Story Retelling Research Articles

Extra Innings: Fred Claire’s Journey to City of Hope and Finding a World Championship Team by Tim Madigan

Reviewed by: Extra Innings: Fred Claire’s Journey to City of Hope and Finding a World Championship Team by Tim Madigan Anna R. Newton Tim Madigan. Extra Innings: Fred Claire’s Journey to City of Hope and Finding a World Championship Team. Herndon, VA: Mascot Books, 2020. 202 pp. Cloth, $24.95. This book is a biography of Fred Claire and his career in baseball. In addition to well-written tales of his time with the Dodgers, it tells the story of his journey with cancer treatment at the City of Hope. As a book, it is anecdotal, rich with quotes and detailed accounts of his career with the Dodgers as the public relations director, executive vice president, and finally general manager (GM). Over the thirty years with the team, the final position was the most abrupt and challenging. In the wake of Al Campanis’s intemperate remarks on national television in 1987, Claire was asked to take and accepted the position of GM with the proviso that he have total and complete responsibility for baseball operations. He later said that he needed to accept responsibility and accountability and not blame others. The many baseball stories reveal the character of Mr. Claire and his approach to every situation: “He is so committed to doing the right thing every day” (32). [End Page 128] The author uses the format of alternating Dodger or baseball story chapters with City of Hope or cancer treatment chapters. The shift between the two major themes, City of Hope and baseball, is somewhat abrupt during the book’s first half. The introduction to the City of Hope story is, at first, a surprise for the reader. As Claire’s health issues continue and his care moves to the City of Hope, the background and the mission of the City of Hope are revealed. This approach elevates the book from a pleasant retelling of Dodger stories to showing the intersection between Claire’s baseball career and his personal journeys. Claire’s personality and character are consistent across both hugely demanding commitments. It becomes possible to understand that the adversities and the necessary perseverance are very similar between Claire’s journeys with the Dodgers and the City of Hope. Quotes from Claire demonstrate the synergy between the two endeavors. We all are tested, who we are is determined by how we handle the challenges. (191) What we can do together is profoundly more impactful than what we can do alone. (199) Cancer treatments are like the baseball season—you don’t win the pennant or lose it in a single day. You keep giving it your best every day, with focus and discipline. . . . It’s a matter of believing in the people around you who are doing their best to assist. (68) Today is all we really have. (10; this after his third relapse) The book’s last third covers Claire’s fundraising and community activities after he left the Dodgers and since his latest treatment to the present day. These activities are closely intertwined with his corporate and personal baseball relationships and his constant support for the City of Hope. Baseball is the setting, deep and wide enough to tell these stories. The writer does an excellent job of transitioning between settings and describing the challenges of a demanding career and health condition. It is thought provoking that one story reinforces the message of the other. Baseball operations at the top are very complex, often not in the control of the person in the top job. Cancer treatment is also not in the control of the patient. Madigan tells the story of both journeys remarkably well by using Claire’s character, values, and personal commitments, all of which contribute to telling this inspiring story. [End Page 129] Copyright © 2022 University of Nebraska Press

Habilidades de comprensión y producción narrativa en niños montevideanos de 5 años. Una comparación por nivel socioeconómico

