Learning the Structure of Traditional Narrative

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C. W. Sullivan III

Abstract

Though I prefer to try to be (and think of myself as) a critical fox, I am here today as a hedgehog, worrying again a topic which I have addressed before-although in a literary rather than a folkloric guise-the topic of when and how and where children learn narrative structure. My earlier venture, "Narrative Expectations: The Folklore Connection," was an attempt to explain how young readers' knowledge of traditional narrative structure underlies their expectations of literary narrative. This time, I wish to discuss the concept that we all learn narrative structure, the existence of which we from then on take for granted, initially if not primarily through our experiences as active and passive bearers of folklore.

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