“Tell me somethin' good”: A description of narrative structures among African American children

Abstract

The purpose of the research reported in this article was to examine narrative structures among African American children. Narratives were elicited from 15 African American children between the ages of six to ten years from a predominantly African American community in the Northeastern United States. Narratives were analyzed using Highpoint analysis and an alternate set analyses such as Thematic analysis, comparison to traditional West African narrative structures and an Interactional Sociolinguistic analysis. The results suggested that the children in this study produced a repertoire of narrative structures. In addition, the results suggested that prompts and cultural background might influence the narrative structures produced by the children in the study.