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Re: [xmca] Re: fiction as simulation



The one person that I know who has written about repetitions of listening, but also telling, the "same" story is Peggy Miller and her students "Versions of storytelling/versions of experience: Genre for tools for creating alternative realities" in an edited volume by Rosengren, Johnson, & Harris (2000) "Imagining the impossible." Their emphasis in this piece is the type of increasing (and deepening) understanding that this child who for sometime was repeating the story of Peter Rabbit was gaining and especially his increasing identification with Peter Rabbit.

While I don't dispute the phenomenon that Peggy Miller et al. capture here, I also think that storytelling (or story listening) repetitions may have multiple functions/meanings. For example, in children's spontaneous stories that I have gathered in preschool classrooms using Paley's storytelling/story-acting activity, children's repetitions of the same storyline (something that some children love to do!) at times seems to have to do with what I call, narrative concerns (getting the story right: that is, a coherent or logical story as the child perceives it), but other repetitions may indicate more clearly socio-relational concerns (getting the same effect from other children and maybe adults) and so on.

I also think that repetitions of the sort Mike is talking about--children asking for the same story to be read over and over again as well as teens or adults reading the same book over and over again--may serve different functions. I believe the young children love such repetitions because it mainly allows them to control the world around them. They can predict what comes next and for a limited amount of time, they have full control of their (often chaotic and unpredictable) world. That's why they are very upset if one changes even one word in these repetitions. However, adolescents (and maybe adults) may like such repetitions because of the experiences and feelings that the fictional world creates (and they can bask in it) and also through repetitions they learn to discover new things...Maybe adolescents love such repetitions because it helps them see the identity they want/like to create. At least these are my conjectures about these phenomena.

In short, I think these are very interesting phenomena that have occupied my attention for awhile now, but they need to be captured well and in a natural sort of way... Any thoughts of how to capture these phenomena would be appreciated.

Ageliki
--
**********************************************
Ageliki Nicolopoulou
Professor, Department of Psychology
Lehigh University
17 Memorial Drive East
Bethlehem, PA  18015-3068

Personal Webpage:        http://www.lehigh.edu/~agn3/index.htm
Departmental Webpage:  http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpsy/nicolopoulou.html

*********************************************


mike cole wrote:
Yes it applies to little kids!
I LOVE the Stevenson quote in response to H. James (who seems to have gotten wrapped up in an odd place in the quote).

Sheila and i were discussing last night the phenomenon of little kids like to hear the same story read over and over and over and over again and young teens reading, for example, Lord of the Rings several times.

And adults going to Operas or listening to music they particularly love repeatedly.

There is an age-related component to these phenomena -- parents go nuts on the 300th reading of /Where the Wild Things Are/ or /Goodnight Moon/, little kids cannot stand, as a rule, listening to the Goldberg variations, etc.

Has anyone written about this phenomeon and what means?

Thanks for the /Educated Mind/ tip, David C. Sound relevant to ongoing discussion re goals of education that might guide reform
efforts.

mike

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Ageliki Nicolopoulou <agn3@lehigh.edu <mailto:agn3@lehigh.edu>> wrote:

    Thanks, Mike, for this very useful article. This relates a lot to
    what I have been trying to do these past few years and it pulls
    the adult literature well together.  My work has centered more on
    preschoolers spontaneous (fantasy) stories and I have tried to
    find ways to analyze them, which goes beyond just using structural
    criteria but also incorporates content in a serious way (that is,
    it incorporates content and structure).  I have also argued (as do
    Mar & Oatley, but for adults) for the significant of character in
    children's narratives (whether for learning to comprehend or tell
    stories) and I'm continuing to think about these issues. More
    recently, I have devoted my attention/effort in creating an
    intervention programs using commercially available children's
    books to promote narrative comprehension as well as social
    understanding, especially for low-income children.  As I'm in the
    midst of writing about these issues, this article is very useful.

    Thanks again,
    Ageliki

-- **********************************************
    Ageliki Nicolopoulou
    Professor, Department of Psychology
    Lehigh University
    17 Memorial Drive East
    Bethlehem, PA  18015-3068

    Personal Webpage:      http://www.lehigh.edu/~agn3/index.htm
    <http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Eagn3/index.htm>
    Departmental Webpage:
     http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpsy/nicolopoulou.html
    <http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Einpsy/nicolopoulou.html>
    **********************************************


    mike cole wrote:

        Of course, i *would *forget to attach the article. Here it is.
        mike

        On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 4:56 PM, mike cole<lchcmike@gmail.com
        <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>>  wrote:

            Sorting through all the unread journals and seeking to
            bring order to the
            helterskelter
            of my intellectual meanderings, i came across this article
            that I think
            should hold some
            interest for xmca-o-philes.

            As some of you know, I have an abiding interest in the
            idea of tertiary
            artifacts, works of
            art, for Wartofsky (so I learned from Yrjo), play,
            "alternative worlds"
            like the 5th Dimension
            that Peg Griffin invented and I have played in for a long
            time. But I also
            teach and think (think and
            teach?) about various communication media including novels
            and sitcoms.
            This article caught
            my attention in that odd nexus of interests: fiction as
            "simulations," or,
            we might say, tertiary artifacts, or we might say, "tools
            to think with."

            Delete or read along, as the mood catches you.
            mike

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--

**********************************************

Ageliki Nicolopoulou

Professor

Department of Psychology, Lehigh University

17 Memorial Drive East

Bethlehem, PA  18015-3068



Personal Webpage:        http://www.lehigh.edu/~agn3/index.htm

Departmental Webpage:  http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpsy/nicolopoulou.html

**********************************************



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