Narrative abilities are an important part of communication, academic success, and healthy relationships. These abilities involve complex language and cognitive skills, such as precise vocabulary, control of the coherence markers, relations of cause-effect, and planning. They are also relevant during the elementary school years and interact with the socio-emotional skills necessary to understand different points of view. Oral narrative production develops dramatically from 3 to 5 years of age and is a key factor in a child’s ability to communicate about the world. During this period narratives are a product of increasing linguistic sophistication over the preschool period and there is a complex relationship between early narratives and language proficiency. So far, most research about this topic has been pursued in populations other than Latin American preschoolers. At the same time, a considerably lesser number of studies about narrative abilities development have been carried out comparing typically developing children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. To our knowledge, there are no studies in Uruguay that assess the narrative abilities development in typically developing preschool children who grow up in vulnerable contexts. It is therefore of the utmost relevance to produce empirical evidence for this population. For these reasons, this study aimed at characterizing and comparing narrative abilities and receptive vocabulary in a group of a total of 54 Uruguayan preschoolers from different socioeconomic backgrounds (middle and low socioeconomic status, SES). Children were assessed in receptive vocabulary and narrative abilities across two task conditions: (1) narrative comprehension through a story retelling task which included some final questions about the story; (2) narrative production elicited from a set of thematically related puppets. The examiner gives a child a puppet set and asks him/her to elaborate a narrative using them. After that, puppets are removed and the child is asked to retell the story without puppets. Children’s oral productions were video-taped and then transcribed and categorized using the ELAN software (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 2019). The verbal information was categorized according to Stein and Glenn’s (1979) story grammar and considering the microstructural aspects (productivity and complexity). Analyses showed that both groups performed according to their stage of development in both narrative task conditions. With regards to the narrative comprehension task, no differences in the number of recovered categories, extension, or narrative complexity were observed. Concerning the narrative production task, there were no differences between the groups in narrative sequences, nor in the number of completed episodes in conditions neither with puppets nor without puppets. Results showed that children who grow up in poverty perform more poorly than their peers from middle-income families in receptive vocabulary, in the number of recovered episodes, ask-answer items of narrative comprehension tasks. Moreover, concerning the microstructural parameters analyses showed that children from middle socioeconomic backgrounds scored better in syntactic complexity in the without puppets condition. No differences between the groups were observed in syntactic complexity in the puppets condition. Taken together these results indicate a complex link between vocabulary and narrative abilities. It is worth noting that important differences in vocabulary did not reflect in the children’s narrative performance. These findings are also relevant as a contribution to an ongoing debate about the role of vocabulary in the development of narrative abilities. Furthermore, these results could inform the discussion about the ecological validity of the test of cognitive and linguistic development. Finally, to provide some additional evidence to Uruguayan Spanish language about the relationships between oral language and cognitive development allows to carry out early interventions before formal schooling sets children for success in school and life. https://doi.org/10.16888/interd.2022.39.3.4

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN SPEAKING TROUGH ANIMATION MOVIE

The objectives of the study were to investigate whether any significant difference in the improvement of students’ ability in story retelling using animation movie and without using animation movie. The total number of populations were 150 students. The sample in this study was 20 students. The researcher carried out an experimental study using statistical method called t-test. The researcher used two groups: experiment group and control group. In the control group the researcher used written text story, while in the experiment group, the researcher used animation movie. The data showed that the mean score of pre-test in experimental class was 73.5, while the mean score of pre-test in control group class was 74. Meanwhile, the mean score of post-test in experimental class was 78.1, and the mean score of post-test in control group class was 74.8. The statistical analysis showed that the minimum gained score of experimental class was 3 and the minimum gained score of control group class was 0. While, the highest gained score of experimental class was 8 and control group class was 2. The average gained score of experimental class was 4.6, and for control group class were 0.8. It can be concluded that the students’ speaking skill in experimental class that were given by the treatment through animation movie were improved more effectively than the control group.

The Evolution of an Innovative Online Task to Monitor Children's Oral Narrative Development.

Oral narrative abilities are an important measure of children's language competency and have predictive value for children's later academic performance. Research and development underway in New Zealand is advancing an innovative online oral narrative task. This task uses audio recordings of children's story retells, speech-to-text software and language analysis to record, transcribe, analyse and present oral narrative and listening comprehension data back to class teachers. The task has been designed for class teachers' use with the support of SLP or literacy specialists in data interpretation. Teachers are upskilled and supported in order to interpret these data and implement teaching practices for students through online professional learning and development modules, within the context of a broader evidence-based approach to early literacy instruction. This article describes the development of this innovative, culturally relevant, online tool for monitoring children's oral narrative ability and listening comprehension in their first year of school. Three phases of development are outlined, showing the progression of the tool from a researcher-administered task during controlled research trials, to wide-scale implementation with thousands of students throughout New Zealand. The current iteration of the tool uses an automatic speech-recognition system with specifically trained transcription models and support from research assistants to check transcription, then code and analyse the oral narrative. This reduces transcription and analysis time to ~7 min, with a word error rate of around 20%. Future development plans to increase the accuracy of automatic transcription and embed basic language analysis into the tool, with the aim of removing the need for support from research assistants.

