Tell Me a Story

Using Narratives to Break Down Barriers in Composition Courses

By (author) Anthony Tate Fulton, Christopher B. Field, Michael MacBride

Publication date:

28 September 2017

Length of book:

142 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781475828788

Stories have great power. This book attempts to harness that power to help students grow and develop as writers. It argues that stories and narratives can be utilized in the composition classroom, specifically first-year composition (FYC) to break down barriers. Throughout a given semester, stories and narratives can help students in composition courses to overcome academic, personal, and creative barriers, establishing a space for developing as writers and thinkers. Providing theoretical approaches, practical methods, and implications for using stories in FYC, this book explores the versatility of stories as teaching tools.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Role of Stories and Narratives in Composition
Section One: Breaking Barriers
Chapter 1: Breaking the Ice: The Teacher as “Story”
Chapter 2: Using Narratives in First-Year Composition Courses to Allow Students to Confront the Traumatic
Chapter 3: Narratives as Gateways to Reflection
Chapter 4: Narratives as a Catalyst for Research
Chapter 5: As the Semester Ends: The Writing Portfolio as Narrative
Chapter 6: Stories in an Online Environment
Section Two: Implications and Conclusions
Chapter 7: “Why Did You Give Me Such a Bad Grade?”: Providing Constructive Assessment of Narratives
Chapter 8: “Yes, But…”: Establishing a Language Base for Working With Stories
Chapter 9: Implications for New Teacher Training
Bibliography
About the Authors
Index

Beyond ‘What I Did on My Summer Vacation’ -- finally, a text that makes a convincing case for integrating narrative writing with research and argumentation in English Composition. Fulton, MacBride, and Field firmly root their book in composition and rhetoric scholarship while offering practical, useful teaching tools for FYC instructors. A confessed skeptic on the uses of narrative in English Composition, by the time I finished reading I was coming up with my own ideas for how narrative might be repurposed for argumentative essays. Tell Me a Story is persuasive.