Narratives of Classroom Life:
Changing Conceptions of Knowledge
CYNTHIA D. NELSON
The University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia
Narratives of classroom life—the type that blend analysis with artistry, in
the form of plays, poems, stories, and the like—remain relatively
uncommon within language education research. Yet such narratives have
the potential to make a significant and timely contribution to the field,
given the ways in which knowledge is being reconceptualised in this
postmodern, transglobal era. Here I make a case that incorporating
crafted classroom-life narratives into language education’s research
repertoire—within a body of work that I propose be called critical
narrative studies—can help to address the field’s changing needs by
further democratising knowledge production and exchange, illuminating subtle yet vital dimensions of classroom interactions, and prompting
imaginative interpretations and revisionings. My argument draws
together relevant strands of applied linguistics research; narrative
theories and research from education, sociology, and the arts; and
several classroom narratives of mine. I conclude with recommendations
for enhancing the rigour and reach of studies that incorporate narratives
of classroom life, in light of some important dilemmas and cautions.
doi: 10.5054/tq.2011.256799
Four billion people on this earth,
but my imagination is the way it’s always been:
bad with large numbers.
It is still moved by particularity.
Wis awa Szymborska (2001, p. 87)
A
s a teacher and a lover of the literary arts (especially poetry, plays,
novels, memoirs), I have long been drawn to education studies that
have a strong focus on narrative: the vivid unfolding of events. As a
reader of research, I enjoy work that surprises or intrigues me; that
uncovers and jostles assumptions I did not know I had; that has a
compelling rhythm, a poetic sensibility, a certain sharpness; that lingers
in my mind long after the first reading; that stirs me to think—not just
abstractly but also kinesthetically, emotionally, viscerally. Thus I was
heartened by Canagarajah’s call, back in 1996, for TESOL’s professional
and academic communities to accommodate more writing that is
TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 45, No. 3, September 2011
463
simultaneously ‘‘creative and critical’’ (p. 329), and I have noted with
interest the steady growth of narratively oriented research in second and
foreign language education.
In fact, a recent survey of 10 international language learning and
teaching journals, including TESOL Quarterly, between the years 1997
and 2006, found that nearly one-quarter of the published articles were
qualitative (representing nearly 500 articles)—and that as many as onethird of these qualitative articles were associated with some form of
‘‘narrative study’’ (Benson, Chik, Gao, Huang, & Wang, 2009, p. 84). The
survey found that not all of the studies that feature or focus on narratives
refer to themselves as narrative studies; nonetheless, it is clear that such
studies are gaining prominence in the field and are generating
important insights about language learning and use (Nunan & Choi,
2010; Pavlenko, 2002, 2007); language teaching (Cummings, 1996;
Curtis & Romney, 2010; Phillion, 2006); and language teacher education
(Golombek & Johnson, 2004; Johnson & Golombek, 2002).
As a writer, I have experimented with including my own experiential
narratives of classroom life in some of my publications—in part, because
I can relate to Casanave’s (2002) comment that ‘‘I can’t think or write
academically without thinking and writing creatively’’ (p. 279). Yet I have
often struggled to define and name what exactly I am trying to do with
my narratives in epistemological terms, to articulate a rationale that will
be compelling for an international academic audience (Nelson, 2005a).
I began to consider my own desires and dilemmas about incorporating
classroom narratives into research as not so much a personal quirk but a
consequence of shifting conceptions of knowledge on a broader scale. It
was this line of thinking that became the impetus for the current
investigation.
CRAFTED NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
Although qualitative research in language education is characterised
by ‘‘methodological eclecticism’’ (Benson et al., 2009, p. 88), I have
found relatively few studies that experiment with creative forms or styles
of narrative. A handful of examples that do this, at least to some extent,
include: A dialogue between researchers, which includes short narratives
(Haque & Morgan, 2009); evocative accounts of students, teachers, or
classroom interactions (Cummings, 1996; Nelson, 2005b, 2010); a poem
by a teacher about an English as a second language (ESL) lesson
(Carlson, 1992, as cited in Freeman, 1996); the narrative rendering of a
researcher’s thoughts while observing a class (Ellwood, 2009; Nelson,
1999; see also Phillion, 2006); and playscripts deriving from school- or
classroom-based ethnographic research (Goldstein, 2003; Nelson, 2011).
464
TESOL QUARTERLY
In the literature of education (not language education), over the past
decade autobiographic narratives have become fairly plentiful (often
citing Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, on narrative inquiry, and
Polkinghorne, 1988, on narrative knowing, among others). However,
when reading some of these studies (including many doctoral drafts),
my initial excitement often turns to disappointment as I reach the
conclusion of yet another self-focused text: too much detail, too little
depth; too much angst, not enough insight; too much about what
happened, not enough about what it all might mean—especially for
readers in other locales. Some autobiographic narratives seem strangely
generic, on the bland side; sometimes the tone seems aimlessly
confessional or self-consciously clever; sometimes the accompanying
analysis seems sketchy, failing to come together into a focused scholarly
argument.
Heated debates about the pros and cons of narrative research
generally have been occurring in education and other social sciences
(see, e.g., Anderson, 2006a, 2006b; Smith, 2009); and criticisms are
beginning to emerge in the few large-scale surveys of published narrative
research in language education. For example, the earlier-mentioned
survey by Benson and associates (2009) found that, in recent qualitative
studies of language learning and teaching, the processes for data
collection are made clear, but the processes for data analysis are typically
vague or nonexistent. Similarly, Pavlenko’s (2007) review of studies of
language learners’ autobiographic narratives found a dearth not only of
critical analysis but also of theoretically informed methodologies.
In this article I seek to shed light on such concerns by outlining some
of the main aims, benefits, and challenges of incorporating into
language education research what I am here calling crafted narratives of
classroom life. Though any narrative could, as a rhetorical construction or
performance, be considered crafted, what I mean here by crafted
narratives are those that are deliberately styled in arts-based forms
(stories, poems, plays, and the like) and that are meant to be evocative
and aesthetically engaging (I tend to focus on the written, but narratives
could also be in visual, video, or performance modes). Implicit analysis
or social commentary is often embedded within the crafted narrative,
which may be serious or humorous, contemplative or dramatic, other- or
self-focused, or some combination. By classroom life, I refer to the
goings-on in classroom (or e-learning) spaces: the interactions,
dynamics, talk, silences, curriculum, activities, thoughts, feelings,
gestures, innuendoes, and so on.
This article draws together relevant work from applied linguistics,
education, cultural studies, performance studies, and sociology. I first
situate crafted narratives of classroom life within a body of work that I
am calling critical narrative studies, and I then discuss the usefulness of
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
465
classroom-life narratives in terms of changing conceptions of knowledge
and changing needs of research in this era of postmodern globalisation.