RETELLING STORY THROUGH PICTURE SERIES TO IMPROVE STUDENTS' SPEAKING SKILL AT ASSALAM ISLAMIC JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL NAGA BERALIH AIR TIRIS KAMPAR REGENCY

A spoken language is important to human life, if we would like to have a good speaking, we should have a good speaking skill. However, after observing and conducting inerview an English teacher at MTs Assalam Naga Beralih. In general, students have difficulty at retelling story through picture series, especially in speaking skill such as pronounciation, vocabulary, grammar, fluency and comprehension. The purpose of this study was to determine the significant improvement in students' speaking skills through retelling story using a series of pictures. This research used quantitative research. One Group Pre-Test Post-Test method used in this research. This research was held on October until November 2021 at MTs Assalam Naga Beralih Air Tiris Kampar Regency. The sample consisted of 25 students. Thus, speaking test was used to gather the data. The results showed that the average score of students after being taught to retell stories using a series of pictures (81.20) was higher than before being taught to retell stories using a series of pictures (63.90). Keywords: Retelling Story, Picture Series, Speaking Skills.

Language is Identity: Telling and Reading the Right Kinds of Stories

AbstractThe field of reading instruction has long valued storytelling for literacy development, but what kinds of stories are bi/multilingual students exposed to at school? Through the cognitive phenomena of conceptual metonymy and metaphor, this article links language to identity and exposes practices that act to fracture the identities of bi/multilingual students, redefined here as active bilingual learners/users of English (ABLE). Three teacher practices are detailed for creating a school world that reflects the identities of ABLE students: (1) using content‐based story retells, (2) critically questioning the display of languages on school walls and in dual‐language books, and (3) co‐constructing stories with ABLE students and their family/community members. Examples of these practices are provided, concluding with Language is Identity Awareness (LiIA) activities and how to activate critical consciousness through translanguaging pedagogy. Opening up space for critical translanguaging pedagogy is needed to start telling, writing, and reading the right kinds of stories.

Judaising in the Versions of Esther

Abstract Esther is unique in the degree to which its early translations differ from one another. Although this poses difficulties for traditional text critical goals, it also provides unique opportunities for the study of the literature and society of the Second Temple Period. Because the versions differ so much, each ‘translation’ represents an essentially original retelling of the same story. These versions developed over the course of the Second Temple period, and so offer a series of perspectives on the same story, from different times and places. One example of this is how these versions treat Esth 8:17. In Masoretic Esth 8:17, the inhabitants of the empire ‘Judaise’ (‮מתיהדים‬‎). However, as the text was received in translation throughout the second temple period, multiple different views arose among the different versions as to what the nature of this event was. The different ways that the highly divergent versions of Esther handle this part of the narrative reflect transformations in Jewish–gentile relationships throughout this period.

Confronting Becky: An autocritographic examination of white women's gendered racism in higher education

White women are socialized to use their gender subordination as a defense when confronted with their racism. Using intersectionality, I built a framework intertwining idealized objectification standards and racial gatekeeping to reveal how white women use specific practices to gain and maintain power and restrict access from People of Color. Through autocritography, a self-study methodology focused on telling and retelling stories, I examined how gendered practices protected and insulated me from addressing my active racism. I detailed a series of events that occurred in my role as a social justice educator at a south-eastern public university in the US and highlighted my attempts to maintain my reputation as a ‘good’ white woman. I also discovered consequences I faced for not upholding this reputation. My findings revealed several ways that white supremacy maintains itself in our society using ties to our socialized norms and expectations. I finished with a discussion of how this study relates to and further supports studies regarding the negative experiences of People of Color in higher education. Finally, I share implications for students, staff, and faculty both inside and outside of the classroom using three artifacts: a case study, an email response, and a twitter post.

