Re: [xmca] Re: fiction as simulation

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Thanks Ageliki. I had forgotten the Rosengren et al book. I agree that the
reasons for repetitive engagement with a text are likely to be
multi-functional and that (at least) the weight of different functions
occurs over age.

With respect to Peter Rabbit there (to take just that one example) there are
the details of the naughtiness, the confrontation with death and authority,
and (my personal memory) a fascination with the sound of the term,
"chamomile tea" (sp!?).

I used to get my mother to re-re-read the Arthurian tales in middle
English. Now what was THAT about?

I hear from Paul Harris for the first time in years just a few days ago.
This seems to be a time of "synchronous acausality," the coincidences are
too many to be plausible (I forgot to add I am reading *The Joy Luck
Club*where praise and criticism within and across generations in
Chinese families
living in USA are way up front and center). Whoa.

mike

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Ageliki Nicolopoulou <agn3@lehigh.edu>wrote:

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