The conceptual discussion is interlaced with three narratives of mine,
which are meant to ground the ideas and either exemplify, complement,
or complicate the issues being considered. All three narratives are set in
English language classes in the United States, including a poem about a
class I taught years ago as a student teacher in a university language
program (Nelson, 2008); part of a story from my first year of teaching (at
a community college; Nelson, 2005b); and part of a scene from a
research-based play I wrote using classroom and interview transcripts
and student writing (the most recent performance is Nelson, 2011). I
then discuss some challenges of incorporating narrative writing into
research, explain my rationale for selecting the narratives and narrative
forms featured in this article, and conclude with some practical
suggestions for enriching the knowledge base of language education
through narratives of classroom life.
SITUATING CLASSROOM-LIFE NARRATIVES WITHIN
CRITICAL NARRATIVE STUDIES
Taken together, the general criticisms mentioned above—that
narrative studies tend to lack a theoretical and methodological rationale
and sometimes rigour (in an analytic or artistic sense)—are hardly
surprising, given the relatively recent ascendance, within language
education, of what is variously called narrative research, narrative inquiry,
and narrative study. These terms have not been clearly defined or
differentiated in the literature—either in a theoretical sense or in an
empirical, language-in-use sense—but seem to be used fairly interchangeably (Benson et al., 2009). Pavlenko (2002, p. 213), in a footnote,
does suggest that ‘‘narrative inquiry’’ is more linked to ethnography than
is ‘‘narrative study,’’ but she does not attempt to define the latter.
I would like to situate studies that feature or examine classroom-life
narratives within a diverse body of work that I propose be called critical
narrative studies. This would encompass studies that are, in a nutshell,
centrally concerned with narrative as the object, the means, the style, or
the outcome of inquiry—and that engage in nuanced ways with topics,
questions, and vantage points that are vital yet difficult. This deliberately
broad use of the oft-debated notion critical merits a much fuller
discussion than is possible, or warranted, in this article. But for my
purposes here I simply note that, in advocating for what he calls ‘‘critical
applied linguistics,’’ Pennycook (2001, p. 173) describes this as ‘‘a
constantly shifting and dynamic approach to questions of language and
education rather than a method, a set of techniques, or a fixed body of
466
TESOL QUARTERLY
knowledge’’—and it is this dynamic approach that I mean to suggest as
integral to critical narrative studies. This term would loosely encompass
work associated with one or more of the following categories.
Narrative Learning, Narrative Pedagogies
The first category, narrative as a learning tool, is quite common in
language education literature: It includes studies that focus on the ways
in which reading and writing narratives can foster student learning or
teacher development. It is often noted that writing autobiographic
narratives, for example, can encourage learners to value their own
experiential knowledge as important knowledge, which can be empowering, especially for those to whom the act of naming and framing lived
experience in an education context is not necessarily familiar,
comfortable, or historically valued (Hussein, 2008; Stein, 1998).
Writing autobiographic narratives about one’s own classroom experiences has also been shown to help identify the experiences and
developmental needs of novice teachers and to enhance teacher
thinking and practice (Barkhuizen & Wette, 2008; Golombek &
Johnson, 2004). Also, reading life narratives is a way to incorporate
neglected perspectives into curricula (e.g., Ó’Móchain, 2006).
Narrative Methodologies, Narrative Data
Ubiquitous in qualitative language education research is my second
category, narrative as research data. This would include work that focuses
on analysis through narrative—that is, studies that use narrative data to
examine particular phenomena or ideas (often called content or
thematic analysis); in this work, the narratives serve as a sort of window
pane through which researchers examine particular themes of interest
to them or to their research participants. Given the performativity of
language, some of the work that uses narrative data to investigate a
particular phenomenon also examines that same data in terms of the
linguistic structures and strategies associated with narrative forms; in
other words, analysis through narrative is increasingly combined with
analysis of narrative. That is, the who and the what of narratives are
increasingly examined in tandem with the how (Barkhuizen, 2010;
Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; Coffey & Street, 2008; Pavlenko, 2007).
Narrative Writing, Narrative Epistemologies
The final category—narrative as a style of writing or knowing—is often
evident in research publications when key concepts or particular points
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
467
are introduced or illustrated through a brief life-experience narrative,
when the first person is used to narrate some portion of the research
journey, or when the writer’s own practice-based knowledge is brought
into the research (see San Miguel & Nelson, 2007 on ‘‘linking action
knowledge with theory knowledge’’ in research [p. 83]). The category
would also include more creative styles of narrative writing, which, as
discussed in the introductory section of this article, are gaining ground
in language education but are not yet that prevalent. Of course,
narrative can be understood as not just a tool for communicating ideas
or reporting research findings—as if language were merely a transparent
medium—but as a creative means of construing the ideas, the findings.
Therefore, this last category would include narratives not only as a style
of writing or communicating but as a performative epistemology, a
knowledge structure, a mode of inquiry (see Nelson, 2005a, on the
narrative enactment of theory; and Canagarajah, 2002, on narrative as
‘‘situated thinking,’’ p. 142).
The various narrative functions outlined above are, of course,
overlapping—for example, analytic tools used by researchers to unpack
narratives may be adapted in the classroom to scaffold student learning,
or teachers may initially write autobiographic narratives for pleasure or
professional growth but go on to publish the narratives in the research
literature (as I do here). Indeed, the interrelatedness of these categories
underscores the value of bringing this work together under the broad
umbrella of critical narrative studies, in which classroom-life narratives
might be used for learning purposes; for examining particular aspects of
teaching, learning, or discourse; or for communicating or constituting
knowledge (with or without an accompanying academic commentary).
Having roughly mapped out a larger scholarly context for crafted
classroom-life narratives, I turn to why these are needed in language
education literature at this time and what they might look like.
THE NARRATIVE IMPERATIVE: RECONCEPTUALISING
KNOWLEDGE
The narrative imperative has already had an enormous impact on
social sciences and education research, and is by no means limited to the
academy. With the advent of the digital age, the Internet has been called
a ‘‘global autobiography project’’: the rapid proliferation of electronically mediated communications, social networking, and e-learning has
given rise to a veritable explosion of self-narrative and autobiographic
representations (writing, visual, video; Karlsson, 2006, p. 301, citing
Murray, 1997, p. 252). With new multimedia tools, new forms of
authorship and digital storytelling are constantly emerging (Kern,
468
TESOL QUARTERLY
2006)—developments that make expertise in reading (and viewing),
critiquing, and authoring narratives even more pertinent now than just a
few years ago.
In this climate, the development of what has been called ‘‘narrative
competence’’ (Pavlenko, 2006, p. 105) or ‘‘narrative literacy’’ (Ochs &
Capps, 1996, p. 20) is increasingly crucial within second and foreign
language education—not only for learners but also for those who are
teaching them, those teaching the teachers, and those reading and
writing research. There is, therefore, an urgent need for research that
helps to elucidate and foster what I would call critical narrative
knowledge—that is, expertise and versatility in interpreting, analysing,
critiquing, learning from, incorporating, creating, co-constructing, and
performing narratives.
