Layered Reading Through Literary Narrative Structures

My research investigated how teachers could develop students' literary framework, and build on their experience of fiction by studying what is typical and enduring about reading. I outline an original narrative framework that was brought to bear on the study of literature and was easily and readily taught to primary students. This approach analyzes stories by means of the fictional literary codes (or narrative structures) we use to organize stories and convey meaning. To ensure that this approach was of practical use to educators, I conducted a formative experiment to address the following questions: 1) How do elementary students' interact with and respond to stories by means of these literary structures? 2) How can teachers work with children to analyze how a story is coded to convey meaning? I collaborated with five primary teachers to first analyze stories by means of their literary narrative structures and then to develop questions to be used to guide instruction and classroom reading discussions and interactions. The teachers and I planned instructional strategies and put these into action. Approximately once a week for the entire school year, I visited the grade 1 and 2 teachers and their students during their language instruction periods and then reflected on my observations with the teachers. To analyze how these students engaged with and responded to stories, I gathered qualitative data through observations, interviews and student writing samples. Results show that by using the literary structural framework, grade 1 and 2 students engaged in critical text analyses, demonstrated a deep comprehension of stories, transferred the structural framework to understand new texts, contributed meaningfully in dialogues about literature, related the content of stories to their structures, and engaged in processes associated with scientific and creative thinking. The conceptual narrative framework of this research was shown to be an effective way to deepen students literary comprehension and develop critical relational thinking.Ph.D