Storying Worlds: Thinking and Doing Otherwise in Young Children's Story Pedagogy
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| Title: | Storying Worlds: Thinking and Doing Otherwise in Young Children's Story Pedagogy |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Kimberly Lenters (ORCID |
| Source: | Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. 2026 26(2):517-537. |
| Availability: | SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub.com |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 21 |
| Publication Date: | 2026 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Evaluative |
| Education Level: | Elementary Education Early Childhood Education Grade 1 Primary Education |
| Descriptors: | Foreign Countries, Elementary School Students, Grade 1, Young Children, Literacy, Story Telling, Outdoor Education, Play, Story Grammar, Childrens Attitudes, Cognitive Processes, Writing Instruction, Humanism, Narration |
| Geographic Terms: | Canada |
| DOI: | 10.1177/14687984251367651 |
| ISSN: | 1468-7984 1741-2919 |
| Abstract: | Children's storied play, or in other words, their fictive world-building, has much to teach us with regard to understanding story and how story pedagogy might be otherwise shaped in curricular spaces. In this article, we explore this proposition by drawing on interconnected and entangled moments of children's outdoor storied play in a Canadian first-grade class. By mapping the children's movements within three storied-play encounters, we animate how what could appear as the most ordinary and mundane ways of composing story in outdoor, open-ended and make-believe play, offers a lively form of protestation to the predominant Western narrative paradigm of beginning-middle-end story structure. Bringing the three moments into conversation with literary theorist Marielle Macé's concept of narrative stylization, we attend to ways story lives and grows within children's storied and playful worldbuilding. Ultimately, we argue that limiting instructional methods to that which is centred around the objectification and rationalization of storying (i.e., typical beginning-middle-end story structure) can displace other pedagogical directions that recognize and extend the myriad ways in which stories are made, learned, and understood. We conclude the article with an exploration of how educators might promote and build upon the narrative stylizations -- fiction-in-the-doing -- that children are always already engaging in their storied play. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2026 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1504048 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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