Navigating narrative and analysis: students’ mediation of historical content through storytelling

Figures & data

Table 1. Texts examined.

Text	Title	Σ words	Description
1	‘Interview with Atahualpa and Mike Byers’	2300	Fictional interview with Inca emperor Atahualpa Interview answers, interspersed with commentary from a ‘history expert’ (Mike Byers).
2	‘Columbus’	1800	A sailor’s retelling of Columbus’s 1492 expedition. Concludes with a personal observation by the student under the heading ‘My perspective’.
3	‘Inca Empire Story’	1700	A young girl, inhabitant of the Inca Empire, retells her experience of the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors.
4	‘Magellan’	1300	A sailor’s first-person account of Magellan’s early 16^th century expedition.
5	‘Magellan’	700	A third-person account of Magellan’s expedition. Contains a short concluding section, ‘My opinion’
6	‘Magellan’	600	A third-person account of Magellan’s expedition. Contains a short concluding comment from the author.
7	‘Magellan’	400	A third-person account of Magellan’s expedition.

Table 2. Historical stance orientations.

Stance	Orientation	descriptor	Example
Identification stance (I)	I1	The reader can empathize with individual characters.	‘Rodrigo, my childhood friend, has dreamed of being on board Columbus’ ship’
	I2	The identification extends to generalized collectives.	‘Columbus’s way of thinking was typical of the time he lived in.’
Analytical stance (A)	A1	Accounts of causes and consequences, limited to the external sequence of events.	‘Atahualpa wanted to appear peaceful and was therefore unarmed in the encounter with the Spaniards’
	A2	‘Economic and political underlying causes of the course of events, and/or long-term.’	‘The ease with which Atahualpa was defeated led the Spanish to conquer and the entire Inca Empire.’
Moral response stance (M)	M1	Individuals’ exemplary or morally reprehensible actions are indicated.	‘Pizarro was cruel to Atahualpa’
	M2	Moral response is generalized to wider contexts, e.g. to current events	‘Columbus’ voyages started colonization and the taking of innocent people as slaves.’
Exhibition of Knowledge stance (E)	E1	Display of detailed facts relevant to the narrative	‘Only 18 men returned from Magellan’s expedition’
	E2	Display of facts with contemporary relevance.	‘Even today it is called the Pacific Ocean’

Note: ‘1’ indicates an individual stance orientation, ‘2’ denotes a public orientation

Figure 1. Identified relationships between narrative emphases and historical understanding.

Figure indicating relationships between narrative emphases (descriptive, evocative, emotive) and historical understanding (factual presentation, agent-centered explanations, structural explanations, empathy, and critique).

Figure 2. Texts grouped by range of narrative execution and historical understanding.

Figure plotting each text for historical understanding and narrative degree. Texts fall into three clusters A: low narrative degree with limited range of stance orientations; B: high narrative degree, broad stance orientations favoring analysis; C: high narrative degree, broad stance orientations favoring empathy.

Table 3. Summary of the comparative evaluation of texts.

TEXT	Narrative rank; 1 = ‘most narrative-like’	Narrative perspective	Salient emphases of historical understanding	Extra-narrative sections	Sections’ emphases on historical understanding
1	2	1st person	Empathy	Yes	Agent-centered explanations Critique
2	3	1st person	Explanations	Yes	Structural explanations Critique
3	1	1st person	Empathy	No	n/a
4	3	1st person	Explanations	No	n/a
5	5	3rd person	Facts	Yes	Structural explanations
6	6	3rd person	Facts	Yes	Agent-centered explanations
7	7	3rd person	Facts	No	n/a

Figure A1. Details of the comparative evaluation of texts 1–7.

Chart detailing the quantitative measurement of narrative degree alongside qualitative differences in terms of narrative perspective, emphases of historical understanding and text structure.