Narrative Inquiry in Early Childhood and Elementary School

Book excerpt: As top-down educational reform policies at local and national levels increasingly isolate teachers from their own professional and instructional agency, and stultify children’s passion for learning, new techniques are needed for understanding and transforming educational practices. Narrative Inquiry in Early Childhood and Elementary School: Learning to Teach, Teaching Well facilitates meaningful change in early years education by providing early childhood and elementary school teachers with methods to incorporate narrative into their instruction and inquiry. This book offers practical strategies for incorporating narrative tools and structures into the classroom, and encouraging effective conceptual, pedagogical, and personal avenues for engaged teaching and learning across languages and cultures. The book’s chapters promote a lively discussion of central tenets of narrative inquiry and illustrative examples of teachers at work with narrative and inquiry for improving their practice and children’s learning.