What Keeps a Narrative going? Teaching Narrative Interest

ABSTRACT

This article explores the potential of narrative interest for secondary literature education. Narrative is a purposeful construction which is organised with the intent of having effects on readers. For rhetorical narratologists, narrative is driven by the production of narrative gaps – suspense, curiosity, and surprise – which in turn drive reader interest in their potential fulfilment. Drawing from rhetorical-functionalist approaches to literature, I rethink contemporary perspectives on reader response to focus on the pedagogical implications of narrative interest, suggesting how English teachers might use narrative interest to explore narrative openings, the power of narrator perspective, and the ethics of storytelling. This reorientation of instruction balances specific reader responses with the textual production of narrative interest through genre forms, narrator voice, and narrative organisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Literature instruction
• narratology
• narrative
• narrative interest
• reader response

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Jean LeBlanc

Robert Jean LeBlanc, (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Associate Professor of ELA/Literacy and Board of Governors Research Chair of Literacy Studies at the University of Lethbridge, and Coyle Fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Literacy Education. He conducts research on literature instruction and classroom interaction. His work has appeared in journals such as Research in the Teaching of English, Written Communication, Literacy, Classroom Discourse, English Journal, Text & Talk, and Linguistics and Education.