To this end, experience-based narratives can offer perspectives that
are much needed in language education research, especially in an era
when epistemological understandings are in flux. As Canagarajah (1996)
explains it:
In opposition to grand theories and global knowledge structures, narratives
represent knowledge from the bottom up; in opposition to explicit forms of
theorization, they embody implicit forms of reasoning and logic; in
opposition to positivistic scholarly discourses which are elitist in their
specialized and abstract nature, narratives represent concrete forms of
knowledge that are open to further interpretation. (p. 327)
A number of these points are worth teasing out for my case here.
The Right to Narrate: Democratising Knowledge Work
The knowledge base of language education continues to be
impoverished as a result of colonialist and other discriminatory legacies
that have resulted in inequitable access to such things as research funds
and international publishing opportunities (Canagarajah, 2002; Uzuner,
2008). For many, engaging with Western-dominant forms of research
writing and epistemology can be a contorting, painful experience. As
Luke (2010) puts it:
Academic writing has the veneer of ‘‘naturalness’’ only for those who might
feel born into it, those who have an intuitive sense of its language games, or,
alternatively, those committed to a kind of logical positivism that denies
standpoint, militates against position, and views subjectivity as epistemological flaw and methodological failure. For the rest of us, for those of us whose
ancestors weren’t supposed to be in the Western academy, writing hurts.
(p. 137)
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
469
In her forward to Nunan and Choi (2010), Bonny Norton observes that
reading language-learning narratives by emerging and established
researchers can help novice teachers—particularly those with ‘‘a history
of inequity’’—to see the relevance and value of their own life
experiences to their teaching and research activities (p. xi).
A related point is that practitioners who wish to investigate or reflect
on aspects of their own teaching—particularly aspects that are
potentially contentious—do not necessarily have access to the formal
mechanisms that provide authorisation or support for research. For
example, Curran (2006) provides ‘‘a highly subjective account of my own
experiences with one class’’—a methodology chosen for pragmatic
reasons:
Although I was open to discussing homosexuality in my ESL classes, I felt that
as a part-time teacher on a short-term contract, it could be risky professionally
to make this willingness widely known (see McConaghy, 2004), which is why I
was reluctant to seek institutional permission to undertake empirical research
on this topic. (p. 87)
Thus, narratively oriented studies of teaching and learning experiences
may enrich the field by engaging those who—for myriad reasons—find it
challenging to participate in research conversations as these are
currently structured.
Incorporating classroom-life narratives may also help to ameliorate the
excluding effects of elitist scholarly discourse. Language education needs to
facilitate access and dialogue not only between geo-regions and between
teachers and academic researchers but also between disciplines. Any field of
knowledge can benefit by remaining ‘‘open to ventilation and interpenetration’’ (Dimitriadis, 2006, p. 380), but interdisciplinary intelligibility
is particularly crucial for a field like language education, which seems to
rarely, if ever, enjoy a highly valued position within institutional disciplinary
hierarchies—yet which has much to offer educators in other disciplines
who find themselves struggling to address the learning needs of student
cohorts with increasingly multilingual backgrounds and transnational
aspirations. Vivid narratives of classroom scenes do not require specialised
disciplinary jargon, and as such might be expected to travel well across
geographic, cultural, and intellectual domains.
Because autobiographic narratives can (sometimes rightly) be
dismissed as self-indulgence—‘‘vanity reflexivity’’ (Kenway & McLeod,
2004, p. 527)—it is worth noting an advantage that is often overlooked:
Narratives can be crafted and performed collaboratively, for a broader
social purpose. Stein (1998), for example, explains that most student
teachers in her classes in South Africa did not consider their own literacy
autobiographies particularly interesting, but pooling these together in
470
TESOL QUARTERLY
the form of a performance engendered a greater sense of their
significance ‘‘as part of the political and social history of a nation’’
(p. 524). Similarly, collections of autobiographic narratives—by a
particular cohort, such as TESOL professionals of colour (Curtis &
Romney, 2010); or about a particular theme, such as language, culture
and identity (Nunan & Choi, 2010)—can identify common issues that
require in-depth attention and action, as well as identify points of
complexity and variation.
Thus crafted narratives of classroom life can be a way to engage
communities of learners, teachers, and researchers in claiming what
Bhabha (2003) famously called the ‘‘right to narrate’’ (p. 180)—and, in
so doing, to foster grassroots knowledge work.
Narrative 1
The poem below is from ‘‘Voices of Justice,’’ a creative writing feature
of Multicultural Education (Nelson, 2008, p. 30).
The class is asked what they think of when they hear the words ‘‘United
States’’
Freedom, says Gao, his eyes sentinels. In China we have to
like government, no free place, he says, keeping lips and jaw
half-shut.
Too much freedom here! says Fahd, in sharply creased
trousers and three gold chains. Free to divorce, he says,
incredulous. Children has no father, mother has no help.
Black men, says Musa, in a Coke-red t-shirt that says
QATAR. On the street they smile, call me Brother. He
laughs. In America, I become African!
I have to say drugs, says Abdullatif, his enunciation
impeccable. Every day people ask me—do you want buy
drugs? His elegant features contort in disdain.
Tom Cruise, says Kenichi, in his trademark leather jacket
and black shades no matter what the weather. I love him,
he sighs, because he hansam.
Embodied Knowledge: Illuminating the Subtexts of Classroom Life
Another benefit of crafted narratives is that they can highlight aspects
of classroom life that are not necessarily readily evident but that have a
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
471
shaping effect nonetheless—for example, affect. This has come to the
fore in social sciences research, as the body is acknowledged to be both
‘‘a site of knowledge and an instrument of knowing,’’ and the
dominance of rational thought is being challenged by discourses of
desire (Werry & O’Gorman, 2007, p. 219). Though Werry and
O’Gorman (2007) are discussing theatre classes, they pose a question
that seems relevant to language classes too: ‘‘[W]hat if we were to
understand affect as a pivotal dynamic in the classroom, to think of
desire, dread, pride, anger, frustration, love, shame as what makes
teaching and learning go . . .?’’ (pp. 214–215, emphasis added). In
language education, Johnson and Golombek (2002) found that, when
teachers write about classroom dilemmas, their narratives often embody
a range of emotions. Moreover, by reflecting on moments of emotional
dissonance, teachers are often better able to identify moments of
cognitive dissonance and, as a result, to consider how their own
emotions, beliefs, and teaching practices are likely to affect their
students’ learning (Johnson & Golombek, 2002).
