This may sound naive to some people, but I only recently learned (from the chapter “Language and Literacy in the School years” by R. Ely, in “The Development of Language”) that there are two major forms of narrative: topic-focused narrative and topic-associating narrative. In fact, there may well be more forms, but I am not aware of them.
A topic-focuses narrative is a story about a single person or event that has a clear beginning, middle and end.
A topic-associating narrative is a story that links several episodes thematically, and these episodes may involve several principal characters and shifts in time and setting.
It is stated in this chapter that the former are mainly used by many middle-and working-class European-American children, while the latter are often used by working-class African Americans. While I did hear oral topic-associating narratives, I have never seen an essay written in this form. I was wondering if any of you did read such essays, and what would you tell the student in this case? Because on the one hand, we should not discourage creativity and personal style, but on the other, we want to help students learn to write in a way that would be appropriate for their future workplace. This seems to be almost like a vicious circle.
This article (A Poverty of the Mind) made me think of your post. Perhaps one answer to the author’s question is related to what you point out — how we often ignore or undervalue alternative forms of learning in educational environments. This NY Times article raises lots of interesting points, but the author (Patterson) keeps returning to why black men struggle to do well in school. It seems interesting that the school system or learning system itself is not really taken to task by Patterson. Anyway, a point of contact.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/opinion/26patterson.html?ex=1144386000&en=57f31ba493a86dc9&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Reply to Jill
Thank you Jill, I would have missed this article.
Reply to Yana