Navigating narrative and analysis: students’ mediation of historical content through storytelling

Abstract

This study delves into the complex relationship between storytelling and historical understanding. Focused on how lower-secondary students employ narrative discourse in writing, it examines the extent to which their storytelling aids or limits historical comprehension. Drawing on systemic-functional linguistics and history education theories, the study highlights that while narratives might encourage personalized perspective-taking, thus potentially undermining objective historical analysis, they also reveal a more complex interplay between narrative form and historical insight than previously recognized. Through a comparative evaluation of student texts, it explores how certain types of narratives—descriptive, evocative, and emotive—interact with different foci of historical understanding. The analysis underscores the challenge of integrating broader historical analysis within personal narratives but also showcases successful examples of this integration. The article proposes strategies for educators to leverage storytelling more effectively, emphasizing the need for linguistic scaffolding to enhance students’ historical narratives.