Similarly, writing research narratively can help researchers to understand how an individual’s emotions fit within broader social patterns. As
Lee explains it (Lee & Simon-Maeda, 2006), presenting research data in
narrative form made it possible to highlight the emotional effects of
racist incidents on a teacher in her study—and in so doing, to begin to
identify patterns that reflect broad systematic inequities that the field
needs to address collectively, rather than dismissing these difficult
moments as isolated incidents that happen to oversensitive individuals.
Of course, emotions are not always a focus of evocative classroom-life
narratives, because ‘‘subjective emotional description is only one kind of
evocation’’ (Anderson, 2006b, p. 459). Narratives can also highlight
implicit, everyday forms of reasoning and theorizing that are shaping
classroom discourse and interactions. As Silberstein (2008) notes,
‘‘teacher education involves making conscious the often unconscious
theorizing that drives pedagogical decisions’’ (p. 300). I would argue
that narratives of classroom life could provide both means and material
for examining the ways of thinking evident in the narrated characters, or
the ongoing ‘‘dynamic theorizing’’ of teachers and learners (p. 301).
Importantly, narratives that communicate ‘‘the subtle and vital qualities
of what teachers understand’’ can open these understandings to
collegial exchange and scrutiny (Freeman, 1996, pp. 106–107).
Thus writing, reading, interpreting, and critically assessing narratives
of classroom life may help to surface the emotive and theoretical
underpinnings of particular pedagogical practices, so that their likely
effectiveness or otherwise can be considered.
472
TESOL QUARTERLY
Narrative 2
The excerpt below is from an article in the Journal of Curriculum
Theorizing (Nelson, 2005b, pp. 112–114).
From Invisible
Without pausing, Kanae is listing names I don’t know. They roll off her tongue
as if the list were infinite. After certain names, Akemi, or Mitsuko, or Nagako
sighs, gasps, repeats the name and says ‘Really?’ in a rising pitch. Hiromi leans
over and fills me in. These are all famous people in Japan, many of them
entertainers. One name elicits open-mouthed shock from nearly everyone.
Three students in this all-female class are leading a discussion about the articles
they had selected on racism against African-Americans in the U.S. Kanae had been
saying that Koreans in Japan, like Black people here, experience discrimination,
when Akemi had exclaimed ‘Oh, maybe where you live, but in Tokyo there are no
Koreans.’ This sparked the rapid-fire roll call of Koreans, or Japanese people of
Korean descent. I recognize none of the names. I would, in fact, be hard-pressed
to come up with a list this long of any famous people in Japan.
Akemi crosses her legs. She is wearing a black and white polka dot skirt and
pink patent leather pumps. ‘Maybe it’s better if we don’t know,’ she says. ‘If I
don’t know, I don’t discriminate.’ Kanae’s gold earrings—little clown-withpointed-hat pendulums—are shaking as she talks: ‘But if you don’t know,
you’re more likely to say something in front of the person.’ Michiko agrees,
‘It’s better if you know.’
[. . .] Sumire is leaning forward in her chair, her eyes following everything. In
her journal, she had written, ‘Sometimes, I cannot say what I want to say, and I
feel something heavy around my breast. As I feel it, it becomes heavier.’
I myself am about to burst. I briefly wonder whether it’s okay for me to contribute,
then jump out of my seat and leap to the board, nearly tripping over the leg of my
desk-chair. I have no idea what I’m about to say. I draw a big A, B and C.
‘You’ve been talking about whether it’s better, like A, to not know B is
Korean, so A won’t discriminate against B or treat her differently—OR
whether it’s better to be like C, and know, so that C can make sure she
doesn’t offend B.’ My need is looming. My voice is nearly choking. ‘What
about B?’ I cannot contain my passion. ‘How does B feel? What does B need?’
There are three thick lines under the big B.
‘Do you think B will feel more comfortable with A, knowing she doesn’t
know, having to measure and guard each word so the secret doesn’t emerge,
wondering how A would react if she found out—OR would C be a better
friend, already knowing B’s background? What is better for B?’ My black
cotton pants are covered in chalkdust.
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
473
I walk back to my seat in the circle of chairs. Rolling the stub of chalk in my
fingers, I feel absurdly transparent, as if they can see each of my organs. I
glance at their silent, thoughtful faces. Each woman is reading the message
on my forehead. It says I AM B in lavender letters.
[. . .] On the final Monday of the term, I give another mini-speech, somewhat
rehearsed this time. I tell them that we’ve been discussing discrimination
against various social groups all term … and there is another group I want to at
least mention. ‘‘That is, gay people—you know, homosexuals?’’ I scan for nods,
then shift my weight from my left leg to my right. I’m standing up here all by
myself. ‘‘Gay people experience violence, invisibility, all kinds of discrimination.’’ Am I talking too fast? I am sure, by now, that they know, but it has never
been spoken. I have no idea whether they know; it has never been spoken.
Akemi speaks up. Her pink lips match her shiny shoes. ‘There are many gay
people living on Capitol Hill. I didn’t know that when I lived there, but after I
moved my friend told me that.’ Her conversational ease is a gift I gratefully
accept. ‘So you couldn’t tell just by looking at people.’ ‘No,’ she says. ‘That’s
one thing many people don’t realize,’ I say. I wonder if they remember that
I’ve told them I live on Capitol Hill.
[. . .] A few days later, I read Sumire’s final journal entry: ‘This is the last time to
write to you, so I want to say what I have wanted to say you. I (We) really like you
very much. Your comment is very sharp, but you never hurt students’ feelings. I
can open eye to social problems. Maybe still now, I cannot say ‘I understand’, but I
can have careful eyes. I’m still shy, but I did not feel uncomfortable in your class.’
[. . .] I have never felt so myself in a class. In fact, I tell them this on our last
day, as we go around the circle and each say what we will remember about
this class. Passing handkerchiefs and pats on the arm, they are eloquent
through tears and sobs. The dozen cameras appear, including mine. Mayumi
pushes the yellow desk-chairs out of the way and the women group together
against the wall. Sumire refolds her white ankle socks, adjusts her headband
and wipes her eyes. Nagako’s fingers form a peace sign.
I flash on the very first day of my very first ESL class, facing ten Japanese
women whose names I stumbled over, afraid I would never distinguish Kazue
from Kazuo. Plus, three women had straight shiny hair of identical length. I
remember staring and blinking, worried I’d never be able to see them clearly
enough to learn each of their names.
Peering through the tiny rectangle of light, I wish for careful eyes.
Beyond the Known: Ambiguities and Imagination
Postmodern understandings posit knowledge as contingent, uncertain, messy, doubt-ridden—as Canagarajah (2006, p. 28) puts it: ‘‘faith in
474
TESOL QUARTERLY
certitude died when the positivist view of a rational, closed universe was
called into doubt.’’ One of the useful things about narrative forms and
methodologies is that they are able to highlight not only the said but also
the unsaid, not only the known but the unknown: the limits of
knowledge, the impossibilities of knowing. Approaching research via
what Phillion (2006) calls ‘‘narrative multiculturalism’’ involves ‘‘purposefully making oneself vulnerable to not knowing; it is about surprise,
bewilderment, and dilemmas, and learning with and from them’’ (p. 23).
