Narrative Nonfiction
Narrative nonfiction is a genre that presents real-life events in a storytelling format, using literary techniques to engage and inform readers. It combines factual information with the narrative elements of plot, character, setting, and theme to create a compelling and informative reading experience. This genre often includes personal perspectives, historical accounts, and investigative journalism to convey real-life stories and experiences.
8 Key excerpts on "Narrative Nonfiction"
eBook - ePubLiterature for Young Adults
Books (and More) for Contemporary Readers
- Joan L. Knickerbocker, James A. Rycik(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Literary nonfiction is sometimes called creative nonfiction, Narrative Nonfiction, or literature of reality. It has also been labeled the “fourth genre” to elevate it to the status of literature, while distinguishing it from poetry, fiction, and drama (Root & Steinberg, 2010). Literary nonfiction: recognizes both the inherent power of the real and the deep resonance of the literary. It is a form that allows a writer both to narrate facts and to search for truth, blending the empirical eye of the reporter with the moral vision the—I—of the novelist. (University of Oregon, n.d., p. 1) Nonfiction has come to play a much greater role in middle and high school language arts classrooms. Content Learning Standards for English Language Arts (2018) in the state where we live, Ohio (education.ohio.gov), were influenced by the Common Core State Standards for the English Language Arts (National Governors Association, 2010). Beginning with the sixth-grade standards, the term “literary nonfiction” replaces “informational texts” in the category of “reading information.” The result is to reposition nonfiction in the curriculum, giving a much greater emphasis to creative nonfiction than it had in the past. Both literary and informational works of nonfiction may be read outside of school as part of a young adult’s personal reading, but, in the classroom, teachers can acquaint their students with the many genres of nonfiction and guide them to recognize the elements that characterize each genre. The Genres of Nonfiction There is not a universal system for categorizing the genre of a nonfiction work. The following genres were chosen to aid in selection and instruction for works of nonfiction that were either written for young adults or may have a particular appeal to that audience. Biography A biography is the history of a person’s life written by someone else; it can also focus on several persons, which is called a collective biography...
eBook - ePubWhat's the Big Idea?
Nonfiction Condensed
- Leslie Watts, Shelley Sperry, Shawn Coyne(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Story Grid Publishing LLC(Publisher)
...3 Narrative Nonfiction If you’re a journalist, a memoirist, a historian, or just someone who has a compelling tale to share with a broad audience, the narrative format is tailor-made for you. The subjects you can explore are endless, as long as there are connected characters and events. Usually, there’s some movement through time, but that doesn’t mean the events must be told in chronological order. In Narrative Nonfiction, the story is the star. You’ll use the tools and techniques of a fiction writer to tell a true story in a dramatic way that will grip readers’ imaginations. You’ll need to provide rich, specific details about the setting and cast of characters, and most importantly, a cathartic moment in the end, just like good novels have. Memoir, history, and journalism focused on politics, natural science, and social science are among the most popular kinds of Narrative Nonfiction, and they dominate the lists of prize-winning books each year precisely because they captivate readers. Some examples of recent masterworks in this category include Tara Westover’s Educated and Hope Jahren’s Lab Girl (memoirs); Taylor Branch’s Parting the Water s and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s No Ordinary Time (histories); and David Quammen’s The Tangled Tree and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (science journalism). But if analyzing a phenomenon or problem is more important to you than telling a single compelling story, you’ll need the structure of a Big Idea book instead of a narrative....
