Narrative Learning

The articles in Third Update on Adult Learning Theory are rich with learning theories, and I’m still trying to unpack all the meanings and implications presented. All of the articles were enlightening, but the article that piqued my interest the most was “Narrative Learning in Adulthood” by M. Carolyn Clark and Marsha Rossiter. The narrative theory the article describes rings true for my own personal experience. The idea that people construct their identities and reality based on storytelling is incredibly compelling.  I often find myself reassessing my identity through constructing “stories” about my past and its effects on my present. Of course, before reading this article, I wouldn’t have called them stories at all. My friends and family also engage in storytelling as a way of labeling people or situations through gossiping. I would like to do more research in this area because it seems so very true.

I’ve also experienced narrative learning. Some of the classes I’ve found most memorable were ones where storytelling was utilized as a primary teaching technique. For example, my high school A.P American History class always felt like a particularly informative soap opera where the setting was the past and the actors were historical figures. The side stories my teacher told us gave the dry facts in the textbook life and cut the sense of detachment the printed text fostered. The article gave three methods on how to incorporate narrative learning into a course: learning journals, concept-focused autobiography, and instructional case studies. I haven’t had much experience with the latter one, but learning journals have been a powerful tool for me, and my Linguistic Autobiography allowed me to really delve into a concept and connect the concept to myself.