Thus narratives of classroom life allow for dialogues of doubt as well as
stories of success (see Johnson & Golombek, 2002). Narrative forms
excel at highlighting complexities and sparking multiple, conflicting,
and imaginative interpretations. Reading and writing narratives is a great
way of ‘‘sharpening the aesthetic senses,’’ thereby helping to develop
imagination and creative ability (Asanuma, 1999, p. 164)—qualities of
value to language learning, teaching, and critical inquiry.
Narratives also excel at conveying forbidden knowledge or critique via
subtext, omissions, ambiguities, caricatures, unreliable narrators, and so
on. Thus crafting classroom narratives can be a way of incorporating
fugitive knowledge and counterhegemonic perspectives into research
conversations. Counternarratives, or counterstorytelling, can be used to
talk back to larger systematic inequities by posing an alternative view or
counterpoint to the status quo, because a covert critique may be more
viable, and more effective, than an overt one (see Michael-Luna, 2009,
citing Matsuda 1995; Ochs & Capps, 1996).
Narrative 3
The excerpt below is from a research-derived play, performed most
recently as an invited session at the 2011 International TESOL
Convention in New Orleans (Nelson, 2011).
From Scene 3 of Queer as a Second Language
Mr V is a 62-year-old man from Vietnam, Mi-Young and Pablo are his
classmates, and Tony is their teacher.]
MR V
One day a friend ask me to go to bar after work. After a few
minutes, he told me ‘Do you see there’s no woman in this bar?’ I
was surprised. Then one man. . . come to me. And fluh with me.
(MI-YOUNG and PABLO laugh)
TONY
What?
MR V
Come to me and fluh.
TONY
And WHAT?
PABLO
(spelling the word in a friendly way to help TONY understand) F–L–I–R–T.
TONY
(delighted) Flirted with you! (ALL laugh) Our vocabulary word!
MR V
My friend whisper something on the man’s ear, then the man, he
walk off.
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
475
TONY
MR V
Uh-huh.
I ask my friend ‘What you say?’ My friend said ‘I told him we got
married a few days ago, so we are on honeymoon’. (ALL laugh)
SOME DILEMMAS AND CAUTIONS
Notwithstanding the benefits of incorporating crafted narratives
within research, there are, of course, obstacles and challenges as well.
Below I raise a few paradoxical desires that I have wrestled with when
publishing narratives about classes I have taught or observed.
Open-Ended Meanings
The first has to do with wanting, on the one hand, to guide readers
towards a certain interpretation, viewpoint, or academic argument that I
am trying to put forward and wanting, on the other hand, to encourage
readers to query or dispute what is being said; to think of things that I, or
my research participants, never considered; to draw their own conclusions; or, even better, be motivated to pursue their own questions
pertaining to the matter at hand. Although the open-endedness of
interpretations is, for me, part of the appeal of narratives, a research text
requires an academic argument; furthermore, the academic game is
structured such that pithy quotable quotes, small nuggets of knowledge
(of novel knowledge, no less) are the stock-in-trade for researchers.
(When I have tried to cite some of my own narrative work, even I have
had difficulty doing so, for the simple reason that it is not easily
paraphrased or summarised; as a novelist put it, describing a book of
hers—‘‘if I could condense it into other words I should not have taken
such care to choose the words I did’’ [Winterson, 1996, p. 165].) In
short, narratives, and the knowledge gleaned through these, seem
resistant to the simplistic and speedy summations often required in
research.
So there are tensions between advancing a particular viewpoint and
inviting varied points of view, between conclusive academic argumentation and open narrative exploration, between explicit truth claims and
implicit meanings (see Coulter & Smith, 2009). In short, in narrative
research the stories must serve the ideas—but without being sunk by
them.
Narrative Smoothing
Another thorny issue is that of crafted narratives masking their own
constructedness, hiding their own methods and processes, including the
acts of ‘‘narrative smoothing’’ that are inevitably required for clarity and
476
TESOL QUARTERLY
focus (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 181, citing Spence, 1986, p. 211).
In education, narrative researchers have been criticised for not always
making it clear to readers whether a character represents an actual
individual or a composite (drawn from people the writer has observed or
studied), or whether the characters’ speech has been semifictionalised,
edited, or represented verbatim. If certain choices about character, plot,
or voice have been made for literary reasons rather than empirical ones,
should this be spelled out to readers? Smith (2009) proposed that
narrative authors may be able to reduce their ‘‘authorial surplus,’’ by
sharing more of their methodological decisions (p. 606, following
Bakhtin, 1984)—yet excessive explication could counter the very reasons
for using a narrative in the first place. This dilemma touches on issues
that sit at the heart of research endeavours: trustworthiness, veracity,
truth effects, and so on. Although tackling these is beyond the scope of
this article, I would like to make just one important point.
It is ironic that, while narrative research is still at a stage of needing to
take pains to justify its existence and to theorise its rationale, the
narrativity of research texts in general tends to go unnoticed. Franzosi
(1998)—who is discussing sociological research but whose point has
relevance here—notes that researchers who use interview data routinely
‘‘cut up individual stories and recompose the pieces into new stories,
with the coherence and context of each original narrative lost and
forgotten. Upon the new stories, [researchers] then impose the
coherence of the ‘scientific’ ethnographic text in the context of
sociological ‘literature’’’ (p. 548). In this sense, all research involves
restorying, though it is rarely recognised as such.
Narrative Maturity
Another point worth mentioning is that teachers and researchers who
attempt to fashion creative or evocative narratives have varying degrees
of experience and adeptness at this sort of writing. Phillion (2006), for
example, seems to be asking readers not to judge her experiments with
form too harshly when she says: ‘‘I hope you will keep in mind I am not a
poet, yet felt compelled, driven, to other forms of expression’’ (p. 40)
(see also Casanave, 2002, p. 245). At the same time, creative narrative
literacies can, and perhaps ought to, be developed. Of course, I am not
trying to imply that narrative approaches should replace other research
approaches—that would be absurd—only that, done well, they ought to
be an option. Even for those who do not take up the option themselves,
it can be advantageous for research communities to be exposed to
epistemological experimentation and methodological diversity and
flexibility (following Pallas, 2001).
