The Teaching of Genres in Schools and a New Critical Literacy - Part 2

Teaching the Language of Narrative Today

Today the first step in teaching any genre in a school setting, including the genre of narrative, is to present to all students the assessment criteria and what is required to achieve each grade from A to E. These criteria are also placed on the wall alongside exemplars for each level so that students are aware of what is needed.

Then commences the several weeks long teaching and learning sequence, which is often based on the theme from the class novel for that term. Teachers then usually present to children the prescribed aspects of narrative structure. This includes its linearity - that it follows a fixed sequence of beginning, middle and end, with events occurring within a pre-set timeframe and a specific context.

Children are taught strategies and sentence types to hook the reader in the opening orientation, and, from there, how to use noun groups, verb groups and complex sentences that enable readers to ‘make a movie’… inside their heads, of course.

Often the writing of the narrative becomes an exercise in adjective and adverb counting by students, while teachers analyse the mix of simple, compound and complex sentences. The first often results in unfortunately florid and stilted language use, whilst the latter seems to be based on some nebulous, yet non-existent, perfect ratio of the three sentence types along the lines of I’ve a few simple sentences, extensively used compound ones and have three very complex sentences so therefore I deserve an ‘A’ because this is 'good writing'.

Following the initial hooking of the reader, students often write an intensely supercharged sequence of events in response to the genre’s call for action throughout the middle part of the story. The conclusion is nearly always based on replicating from a range of recommended, suitable ending types displayed on the classroom wall.

It is difficult to avoid the sense of huge complication involved in this process of writing a primary school story. Many of us may recall our own childhood, where we were simply asked to ‘write a story’ with not a word wall, exemplar, extensive scaffolding, hooking chart, sentence types or assessment criteria to be seen. But then, we were most likely only writing slightly embellished recounts based on our actual experience.

Is the underlying justification for all this linguistic complication merely to achieve a grade on a report card? Given that incredibly few children ever go on to write novels or to write professionally, why is this continued emphasis placed on the narrative genre in schools?

Narratives – An Exposé

Could the teaching of narrative actually be imposing a straitjacket on the potential for true expression in our children?

Observing primary school aged children for several decades has revealed that many already speak articulately in response to whatever presents in front of them when encouraged and confirmed in conversation by a range of adults, who are themselves fully present and responsive.

So why do we gild the lily?

Why do we substitute the simplicity of expressing what is true in any situation for the hooking complication of a text type that is all about withdrawing from being in the present moment in the fullness of one’s physicality? What is it that is so enticing about going into the head and engaging with a mass of complications that are far removed from the present moment in our own bodies?

The rationale that underpins most of education is that of instructing our young in the skills of life. Where in the genre of narrative reside these life skills? After several decades of teaching narrative, I have seen the emergence of not one single famous, or even published, author. This indicates that there is no immediately obvious application to life in terms of one’s preparedness to be fully and vitally engaged in it. In fact, the narrative’s emphasis on escapism and fantasy pulls us in the opposite direction of this. This emphasis appears to exist solely to feed a worldwide pool of fantasy that distracts us all and that we rather euphemistically call entertainment. This entertainment diminishes our capacity to access the fullness of what we are in truth through our oh-so-very physical body. Is this really what we want for our children?

‘Those Who Tell the Stories Rule Society’

Then there is the content of the modern narrative, which is almost exclusively based on serial wars, battles and dramas among protagonists. If large scale circulation of these battles actually reduced the evil in the world, there could be a case made for the genre. However, what is clearly seen is that the battles continue on unabated and even intensified in the real world, whilst narrative viewers become more and more addicted (hooked!) by the ongoing dramas of characters in both books, movies and soap operas. Statistically, this is clearly a case of a positive correlation. As a society, we are demanding more: witness the rise and rise of 24/7 Netflix subscriptions as one example of many indicators of the increased global demand for daily fantasy and escape.

After witnessing for many years how young children project into their own lives and friendships the intense dramas of heroes and villains, goodies and baddies, I now question whether much of our own adult villainising and, equally, pedestal loading of each other, is also derived from us gorging on this intense, instantly accessible diet of fantasy and withdrawal.

It has been long observed how romance novels can corrupt a young woman’s ability to truly engage with men outside of the fantasy of false and idealised expectation. Possibly other narrative genres also corrupt their readers and viewers by lacing them with the expectations and ideals of fantasy. Do we live in the hope that a hero will rescue us when life becomes challenging? Do we expect our police force to have the contrived pizazz of a Magnum Force or conduct our lives as stealth ninjas, ever suspicious of those evil doers called… other people? Most certainly all narratives adrenalise us intensely in the face of a fictitious story that does not even exist in real life. We make ourselves sick because of fantasy! The exponential rise in adrenal exhaustion and endocrine compromise is worth noting in this context.

The entire narrative plot is based on perpetuating separation among groups of people with not a skerrick of harmonious unity to be found. Meanwhile our world is crying out for this harmony and yet continues to feed on the very thing that provides its opposite.

Where is the sense in this?

The normalisation and standardisation of withdrawal accompanied by those enticing, stimulating, high points in the complication (middle part) of a narrative, have us collectively missing out on the actual richness in our own lives. This richness becomes trivialised and ultimately ignored, and then rendered as the invisible mundane because its quality is absent of stimulation and escape. The constant craving to identify with either a hero or a villain is further fed by the massive amounts of merchandise available for one’s favourite character. From duvet covers to erasers, from birthday cakes to clothing, we adorn our children’s homes, bedrooms and classrooms with the icons of their preferred narrative characters.

Where in the midst of all these merchandised identifications is there the space to confirm the inner beauty and truth of our children? Where is the space to offer this to ourselves?

This encourages our children to identify with what lies outside of themselves as almost exclusively worthy of their attention, while what resides within remains dormant and ignored.

In tuning into fantasy, we are turning away from the glory of what we are uniquely and equally so as an interdependent, unified collective.

A New Critical Literacy

In education, we have the amazing opportunity to teach narrative from the perspective of discarding the harm of escapist fantasy. What formidable lessons in critical literacy could emerge from this as the spinning of tales is exposed as no more than the fabrication of unnecessary webs of complication that only suppress and stifle true expression and replace it with addiction to more of the same fantasy?

As teachers, we have the capacity to present a true use of language that confirms, expands and even evolves the reader. It is we, moment by moment, who can sow these seeds of truth, that, in spite of what is circulated about reality, there is a richness to life based on our inner quality, a quality that is easily felt and observed when engaging with most young children. This essential quality is what feeds our true expression and that of our young. It remains within and is completely untouched by any external influence or narrative and is ultimately what impulses our true expression. Under its impulse, our words express the grace and harmony of its quality, deeply felt within the physical body, offering not stimulation, but pure joy.