Speech tempo in Hungarian speaking children and adolescents: The effects of age and speaking tasks

This paper provides new data on speech tempo in typically developing Hungarian-speaking children and adolescents obtained in three different speaking contexts and analyzed using an extended set of temporal measures. We asked whether the expected developmental trend across four age levels (6, 9, 13, and 17 years) was equally reflected in children's speech rate, articulation rate, and pausing (frequency, duration, and proportion of pauses), and how their speech tempo was modulated by the cognitive demands of different speaking tasks (spontaneous narratives, story retellings, and story generations). We found a systematic incremental increase in speech rate and articulation rate with each higher age level, but the corresponding decrease in the frequency, duration, and proportion of pauses was less systematic. Increased cognitive demands in the story generation and retelling tasks resulted in slower speech and articulation rates than in spontaneous narratives. The demands of different tasks were also reflected in a distinct pattern of pausing. Overall, the study suggests a protracted developmental time course of temporal control in narrative discourse production and underscores the importance of considering speaking contexts when comparing findings across experimental studies.

The Effect of Picture Series through Retelling Story on Students’ Speaking Narrative at Elementary School

The objective of this research is to know how effect picture series on students’ ability in retelling narrative story. The research methodology used in this research is pre experimental design. The result is used to know the effect of picture series through retelling story on students’ speaking narrative. This research was conducted at MTS Muhammadiyah 1 Taman. The sample was chosen from VIII B based on pre observation and pre interview students score that is the lowest of all classes. In collecting the data, this research use pretest and posttest. The test was asked students to perform speak in front of the class in minimal 5 minutes with retell story from picture series. In analysis the data the researcher scoring the score of pretest and posttest, after that drawing the conclusion with computerized of Ms. Excel. Through the analysis of the findings of pre-test and post-test, it can be concluded that picture series gave the positive effect toward students’ speaking ability, this can be seen from the improvement in the score of students in the course. Picture series leads the students’ being self-critical, because they can evaluate their mistakes by their selves. The result of the data revealed after implementing picture series, the students’ speaking scores were significantly better and well improved (the mean of pre-test = 72,43 and post-test = 77,79).

Exploring the Developmental Stages of Amharic Nominal and Verbal Gender: Evidence for processability theory

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it explores the order of the development of nominal and verbal gender of Amharic, which is one of the Ethio-Semitic languages. Second, it provides empirical evidence for the typological plausibility of processability theory (PT). In fact, PT has been tested in typologically different languages (e.g., English, Italian, and Japan); however, it does not have any validation from Ethiopian languages in general and Ethio-Semitic languages in particular yet. Relevant data was collected from sixteen respondents via picture description tasks, short storytelling, interviews, story re-telling, and spot the difference tasks. Distributional analysis was conducted for the analysis, and the point of emergence of target structures was determined using the emergence criteria. Accordingly, the result shows that the development of gender assignment is compatible with processability theory’s predictions in that lexical procedure precedes phrasal procedure, which is followed by S-procedure. Moreover, the masculine gender emerged earlier than its feminine counterpart at all developmental stages. However, subject agreement markers in pro-drop context emerged at stage two preceding subject-verb agreement. This finding is against processability theory’s claim that suggests subject agreement markers only emerge at stage four of the processability hierarchy disregarding their stages of development in pro-drop context in particular.

Being connected: Exploring the needs of mothers during the postnatal period in Queensland, Australia.

This project explored the needs of mothers beyond the immediate postnatal period in Queensland, Australia, for the development of improved models of care. Data were collected through group and individual interviews. A qualitative methodology using thematic analysis captured the experience of 58 participants. Four key themes were generated: Caring for self, Being connected, Getting direction and Having options. Being connected with care providers and peers was highly valued by participants as was having a sense of direction. Having a relationship with a carer who knew them personally throughout pregnancy and postnatal care avoided retelling stories and facilitated information sharing. Relationship-based care enabled mothers to better meet their personal needs necessary to fulfil the parenting role. Yet, many points of disconnect were identified including inconsistencies in information and gaps in care. These findings demonstrate a range of unmet needs, situated within a lack of relational continuity. Maternity and child health professionals, service managers and policy makers must reorient systems by listening, acknowledging and keeping the voice of mothers at the centre of care.