With regard to the poor literary quality of some narratives in
education research, DiPardo (1990) makes a good point: ‘‘That which
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
477
teachers often label as unsatisfactory in student narratives—predictable
story lines, a certain narrow self-absorption . . .—can be see[n] as
indications of narrative immaturity, not a wholesale indictment of the
genre’’ (p. 79). In other words, problems in narrative research are not
necessarily attributable to the approach itself but possibly to the
researcher’s level of skill in implementing it. If the aim is critical
engagement rather than mere sentimentality or celebration (see Miller,
1998), then narrative events need to be selected and rendered with care,
so that they are sufficiently clear yet richly complex.
WHY THESE PARTICULAR NARRATIVES AND NARRATIVE
FORMS?
Some elaboration is in order as to why I chose the particular narrative
forms and narratives that I did; this is similar to explaining why one
chose a particular analytic approach and particular data excerpts, or how
such choices are meant to advance one’s aims or argument. But first it is
worth mentioning that more attention needs to be given, within
narrative research in TESOL, to the crucial question of how narrative
and expository modes might each ‘‘support and enlarge the other’’
within a text (to quote DiPardo, 1990, p. 87). (For example, in some
fields it is not unusual to see collage-style studies in which experimental
narratives are juxtaposed with scholarly discussions, but without explicit
explication of the links between the two [e.g., Werry & O’Gorman,
2007]; whereas in language education this implicit style is not common.)
Poetry is one of the most ancient forms of creative expression and
cultural analysis. It pays concise, nuanced attention to language—to
rhythm, to sound, to atmosphere. In a poem, each word matters and can
resonate with multiple evocative meanings; hence the potential of
narrative poetic forms for exploring the richness of life in language
classes. I chose my poem ‘‘The class is asked . . .’’ because it seems to
echo my point about language education as a transnational space that—
for researchers and learners alike—involves speaking from, to, and
across diverse geographic, cultural, social, and political domains. I chose
it for another reason too, which requires a little background to explain.
This poem came about because in my first class, as a brand new
teacher, I was so struck by one particular discussion, that later I jotted
down the students’ comments as accurately as I could from memory.
Soon after I used my notes to compose a (nonfiction) story, which was
basically a list of their comments, and, when I came across it many years
later, I whittled it down to the short poem included in this article. In the
revision process, for the sake of coherence and clarity (narrative
smoothing?), I ended up altering what became the final stanza, so that
478
TESOL QUARTERLY
the contribution by the student I call ‘‘Kenichi’’ is spoken aloud in class.
In actual fact, that student’s comment (unlike the other comments in
the poem) was not spoken in class but written in his follow-up
homework. Thus, in the imaginative realm of a poem, I could do
something that would be impossible in empirical research: I could grant
a young man the right to narrate his homosocial desires in the
classroom, alongside his peers. To me, this stanza functions as a sort of
counternarrative to the presumption of student heterosexuality that
pervades so much classroom research.
For my second narrative, I chose a story, because I think this is the
form that most teachers and researchers would be likely to use in
crafting evocative narratives of classroom life. I chose ‘‘Invisible,’’
because I think it depicts some issues discussed in this article, such as
the centrality of the body and emotions to teaching work, and the
ongoing, in-the-moment theorizing and internal dialogues of doubt
that, for better or worse, can drive teaching decisions. I also chose it
because, when it was first published in my local TESOL-affiliate
newsletter back in 1991, I (as a new, part-time teacher on a 10-week
contract) was overjoyed when a very experienced teacher who I greatly
admired told me that this story really made her think—more deeply than
any teaching literature she had seen in ages, she said. Of course,
different readers will have different reactions to this story, or any story,
but that is exactly the point. Whether one likes or dislikes a particular
narrative (or narrator persona, or character, or writing style), if it
engages readers and prompts reactions of some sort, then it has the
potential to be useful for critical reflection and collegial discussion.
I chose to include a scene from my research-derived play, ‘‘Queer as a
Second Language,’’ because plays are a great way of dramatising and
embodying the processes of narrativization that take place between
interlocutors as social interactions unfold. I created the playscript using
research transcripts I had collected, which I reassembled, edited, and
used to create composite characters (turning 110 actual research
participants into 5 main characters). In writing the play, my aim was
to find a way to bring my research to teachers who would not necessarily
read my scholarly publications but who might attend a theatrical event at
a conference. For this article, I chose the short excerpt about ‘‘Mr V’’
finding out he was in a gay bar, both because it makes sense as a standalone scene (without requiring background knowledge of the play) and
because it represents an actual class discussion that I had observed,
audiotaped and transcribed—and then edited for conciseness, clarity,
and dramatic momentum (and for a better fit with this [composite]
character and his particular English). For example, in the actual class
discussion, the student said: ‘‘And after ordering, uh, after ordering and
chatting about recent, uh, recent behaviour. And my friend told me
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
479
Have you—Have you noticed—Have you noticed there is not woman in
this bar? (laughter) So I am surpri- I was surprised.’’ For the play I
changed this to: ‘‘After a few minutes, he told me ‘Do you see there’s no
woman in this bar?’ I was surprised.’’
ANALYTIC AND ARTISTIC WAYS OF KNOWING: A
CREATIVE CONVERGENCE
In this article I have undertaken, and sought to promote, what
Conquergood (2002) calls ‘‘a commingling of analytical and artistic ways
of knowing’’ (p. 151), in making a case that crafted narratives of
classroom life are underused in language education research but
represent a potentially powerful tool for developing critical narrative
knowledge and literacies among researchers, teachers, and learners
alike, in this transglobal, postmodern era.
To situate studies that foreground classroom-life narratives within a
broader scholarly framework, I brought together disparate work that I
am referring to collectively as critical narrative studies. This work can serve
a pedagogic or developmental function, by promoting learning and
reflection among students, teachers, or researchers; a methodological or
analytic function, by providing data for investigating particular
phenomena (including the features of narrative forms themselves);
and a communicative or epistemological function, as a mode of writing,
of constituting practitioner knowledge, of performing inquiry.
Classroom-life narratives can benefit language education, I then
argued, by widening research engagement across geographically and
disciplinarily diverse communities; by illuminating the subtle yet
powerful emotional, aesthetic, and theoretic undercurrents that help
to shape classroom interactions and experiences; and by tracing the
messy, creative processes of knowing, not knowing, unknowing, and
transforming the known. These advantages are linked to broad-scale
changes that are reconfiguring learning, teaching, and research, such as
the democratisation of narrating rights, the bodying of knowledge, and
the loss of certainty. By interlacing the abstract discussion with narrative
depictions of small moments from classes I had observed or taught, I
showed some big-picture issues getting played out at the chalk-face.
Though, actually, the writing process was more the reverse. By selecting
some classroom moments that I had found so potent and charged with
energy I felt moved to write them down (or to transcribe and artfully
arrange them), and then building an academic argument to make sense
of these writings and of the desire to share them, I explored some
complexities of life at the chalk-face—and of writing about that life.
