Storying worlds

Thinking and doing otherwise in young children’s story pedagogy

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21722254
AutoresKimberly Lenters (0000-0003-3840-9285, University of Calgary, autor correspondente), Anne Cloarec (Independent Educator), Ronna Mosher (0000-0001-7077-1386, University of Calgary)
Ano2026
Volume26
Fascículo2
Páginas517-537
Data de publicação2026-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Early Childhood Literacy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1468-7984 • E-ISSN: 1741-2919
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14687984251367651
PMID42039927
OpenAlexW4413121559
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas20

Children’s storied play, or in other words, their fictive world-building, has much to teach us with regard to understanding story and how story pedagogy might be otherwise shaped in curricular spaces. In this article, we explore this proposition by drawing on interconnected and entangled moments of children’s outdoor storied play in a Canadian first-grade class. By mapping the children’s movements within three storied-play encounters, we animate how what could appear as the most ordinary and mundane ways of composing story in outdoor, open-ended and make-believe play, offers a lively form of protestation to the predominant Western narrative paradigm of beginning-middle-end story structure. Bringing the three moments into conversation with literary theorist Marielle Macé’s concept of narrative stylization, we attend to ways story lives and grows within children’s storied and playful worldbuilding. Ultimately, we argue that limiting instructional methods to that which is centred around the objectification and rationalization of storying (i.e., typical beginning-middle-end story structure) can displace other pedagogical directions that recognize and extend the myriad ways in which stories are made, learned, and understood. We conclude the article with an exploration of how educators might promote and build upon the narrative stylizations – fiction-in-the-doing – that children are always already engaging in their storied play

Aesthetics · Art · Conversation · Literature · Narrative · Pedagogy · Sociology · Visual arts · Communication · Early Childhood Education and Development · Indigenous and Place-Based Education · Psychology · Themes in Literature Analysis