A Non-Narrative Explanation of the Importance of Narrative
Eric Middlebrook
Professor Stephens
LIT 4433
“A Non-Narrative Explanation of the Importance of Narrative” Everyone is familiar on some level with the drab sort of dry-as-a-bone scientific literature students are forced to read and attempt to digest. But perhaps not as many have been exposed to any sort of scientific literature relayed in a narrative style, even though those who have probably retained that information more clearly than those who have only perused long-winded text books. The fact of the matter is that when information is presented in a manner that is contextualized through narration, it is more readily retained and recalled. Amongst examples used to illustrate the point, one Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History will provide a counter-example with which to contextualize the thesis, backed by scientific fact that lends itself toward that same thesis. Also of note is the irony that this paper is written in an expository fashion. To understand how a narrative writing style might increase a reader’s level of understanding and retention of facts, one should first be somewhat acquainted with exactly what makes a narrative and just what exactly it is that makes them such a good model for presenting information. According to Bruner (via Avraamidou and Osborne), “[t]he situations and episodes in narrative have a close correspondence to everyday experiences, so the comprehension mechanisms are much more natural than those recruited during the comprehension of other discourse genres such as argumentation, expository text, and logical reasoning.” They go on to list seven criteria to classify a narrative: purpose, events, structure, time, agency, narrator and reader. Purpose is the narratives ability to convey understanding of the human or natural world. Events are a chain of sequences connected to each other in some sensical fashion. Structure denotes that the work has an identifiable beginning, middle and end.
Professor Stephens
LIT 4433
“A Non-Narrative Explanation of the Importance of Narrative” Everyone is familiar on some level with the drab sort of dry-as-a-bone scientific literature students are forced to read and attempt to digest. But perhaps not as many have been exposed to any sort of scientific literature relayed in a narrative style, even though those who have probably retained that information more clearly than those who have only perused long-winded text books. The fact of the matter is that when information is presented in a manner that is contextualized through narration, it is more readily retained and recalled. Amongst examples used to illustrate the point, one Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History will provide a counter-example with which to contextualize the thesis, backed by scientific fact that lends itself toward that same thesis. Also of note is the irony that this paper is written in an expository fashion. To understand how a narrative writing style might increase a reader’s level of understanding and retention of facts, one should first be somewhat acquainted with exactly what makes a narrative and just what exactly it is that makes them such a good model for presenting information. According to Bruner (via Avraamidou and Osborne), “[t]he situations and episodes in narrative have a close correspondence to everyday experiences, so the comprehension mechanisms are much more natural than those recruited during the comprehension of other discourse genres such as argumentation, expository text, and logical reasoning.” They go on to list seven criteria to classify a narrative: purpose, events, structure, time, agency, narrator and reader. Purpose is the narratives ability to convey understanding of the human or natural world. Events are a chain of sequences connected to each other in some sensical fashion. Structure denotes that the work has an identifiable beginning, middle and end.
Cited: Avraamidou, Lucy, and Jonathan Osbourne. "Science as Narrative." The Story of the Discovery of Penicillin . University of Nicosia, 07/2008. Web. 6 Dec 2011. . Gould, Stephen Jay. Wonderful Life, The Burgess Shale And The Nature Of History. W. W. Norton & Company, 1990. McKibben, Bill. The End Of Nature. Random House Inc, 2007. McKibben, Bill. The Age of Missing Information. New York: Random House Inc, 1992. Merrill, Bryce. "Stories of Narrative: On Social Scientific Uses of Narrative in Multiple Disciplines."University of Colorado. n. page. Print. . Worley, Jeff. "Research Outreach: Using Literature to Teach Math and Science."Odyssey. 07 10 2002: n. page. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. .