Exploring episodic affordance and response in children's narratives based on a picture book

Abstract

This article presents part of a research project where the aim is to investigate six- to seven-year-old children's language use in storytelling. The children's oral texts are based on the picture book Frog, Where Are You? The book consists of a series of episodes that more or less directly point to the plot structure. However, it also contains several narrative detours and sub-plots. The aim of this article is: (1) to identify how the texts alternate between presence and absence of reference to the overall plot structure; and (2) to comment on cases of off-plotline narrative against the background of the interpretive potential represented by the book. Both textual and visual analysis are implemented. The main findings are that there are certain pictures in the book that hardly any of the children narrate in an on-plotline manner and that there are elements in the graphic material that may explain why the children go off-plotline at this point.

Keywords:

• children's narratives
• narrative theory
• narrative competence
• picture book
• visual analysis
• kindergarten

Notes

1. The original idea of breaking down the plot into a goal plan of action was advanced by Stein and Glenn (1979) in their developmental studies of story-grammars and story understanding.

2. Peterson and McCabe (1983) also applied various scoring procedures to assess children's personal and oral narratives, including both high-point and episodic analysis. They found that the models complement one another in the description of structures that form the basis for the children's narratives.

3. In a study of 41 three- to four-year-old children's narratives, related to academic achievements two years later (OíNeill, Pearce, and Pick 2004), a 12-page adaption of the picture book Frog Goes to Dinner (Mayer 1974) was used. The book was shortened to be suitable in length for the children's age, yet maintained a cohesive story line.

4. There are also studies inspired by the cross-cultural perspective that explores how macro structures vary across cultures, i.e. Celinska (2009) and Mainess, Champion, and McCabe (2002).

5. Parent consent for each of the participants was in line with regulations specified by Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD).

6. To assess children within normal range of language development the teachers have utilised the observational material TRAS (Tidlig Registrering Av Språkutvikling [Early registration of language development]) (Espenakk et al. 2011), developed for use in Norwegian kindergartens. The language areas of TRAS are: interaction, communication, attention, comprehension, language awareness, pronunciation, word production and sentence production.

7. It was also desirable to gain insight into the children's socio-economic background based on the mother's education beyond high school. It turned out to be difficult to get access to this particular information. The kindergartens do not have admission to this information in their papers – there is a strict regime when giving out sensitive personal information in Norway. The kindergarten teachers were requested to ask the mothers about their education beyond high school, but the teachers considered this question to bee too personal. The other three criteria, concerning kindergarten attendance, assessed language development and Norwegian-speaking parents, in addition to the fact that all mothers had completed high school, are strong indices of the children participating is not part of any risk group concerning their language development. Still, for the research project, a consequence is that I cannot draw conclusions based on socio-economic conditions.

8. In the established terminology of the Frog Story tradition, the author draws a plot/plotline, the pictures present a story and the child tells a narrative/text.

9. It is not necessary to mention the frog all the time, as long as it is obvious that the boy is looking/searching/shouting for it.