQuest
  • ProQuest is where you will one day upload your dissertation too!
  • You access the dissertation through the IUP Library website, and will need to login
  • Please read Chapter 4 “Narrative Methodology” which begins with a nice narrative Interlude called “West Virginia: Meaningless Words” on p. 68; the chapter ends on p. 90
  • I recommended downloading the dissertation for faster navigation through it
• Article: Tobin, Lad. 1997. “Reading and Writing About Death, Disease, and Dysfunction; or, How I’ve Spent My Summer Vacations.” In Narration as Knowledge. Talk of the Teaching Life, edited by Joseph F. Trimmer, 71-83. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann.
• Article: Park, Gloria. 2021. “I, too, am afraid for my son and myself…’: A mother in academia speaks out in TESOL Journal.

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Class Activities

Opening

Part 1. A Video on Family (4:28)

• Video: Eric Clapton “In My Father’s Eyes”
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald “Show me a hero, and I’ll show you a tragedy”
  • Dolly Parton as Truvy Jones in Steel Magnolias: “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion” (said after she and her sisters first cry and then laugh about stories of their just-passed friend)

Part 2. Journal Writing: On Collecting Stories (20 minutes)

I asked you to interview a family member to get material to write your Family Story. Interviewing is a core data collection tool for narrative inquiry. Let’s have you reflect on how that interviewing went. Please reflect on the following questions:

• How did you identify the person you interviewed?
• How did you frame the project in order to get the person to participate?
• What does this tell you about doing any larger interview-based projects?
• How did you keep the participant talking?
• What surprised you about how the interview went?
• If you were going to conduct a second interview, what would you want to explore further?
• What other take-away(s) do you have from doing this interview?

Part 3. Discussion Groups (20 minutes)

• Talk about SOME of the things you wrote
• You don’t have to read everything aloud, but share highlights
• Please pick someone to be the Speaker who can begin the sharing of your group’s ideas with the whole class later
• What are some key observations your group made about doing narrative interviews?

Part 3. Full Class Discussion (20 minutes)

• A Speaker from each group will share the group’s thoughts with the class

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Part 5. Story Reading Groups (Family Story Peer Review; 30 minutes)

• Please share your family story draft with 2 other class members and provide feedback
• Please focus on these questions as you respond to the drafts:
  • What did you like about the narrative?
  • What are the narrative’s strengths?
  • What areas could be improved, enhanced, or clarified?
  • Could the reflection be improved in any way?
  • If the writer were to make only one revision, what would you suggest?

Part 6. Break (15 minutes)

• Time to re-energize!

Part 7. Full Class Discussion (15 minutes)

• What observations did you draw from reading the family stories
• How do the writers go about telling the stories?
• What writing techniques do they use to move the stories along?

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Part 8. Small Group Discussion – Dialogic Questions About Family Stories (30 minutes)

In a small group, discuss the questions below which emerge from the class readings. Please pick someone to be the Speaker who can begin the sharing of your group’s ideas with the whole class later.

• Family experiences and personal experiences are not typically part of classroom discussions. What’s the cost of this separation and how might we address that separation in productive ways?
• Who owns a family story? How can we protect members of our family if we tell a story while still trying to get at the truth of a lived experience?
• Bobbi Ann Hammill discusses how views of motherhood impact our views of teaching and learning. While we think of mothers as nurturing and often associate this with teaching, mothers are also often disempowered and women’s voices are often silenced. In addition, composition courses generally privilege argumentation over collaboration which tends to make the teaching of writing gendered in a way that privileges traditionally masculine vs. famine values. How can we use narrative modes of thought to help students think critically about gender’s role in writing?
• Tobin says that in the essays he collected for a writing contest, students often chose to write about pain and suffering. He says the students also seemed to “view their ethnic background as a serious problem, an albatross that has held them back from social or educational success” (p. 78). But these stories all have happy endings. How can we help students to learn from and make sense of their live experiences in meaningful ways?
• Academia consistently privileges the voices of experts which is why citation is so important to scholars. How can we help students to feel more connected to the conversations in their fields?

Part 9. Full Class Discussion (30 minutes)

• A Speaker from each group will share the group’s thoughts with the class

Closing

Part 10. A Vide on Family (4:19)

• Video: Celine Dion “A New Day Has Come”

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Assignments

Due July 9 Wednesday: Required Readings on Family Story Telling

All these articles are posted in the D2L Class Website.

Articles/Chapters about Narrative Inquiry