The rational for teaching narrative is best described in Narration: A Short History by the late Maurice Scharton:

We use narrative in everyday life beyond the classroom, when we tell a friend about our day, when we describe a sporting event, when we write in diaries, journals, or personal correspondence such as email. We narrate annoying problems when we write complaint letters, entertaining anecdotes when we write speeches, inspiring stories when we write sermons. Narratives form the basis of religious systems, myths, and legends the world over in documents such as the Holy Bible, the Koran, the Torah, classical mythology, as well as in the oral tradition of tribal cultures. Picture accounts of events are found in Neanderthal cave drawings, chambers in pyramids, frescoes in Roman ruins, art galleries, advertising campaigns, as well as television and movie dramatizations (2).

Another advocate for the use of narratives in first year composition courses is John Countryman.  In his article, “Academic Narratives: What’s the Story?” he reviews the forms and functions of narratives by considering their influence in academic settings. These influences include:

1. Narrative as therapeutic (or as physic), as instruments of healing “old wounds” and the treatment of life’s “ills”.

2. Narrative as noetic, as a way of knowing that allows us to translate experience (i.e. heuristic or hermeneutic).

3. Narrative as rhetoric, as a means of persuasion concerned with the effects it produces and with generation of good reason.

4. Narrative as pragmatic, as an instrument for achieving goals or accomplishing desired ends.

5.  Narrative as aesthetic, as an activity that appeals to our sense of beauty and to which we ascribe intrinsic value.

6. Narrative as ethic, as representative of a moral position: there are truths that only narrative can reveal, and this is not just a matter of suggestions as with allegories.

7. Narrative as critic: reinforcing the dominant culture and putting it into question at he same time (20-21).

As we continue to teach the narrative in these ways, we use numerous synonymous names. As compositionists, we even say that we don’t assign the narrative paper in our writing courses. We all are guilty of renaming the narrative or just referring to it as something else.  Other terms that we have used are:

• Literacy Narrative
• Diary Log
• Journal Entry
• Reflective Writing
• Autobiography
• Personal Essay
• Memoir
• Life History
• Biographical Account