English 846: Narrative Research
Task:
An Exercise in Framing Stories
Dr. Gian Pagnucci
Task Overview
An exercise in Story Framing:
1. Before moving from your computer, save your file again adding version
2 to its name.
2. Read someone else’s story. At the bottom, insert a row of stars:
***********
Frame #1: Central Frame
3. Next, write in a
paragraph or two your understanding of what you think the writer’s
central frame for his/her story of learning. (The frame may
or may not be easy to see.):
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Think of this as
trying to construct the writer’s frame (that is,
capturing what the
writer was hoping the story was to be about)
-
What point of
view/perspective do they seem to be taking (see p. 119 in Meyer)?
-
From what vantage
point do they seem to be telling the story (student, educator,
disinterested bystander, all knowing/omniscient narrator, innocent
participant in the events, etc.)?
-
What sort of
response does the story generate in you? What type of response is
the story likely to generate?
-
Where do their
sympathies lie?
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What are they
trying to convince us of?
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What does the
point/lesson of the story seem to be?
4. Add another set of stars *******************, then click save
just to be safe.
Frame #2: Alternative Frame
5. Read the story and the original frame. Then, write a new,
alternative frame for understanding the story. You may have to
extend some of the story’s ideas to make this possible:
-
Think of this as a
reader’s frame rather than the writer’s frame (that is, what the
writer was hoping the story was to be about)--here you think of
other ways to read the story, perhaps slightly resistant ways
-
Take a different
point of view about what the story might mean; consider a
drastically different way of interpreting what the story means
-
Think about how
another character in the story, or related to the story, might
understand it
-
Focus on a
different moment in the story with more clarity; perhaps, if one
moment were given more attention, it would recast the story in a new
light
-
Offer a perhaps
less obvious interpretation of the story; try to unpack some of the
story’s hidden meaning(s)
6. Add another set of stars *******************, then click save
just to be safe.
Frame #3: Scholarly/Theoretical Frame
7. This time, we’ll try to create a scholarly/theoretical frame
for the story. Warning: Do not try this task at home (at least, not
without books, articles, and other references). Read everything written
so far, then write the type of frame below:
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Offer a theory for
why the story is told the way it is told
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Use the theory of
some scholar whose work you are familiar with to help
interpret/critique the story
-
If possible,
reference a school of thought which supports this way of looking at
the world (Marxism, feminism, expressivism, social constructionism,
etc.)
-
Your effort now is
to create a frame that links the story to larger issues in the
world; to pull the story up and out of the person toward all of us
8.
Click save
one last time to preserve all this interesting work. |