Nandini Sahu's Sita: Retelling Poetic Memoir of the Protagonist

The long poem on Sita is a retelling of the old mythical story of Sita in which Sita is every woman, with all their strength and all their weaknesses. The poet is much aggrieved by her grandfather's reaction to Sita's pleading with mother earth to take her back from this life. For her, Sita is not only Sita of Ramayana, but she has been an epitome of our culture and civilization and shaper of the whole Indian womanhood. Her Sita is the one who talks about her notions on love, care, joy dejection, humiliation and appraisal and generosity. Her assessment of the doings of Maryada Purushottam Rama is a biting one, which leaves the readers to think again about Sita and reframe their attitude about her, who was a true seeker of the truth.Hence, it is proper to admit that "It is penned rather as a poetic memoir of the heroine of the epic Sita told in the first-person narrative"

Intervention in the Cohesion of Narrative Discourse in Pupils with Developmental Language Disorder

The main objective of this study was to verify the effectiveness of an intervention program on cohesion in pupils with typical development and with developmental language disorder. A total of 99 5-year-old pupils from schools in the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) participated. For the narrative analysis, a story retelling task was used, studying cohesive resources such as ellipsis, anaphora, possessives, and connectors. The intervention program was organized at different levels of practice and involved teachers and speech language therapists. The results indicated that the pupils diagnosed with developmental language disorder initially presented worse performance in cohesion than their peers with typical development. Finally, the two groups of children who received the intervention program showed significantly higher gains than the two groups without treatment, with medium or small effect sizes.

A Study of Using Metaphoric and Beat Gestures with Motion-Based and Non-Motion-Based Metaphors during Retelling Stories.

In this paper, we classify metaphors into four categories: motion-based metaphors, static space-based metaphors, static object-based metaphors, and static event-based metaphors. Then, a study that investigated the use of gestures with these types of metaphors is reported. The aim was to examine how these types of metaphors are used with metaphoric and beat gestures during the process of re-telling stories. The participants of the study listened to three audio stories. Each story contained two motion-based metaphors, two static space-based metaphors, two static object-based metaphors, and two static event-based metaphors. After listening to each story, they had to retell the stories in front of a camera. The videos were analyzed to determine the number of metaphoric gestures and beat gestures that had been used by participants during the retelling of the stories. The results showed that the highest number of metaphoric gestures had been used with static space-based metaphors. This was followed by motion-based metaphors, static object-based metaphors, and static event-based metaphors, respectively. On the other hand, the highest number of beat gestures was used with static event-based metaphors. These findings indicate that the use of metaphoric gestures and beat gestures accompanying metaphors is highly dependent on the spatial and motoric properties of the base of the metaphors, which supports the idea of embodied metaphor comprehension.

The effectiveness of story retelling on junior high school students’ reading comprehension and writing

The poor performance of Nigerian students in the English language, both in internal and external examinations, poses a challenge to scholars of reading. This study sought to find out if story retelling as a technique of teaching reading comprehension and writing will in any way affect the ability of Junior Secondary School (JSS 3) students to comprehend text, retell given stories as well as improve their writing. The quasi experimental method was used to conduct the study. Eighty subjects in two junior secondary schools in Owerri, East of Nigeria, were grouped into Experimental and Control groups. Both groups were taught the same content of the school syllabus; the period of instruction was the same for both. However, while the Control group was taught using the conventional method, the Experimental group was taught through the use of story reading and retelling. At the end of the treatment, a post-test was administered on both the Control and Experimental groups. The transactional theory of learning which sees reading and writing as personal meaning-making processes was used to guide the study. The scores of students from their written retellings constituted the data and were analyzed using means and standard deviation. It was found that the performance of students (both Control and Experimental) in the pre-test were within the same range. But there was a marked difference between the performance of the Control and Experimental groups in the post-test. Noticeably, the Experimental group performed better in the post-test than in the pre-test, as well as better than the Control Group. The paper therefore concluded that the story retelling strategy was effective in improving the comprehension, retelling and writing of students.

