How to teach Narrative
Narrative theory is familiar and a relatively easy concept for teachers and students of literature. Narrative structures can be studied in works of literature, journalism, theatre, and all time based media like movies or television adverts. While many media text can be analyzed according to 'classic' narrative principles of storytelling, moving images and digital forms require also a new critical framework.
"There are layers to narratives, to be sure, and they
inevitably revolve around a mix of the present and the
future, between what's happening now and the tantalising
question of where it's all headed.
"
Everything
Bad is Good for you: how Popular Culture is making us
smarter. S. Johnson, Penguin, 2005
As one of the long-standing
'key concepts' applied to media texts by A Level
students, narrative theory is an essential part of the
media teacher's toolkit. Although narrative tends not to
appear discretely as a topic for A Level students, all
'micro' textual analysis requires the analysis of
narrative at the level of the text, and many of the
broader topic areas relate genre and audience to
questions of narrative. Furthermore, all production work
is informed by a range of creative decisions about
storytelling, and the current assessment conventions
require students to write reflectively about such
narrative construction.
Narrative is also a relatively easy concept for the
English teacher to apply to media, but there are pros and
cons that come with such ease of transition. Are media
texts and literature interchangeable in narrative terms,
or do moving image and digital forms require a new
critical lens?
There are a variety of ways in to working on narrative
with students, and the teacher will offer a range of
strategies that reflect this. First, the more
straightforward deconstruction of texts according to
'classic' narrative principles (how space and time are
manipulated in storytelling across a range of media), and
second, a way of 'doing narrative' that challenges the
more orthodox approach and asks whether reading media
texts is really more complex.
In order to raise such questions, one may focus, amongst
other media, on computer/ video games as texts which
potentially transgress conventional notions of media
reading and writing. The objective is first to
familiarise participants with the 'typical' approach to
narrative work in Media Studies, and also to challenge
the concept itself.
Julian
McDougall, Newman College of Higher Education, Birmingham
Read about
Film Narrative and Television Narrative
and a summary of the Key Questions