Four Responses #3

Helen Dano

Teaching the Adult Learner

   in Diverse Contexts

English CO855—Dr. Barbara Gleason

May 22, 2015

Four Responses  #3

Pfahl, Nancy Lloyd and Colleen Aalsburg Wiessner. “Creating New Directions with Story: Narrating Life Experience as Story in Community Adult Education Contexts.” Adult Learning. 18:3/4 (2007): 9-13. Web. (Class handout).

            This idea of story-telling to help the adult learner who has “been unable to advance their development and learning” (9), to make story-telling “an integral teaching and learning stategy “(9) is not new or revolutionary.  It is the first day of grade school’s theme assignments spanning the world, and in my knowledge for decades, at the very least.  A popular theme: how I spent my summer vacation. As a grade schooler, I’ve stood before my classmates telling them of an episodes similar to what they would be telling me. And now, working in a writing center, I’ve seen several first papers opening the school year on the  themes of the self, e.g “where I am from,” “who I am,” “the most inspirational person in my life.” I’ve written them all my school life and enjoyed them.  These show-and-tell pieces, to me, are an easy way in to composition, this telling about oneself.

            I like to tell those who I am tutoring, who are having a difficult time wrapping their minds around the writing process of an essay, who can’t vocalize the main idea of even a short passage:  think of it as a story.  A story, afterall, Pfahl and Wiessner remind us, has a beginning, middle, end.  An essay shares that in common with a story.  I ask them do they like to tell stories to their friends and family? And that is usually answered in the affirmative.  Well, imagine this as a story. What is the most important thing? What are the supporting ideas? Our authors believe that when the learners can integrate their personal stories this can “lead to new perspectives,  actions, origins” (13).

            Story-telling is “making meaning by seeing new relationships and patterns of thought” (11). I see this as a correlation between story-telling and the writing of an essay.  In writing an essay, we paraphrase what passage we have before us.  Based on our perception of the significance of the ideas given, we can arrange the facts presented to us, just as I am doing now with this article I am responding to.  Much like Pfahl and Wiessener write of exploring alternative scenarios which contribute to analyzing and altering past choices. In the story-telling process defined by our authors, where there can be a “spinning potential [of] possibilities and their outcomes” (12), I liken to the conclusion section of an essay: the main idea is reintroduced and the writer’s suggestions of possibilities/alternatives is stated, unifying the beginning, middle, and end of the work.