Narrative, Entitlement, and Storytelling in the Teaching and Learning of Science in a Fourth-Grade Classroom

• In Event: Roundtable Session 29
  In Roundtable Session: Listening to What Children Say: Narratives in Teaching and Learning

Abstract

In this ethnographic study of science education in a fourth grade classroom, we explore teaching and learning science as students learning to tell science narratives. As such, students need to learn how to structure the narratives, what constitutes appropriate content, entitlement rights, and what intertextual connections are appropriate including how different science narratives are related to each other. Using narrative theories and microethnographic discourse analysis, we show how teachers and students constructed science narratives and positioned students as science emerging science ‘storytellers.’ In doing so, science concepts are embedded in narrative representations foregrounding science as principled inquiry processes.

Authors

• David M. Bloome, The Ohio State University

• Danusa Munford, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

• Melissa I. Wilson, The Ohio State University