INTRODUCTION

I taught IB Language A English for over twenty years at Stanton College Preparatory School in Jacksonville, Florida, and I taught teacher training workshops for IB for several years. During these workshops, I found that teachers responded with enthusiasm when I introduced some of the ideas of narrative theory - an approach to narrative fiction that was consistent and detailed, that provided an architecture with which to analyze narrative fiction, and which gave students tools with which to approach a text. I found that when I used such material in the classroom, the test scores went up, for we were no longer simply “gossiping” about a text but actually analyzing it as one would analyze anything given the tools with which to accomplish the analysis. And the material was not specific to any one text but applicable to all texts. In other words, it is the textbook which the English class has never had. A textbook tells one how to analyze data or specimens, it gives us tools and asks us to apply those tools to specific examples ; in the English classroom, however, we have only the examples, the novels and stories, but no coherent set of concepts with which to approach them. It was not until graduate school that I began to come across such material, and I found that it was certainly not beyond the grasp of IB students. Indeed, they responded well and we had good, productive discussions of the various works. They took away something that would stand them I good stead In their college courses because they had a set of general concepts applicable to any narrative fiction.

Here is a simple example: Every narrative begins with a disruption in the fictional world.

This is such a simple concept, but it is applicable everywhere. The question , “What is the disruption” leads to all kinds of discussions and in all directions. In some narratives it occurs right away; in others it appears after several or many pages. Is the disruption physical or emotional? Consider the opening of The Stranger (Le Estranger). “Mother died today, or was it yesterday.” This certainly seems like a disruption. But as we follow Mersault for a few pages, we begin to wonder if, indeed, this was disruption in his world. If it wasn’t, what on earth would be a disruption? (It turns out, that the disruption occurs physically halfway through the book, and emotionally not until the last few pages.)

What follows is the work I progress. I will add various pages as I get them ready for the website. Much of this material I made available online to teachers from various IB workshops, specifically the FLIBS workshops in St. Petersburg, Florida. I believe this will still be available at the URL I gave them then.

Please feel free to email me with questions, comments, or suggestions. I hope these pages will be a starting point for discussions of literary analysis among teachers something we to rarely get to engage in, and something which I sorely miss.

TEXTS

As a note, the texts I used consistently in my class (Year II of Language A English) were:

The Awakening Kate Chopin

Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe (World Lit. for genre)

Turn of the Screw Henry James

Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf

Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad

The Stranger Albert Camus (World Lit.)

In Year I (taught my another teacher) students read As I Lay Dying to which I often referred.

These were chosen with an eye to providing different narrative structures and approaches, not simply because I thought were “good”. This is another advantage I found when I began to incorporate narrative theory into my class - it gave me a focus and a purpose for chosing certain works. And an array of narrative approaches allows to students to handle questions which ask about the approach of different authors to same material, theme or question.