Tell or Retell? The Role of Task and Language in Spanish-English Narrative Microstructure Performance.

This study examined performance of dual language learners (DLLs) on Spanish- and English-language narrative story retells and unique tells. Transcription and analysis focused on comparisons of common microstructural language sample measures in Spanish and English across tasks. Each language sample measure was evaluated for its possible convergence with norm-referenced standardized assessments for DLL children. Spanish-English DLLs (N = 133) enrolled in English-only kindergarten or first-grade classrooms completed two-language sample tasks (one in each language), which were transcribed and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Miller & Iglesias, 2017) for measures of syntactic complexity (mean length of utterance [MLU] in words), lexical diversity (number of different words [NDW]), and grammaticality (percent grammatical utterances [PGU]). Students also completed a norm-referenced sentence repetition task (Peña et al., 2014) and expressive vocabulary assessment (Martin, 2013). Comparison of story retells and unique stories revealed similar performance on MLU, NDW, and PGU across elicitation techniques, with one exception: NDW in Spanish was higher in the story retell condition. Predictive models revealed several differences in the relations between the microstructure measures and norm-referenced language measures by elicitation technique, although neither context demonstrated a consistent advantage across all metrics. Measures derived from story retells and unique tells offer practical findings for speech-language pathologists and other educators to use in assessment of early grade DLLs. This work increases knowledge of procedural differences across narrative assessments and their influence on language variables, supporting school-based speech-language pathologists in making assessment decisions for DLLs on their caseload. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19191278.

Indigenizing Philosophy on Stolen Lands: A Worry about Settler Philosophical Guardianship

Indigenizing Philosophy on Stolen Lands: A Worry about Settler Philosophical Guardianship

Effect of Storytelling on Listening Skills and Vocabulary of Preschool Children

Storytelling has been used as an oldest form of teaching. Even though for years, storytellers shared stories with children, up till now very few researches have been conducted on the impact of storytelling on children’s learning. The current research was an effort to explore the effect of storytelling on listening skills and vocabulary of preschool children. This study was a quasi-experimental design. The total sample comprised of 14 participants of preschool, aged 5 years divided into two; control (n=7) and experimental (n=7) groups through non-random sampling. The data was collected and assessed by means of globally recognized scales Morrow’s Retelling 10 Point Scale for listening skills and Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) for vocabulary. Six stories were selected for storytelling; first story for pre-test, four stories for interventions and sixth story for post-test story telling. The statistical analysis was done by conducting independent samples t-test and paired samples t-test to compare scores among control and experimental groups. The post-test results and the researcher’s observations affirmed that preschool children who were exposed to storytelling with props were highly engaged in story retelling; incorporating minute details which verified listening attentively and carefully maturing their listening skills and revealed better, meaningful and deeper understanding of vocabulary.
 Keywords: Storytelling, Listening Skills, Vocabulary, Preschool

(Re)fractional narrative inquiry: A methodological adaptation for exploring stories

Narrative inquiry is relational inquiry in which inquirers come alongside the living, telling, re-living, and re-telling of stories . In this article, I present how I adapted narrative inquiry to explore parent perspectives of their gifted adolescent daughters’ experiences of belonging. At the time, I was conducting this study as part of my doctoral dissertation work and as a novice researcher, I struggled with (1) gaining access by a school district to interview adolescent students, (2) believing I could relationally come alongside adolescents as an outsider, and (3) questioning their developmental ability to think reflectively about their stories of belonging. Ultimately, I had to rethink my narrative inquiry approach. Here in this article, I share how I re-conceptualized my methodological approach as (re)fractional narrative inquiry to better understand gifted girls’ experiences from the perspectives of those who have relationally lived alongside them. I also present the context and methods of the study, provide a sample of co-negotiated narratives, discuss justifications of my inquiry, and conclude with reflections and evaluations of my adaptations.