480
TESOL QUARTERLY
The benefits of classroom narratives notwithstanding, it can be
challenging to incorporate them into research publications, I noted,
because of the need to balance artful depiction with explicit exposition,
the inevitable selectivity involved in writing narratives, and the relative
novelty of these writing styles for researchers (and research readers). I
then explained why I think the particular narratives and narrative forms
I have drawn on here—poems, stories, and plays—can (alongside other
art forms) serve to illuminate the joys, challenges, and nuances of
classroom life in these transglobal times.
The case I have made gives rise to a few practical recommendations
for nurturing the development of classroom-life narratives as both a
source and a style of knowledge. The first is to develop reviewer
guidelines for critical narrative studies, including those studies that feature
or analyse crafted narratives of classroom life, because it is crucial to
negotiate some shared expectations between writers, reviewers, and
readers (Benson et al., 2009; Canagarajah, 1996). My second recommendation is to invite and investigate reader or audience responses to
studies incorporating life narratives, because otherwise one can only
speculate about the potential relevance and impact of the work (Nelson,
2005a). And, finally, I recommend reading and researching classroomlife narratives written by essayists, poets, novelists, humorists, screenwriters, and the like (along the lines of what Pavlenko [e.g., 2007] has
done with published memoirs of language learning). Such activities may
help to develop narrative writing expertise among interested teachers
and researchers.
This narrative-rich digital era has brought about a widespread need
for greater functional and critical expertise in relation to all things
narrative: narrative learning and narrative literacies (including
e-learning and e-literacies), narrative data and narrative writing,
co-narrating and counternarratives, and narrative inquiry and narrative
knowledge. This focus on narrative becomes even more imperative, I
think, when the broader research climate is taken into account.
Mounting pressures on the higher education sector worldwide have
meant that universities tend to prioritise short-term economic and
marketplace demands over the crucial yet increasingly neglected work of
fostering independent, critical thinkers; as a result, some critics say,
universities are being ‘‘slowly emptied of creative meaning’’ (Clegg,
2010, p. 32, citing Evans, 2004).
Against this rather bleak backdrop, evocative narratives of classroom
life can—if given the chance—serve to strengthen the reach and
relevance of TESOL’s research repertoire by fostering creative thinking,
aesthetic rigour, and academic artistry. In this sense, narratives have the
potential not only to reflect changing understandings of knowledge but
also to help change the knowledge landscape.
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
481
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For thoughtful comments on a draft of this article, I thank Tricia Dearborn and two
anonymous TESOL Quarterly reviewers.
THE AUTHOR
My first degree was in English literature (with a minor in drama), and I later earned
an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language and a PhD in applied linguistics;
so my journey has been from narrative to teaching to research. When I started to
teach, I wrote about my classroom experiences as a way of making sense of what I was
learning, puzzling over, grappling with. At the urging of two colleagues, I began
publishing some of my stories, because at that time (the early 1990s) there was little,
if any, TESOL research on the teaching and learning issues that most fascinated me.
In fact, it was writing narratives about these issues that led to my desire to research
them empirically. I enjoy experimenting with different narrative forms, because this
challenges me to write—and thus to think—in different ways. I am a senior lecturer
at The University of Sydney’s Institute for Teaching and Learning, in Sydney,
Australia; the author of Sexual Identities in English Language Education: Classroom
Conversations (Routledge, 2009); and a member of the inaugural editorial board for
the Journal of Language and Sexuality. As this article goes to press, my poem ‘‘The
Darmstadt Year’’ has been shortlisted for the 2011 Newcastle Poetry Prize, one of
Australia’s most prestigious literary prizes.
REFERENCES
Anderson, L. (2006a). Analytic autoethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography,
35, 373–395. doi:10.1177/0891241605280449.
Anderson, L. (2006b). On apples, oranges, and autopsies. Journal of Contemporary
Ethnography, 35, 450–465. doi:10.1177/0891241606287395.
Asanuma, S. (1999). The autobiographical method in Japanese education: The
writing project and its application to social studies. In W. F. Pinar (Ed.),
Contemporary curriculum discourses: Twenty years of JCT (pp. 151–167). New York,
NY: Peter Lang.
Barkhuizen, G. (2010). An extended positioning analysis of a pre-service teacher’s
better life small story. Applied Linguistics, 31, 282–300. doi:10.1093/applin/amp027.
Barkhuizen, G., & Wette, R. (2008). Narrative frames for investigating the experiences
of language teachers. System, 36, 372–387. doi:10.1016/j.system.2008.02.002.
Benson, P., Chik, A., Gao, X., Huang, J., & Wang, W. (2009). Qualitative research in
language teaching and learning journals, 1997–2006. The Modern Language
Journal, 93, 79–90. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00829.x.
Bhabha, H. K. (2003). On writing rights. In Gibney, M. J. (Ed.), Globalizing rights: The
Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1999 (pp. 162–183). Oxford, England: Oxford University
Press.
Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic
approach. Discourse Studies, 7, 585–614. doi:10.1177/1461445605054407.
Canagarajah, S. (1996). From critical research practice to critical research reporting.
TESOL Quarterly, 30, 321–331. doi:10.2307/3588146.
Canagarajah, S. (2002). A geopolitics of academic writing. Pittsburgh, PA: University of
Pittsburgh Press.
482
TESOL QUARTERLY
Canagarajah, S. (2006). TESOL at forty: What are the issues? TESOL Quarterly, 40, 9–
34. doi:10.2307/40264509.
Casanave, C. P. (2002). Writing games: Multicultural case studies of academic literacy
practices in higher education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in
qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Clegg, S. (2010). The possibilities of sustaining critical intellectual work under
regimes of evidence, audit, and ethical governance. Journal of Curriculum
Theorizing, 26, 21–35.
Coffey, S., & Street, B. (2008). Narrative and identity in the ‘‘Language Learning
Project’’. The Modern Language Journal, 92, 452–464. doi:10.1111/j.15404781.2008.00757.x.
Conquergood, D. (2002). Performance studies: Interventions and radical research.
The Drama Review, 46, 145–156. doi:10.1162/105420402320980550.
Coulter, C. A., & Smith, M. L. (2009). The construction zone: Literary elements
in narrative research. Educational Researcher, 38, 577–590. doi:10.3102/
0013189X09353787.
Cummings, M. C. (1996). Sardo revisited: Voice, faith, and multiple repeaters. In
K. M. Bailey & D. Nunan (Eds.), Voices from the language classroom: Qualitative
research in second language education (pp. 224–235). Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Curran, G. (2006). Responding to students’ normative questions about gays: Putting
queer theory into practice in an Australian ESL class. Journal of Language, Identity,
and Education, 5, 85–96. doi:10.1207/s15327701jlie0501_6.
Curtis, A., & Romney, M. (2010) (Eds.). Color, race, and English language teaching:
Shades of meaning. New York, NY: Routledge.
