Abstract:

The term Pedagogic Literary Narration conceptualises teaching around narrative prose in native-tongue (L1) literary study in primary, secondary and higher education. This core activity arises where teachers and students read a novel or play together, usually linking reading aloud, discussion and analysis over a series of lessons.

This paper presents the theoretical innovation of Pedagogic Literary Narration demonstrating its distinctive pedagogic features through empirical transcript data drawn from school classrooms and university seminars in the United Kingdom.

The research methodology extends and combines narratology, Narrative Analysis and Conversation Analysis to account for the subtleties of L1 reading pedagogy. It breaks new ground in its focus on the relationship between written and spoken narration, considering the narrative inherent in the printed study text alongside the new co-constructed narrative a teacher and their students create around it through talk and over time.

The study recognizes the centrality of reading together in literary study, identifying teachers' subtle yet crucial actions during literary narration which are often spontaneous and apparently intuitive. In-the-moment teacherly judgement is critical in literary study, though such expertise goes unacknowledged where professional evaluation practices overlook its significance for learning. Using a lens of 'educational connoisseurship' (Eisner) the paper advocates Pedagogical Literary Narration as unitary paradigm for shared L1 literary reading sufficiently versatile to apply to study around any literary text within any curriculum and any classroom. It can inform and refine teacher education and development, and has wider relevance for other disciplines where teachers share narrative texts with students.

Keywords:

Reading, literature, narrative, mother-tongue (L1) study, Pedagogic Literary Narration, Narrative Analysis, Conversation Analysis.