Dimitriadis, G. (2006). On the production of expert knowledge: Revisiting Edward
Said’s work on the intellectual. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education,
27, 369–382. doi:10.1080/01596300600838835.
DiPardo, A. (1990). Narrative knowers, expository knowledge: Discourse as a
dialectic. Written Communication, 7, 59–95. doi:10.1177/0741088390007001003.
Ellwood, C. (2009). Uninhabitable identifications: Unpacking the production of
racial difference in a TESOL classroom. In R. Kubota & A. Lin (Eds.), Race,
culture, and identities in second language education (pp. 101–117). New York, NY:
Routledge.
Franzosi, R. (1998). Narrative analysis—or why (and how) sociologists should be
interested in narrative. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 517–554. doi:10.1146/
annurev.soc.24.1.517.
Freeman, D. (1996). Redefining the relationship between research and what
teachers know. In K. M. Bailey & D. Nunan (Eds.), Voices from the language
classroom: Qualitative research in second language education (pp. 88–113). Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Goldstein, T. (2003). Teaching and learning in a multilingual school: Choices, risks, and
dilemmas. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Golombek, P. R., & Johnson, K. E. (2004). Narrative inquiry as a meditational space:
Examining emotional and cognitive dissonance in second-language teachers’
development. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 10, 307–327. doi:10.1080/
1354060042000204388.
Haque, E., & Morgan, B. (2009). Un/marked pedagogies: A dialogue on race in EFL
and ESL settings. In R. Kubota & A. Lin (Eds.), Race, culture, and identities in second
language education: Exploring critically engaged practice (pp. 271–285). New York, NY:
Routledge.
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
483
Hussein, J. W. (2008). An existential approach to engaging adult learners in the
process of legitimizing and constructing meanings from their narrative knowledge. Action Research, 6, 391–420. doi:10.1177/1476750308097026.
Johnson, K. E. & Golombek, P. R. (Eds.). (2002). Teachers’ narrative inquiry as
professional development. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Karlsson, L. (2006). The diary weblog and the traveling tales of diasporic tourists.
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 27, 299–312. doi:10.1080/07256860600779303.
Kenway, J., & McLeod, J. (2004). Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology and ‘‘spaces of points
of view’’: Implications for the sociology of education and gender. British Journal of
the Sociology of Education, 25, 525–544. doi:10.1080/0142569042000236998.
Kern, R. (2006). Perspectives on technology in learning and teaching languages.
TESOL Quarterly, 40, 183–210. doi:10.2307/40264516.
Lee, E., & Simon-Maeda, A. (2006). Racialized research identities in ESL/EFL
research. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 573–594. doi:10.2307/40264544.
Luke, A. (2010). On this writing: An autotheoretic account. In D. Nunan & J. Choi
(Eds.), Language and culture: Reflective narratives and the emergence of identity (pp.
131–139). New York, NY: Routledge.
Michael-Luna, S. (2009). Narratives in the wild: Unpacking critical race theory
methodology for early childhood bilingual education. In Kubota, R. & Lin, A.
(Eds.), Race, culture, and identities in second language education: Exploring critically
engaged practice (pp. 234–251). New York, NY: Routledge.
Miller, J. L. (1998). Autobiography as a queer curriculum practice. In W. F. Pinar
(Ed.). Queer theory in education (pp. 365–373). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Nelson, C. D. (1999). Sexual identities in ESL: Queer theory and classroom inquiry.
TESOL Quarterly, 33, 371–391. doi:10.2307/3587670.
Nelson, C. D. (2005a). Crafting researcher subjectivity in ways that enact theory.
Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4, 315–320. doi:10.1207/
s15327701jlie0404_8.
Nelson, C. D. (2005b). Transnational/Queer: Narratives from the contact zone.
Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 21, 109–117.
Nelson, C. D. (2008). The class is asked what they think of when they hear the words
‘‘United States.’’ Multicultural Education, 16, 30.
Nelson, C. D. (2010). Vanishing acts. In D. Nunan & J. Choi (Eds.), Language and
culture: Reflective narratives and the emergence of identity (pp. 170–176). New York,
NY: Routledge.
Nelson, C. D. (2011). A live readers’ theatre performance based on classroom
research. Invited session, TESOL Convention, New Orleans, LA.
Nunan, D., & Choi, J. (Eds.). (2010). Language and culture: Reflective narratives and the
emergence of identity. New York, NY: Routledge.
Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (1996). Narrating the self. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25,
19–43. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.25.1.19.
Ó’Móchain, R. (2006). Discussing gender and sexuality in a context-appropriate way:
Queer narratives in an EFL college classroom in Japan. Journal of Language,
Identity, and Education, 5, 51–66. doi:10.1207/s15327701jlie0501_4.
Pallas, A. M. (2001). Preparing education doctoral students for epistemological
diversity. Educational Researcher, 30, 6–11, doi:10.3102/0013189X030005006.
Pavlenko, A. (2002). Narrative study: Whose story is it, anyway? TESOL Quarterly, 36,
213–218. doi:10.2307/3588332.
Pavlenko, A. (2006). Narrative competence in a second language. In H. Byrnes,
H. Weger-Guntharp, & K. Sprang (Eds.), Educating for advanced foreign language
capacities: Constructs, curriculum, instruction, assessment (pp. 105–117). Washington,
DC: Georgetown University Press.
484
TESOL QUARTERLY
Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied
Linguistics, 28, 163–188. doi:10.1093/applin/amm008.
Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Phillion, J. (2006). Narrative inquiry in a multicultural landscape: Multicultural teaching
and learning. Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
San Miguel, C., & Nelson, C. D. (2007). Key writing challenges of practice-based
doctorates. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 6, 71–86. doi:10.1016/
j.jeap.2006.11.007.
Silberstein, S. (2008). ‘‘Theorizing’’ TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 42, 299–302.
Smith, M. W. (2009). The issue of authorial surplus in narrative research. Education
Researcher, 38, 603–607. doi:10.3102/0013189X09353788.
Stein, P. (1998) Reconfiguring the past and the present: Performing literacy
histories in a Johannesburg classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 32, 517–528.
doi:10.2307/3588122.
Szymborska, W. (2001). A large number. Miracle fair: Selected poems of Wislawa
Szymborska (pp. 87–88). Trans J. Trzeciak. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Uzuner, S. (2008). Multilingual scholars’ participation in core/global academic
communities: A literature review. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7, 250–
263. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2008.10.007.
Werry, M., & O’Gorman, R. (2007). Shamefaced: Performing pedagogy, outing affect.
Text and Performance Quarterly, 27, 213–230. doi:10.1080/10462930701412353.
Winterson, J. (1996). Art objects: Essays on ecstasy and effrontery. London, England:
Vintage.
NARRATIVES OF CLASSROOM LIFE
485