eBook - ePubDocuments in Crisis
Nonfiction Literatures in Twentieth-Century Mexico
- Beth E. Jörgensen(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- SUNY Press(Publisher)
...She develops her argument for limiting the category of fiction to nonreferential narrative by carrying out a systematic narratological comparison and contrast between various forms of history writing (biography, autobiography, historiography) and their fictional counterparts. In the present study, the focus is reversed to attend to the distinction of nonfiction by examining the interplay of conventions and expectations that inform the production and the reception of nonfictional narrative and that structure our perception of its particular relationship to material reality and human actions, past and present. The two Mexican writers quoted above are well-known for their contributions to literary nonfiction, in particular the chronicle and, in the case of Leñero, the documentary or nonfiction novel and documentary theater as well. Their reflections that I have excerpted articulate the fundamental connection between nonfiction writing and real world events and identifiable people, and they introduce a number of concepts and terms that arise in any discussion of nonfictional narrative: reality, real life, testimony, datum, fact, and document are part of the essential vocabulary with which to talk about the texts brought together in this book. This lexicon, which must also include other terms such as evidence, plausibility, factual status, and factual adequacy, requires a rigorous interrogation and theorization that goes well beyond the limits of commonsense usage. In this chapter I have assembled critical resources provided by studies in history and literary and genre theory in order to formulate functional definitions for a core vocabulary, without negating the persistent ambiguities inherent in each concept. Three distinct and competing conditions for writing and reading nonfiction inform my study, which acknowledges and seeks to explain the tensions at play among them...
eBook - ePub- William Guynn(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...2 SIGNIFYING HISTORY What Are Factual Narratives? It is, I believe, evident that a discussion of fiction and nonfiction in film cannot be separated from the theoretical debates on the question in literature, linguistics, and philosophy, which have their historic roots in antiquity and have developed significantly in the course of the last century. Indeed, the most probing work on nonfiction film in recent years relies on theoretical perspectives that come from outside film studies. Even if nonfiction in film manifests itself in specific ways, particularly because film is an audiovisual, not a literary, discourse, the larger theoretical issues are the same. A review of the critical literature is particularly relevant to examining the nonfictional character of the historical film because historians and film historians have long hesitated to give it that status. Moreover, we are, I believe, at a critical juncture: the beginning of a reexamination of traditional notions of genre that have long held back the serious study of works of nonfiction. I begin the discussion with literary theorist Gérard Genette, who has been instrumental in stirring up debate on the question. In 1991, Genette’s Fiction et diction launched an appeal for the study of nonfictional genres so long neglected by literary theory. In this work, Genette makes the case that the discipline of narratology has been able to ignore factual narratives by restricting its field of investigation to the “literary,” that is, the fictional genres, whether theatrical or novelistic. In so doing, it has effectively excluded from analysis the rich domain of nonfictional genres, on the basis of a difference of function. Nonfictional works are pragmatic, rather than aesthetic; they act on the reader/spectator with the intent to modify in some way his relationship to the world. The distinction goes back to Aristotle, who established the boundaries of the literary by his notions of légein and poèsis...
eBook - ePub- Christopher D. Benson, Charles F. Whitaker(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...11 Literary Non-fiction: Storytelling at Its Best ▶ Introduction As many writers will attest, showing goes a long way toward telling. In fact, showing has more impact than simply telling. In literary non-fiction, we use the best elements of fiction writing— character, voice, theme, conflict, and, ultimately, resolution —to inform and energize true stories in ways that draw us into the immediacy of the narrative, to reveal to us; effectively to show us. Through lucid and detailed descriptions, we experience the atmosphere, hear the sounds, smell the aromas, and see the sights of the surroundings of our subjects. Learning Objectives Identify the elements of a long-form narrative story. Examine the narrative techniques used by masters of the form. Build on the reporting methods discussed in earlier chapters. Discuss some of the genre’s more controversial examples. Learn effective ways to break the rules of classic feature writing. In this chapter, we look at constructing stories, as writer Tom Wolfe has suggested, by moving the reader through carefully framed scenes—effectively placing the reader in the story. We illustrate the power of narrative and its demands for detail and for immersive reporting. We also discuss the criticism of this form in ways that will guide contributors away from the potential pitfalls: composite scenes; manufactured quotes; and imagined interior monologue. IMMERSIVE REPORTING: Research and reporting based on personal experience with a subject resulting in a deeper understanding of that subject. In the end, even narrative-driven stories must be factually accurate. The story is in service of the factual occurrences. The facts are not reshaped to fit a narrative arc or build the tension through a rising conflict. ▶ Overview Many people relate long-form narrative with the mid-twentieth century work of journalists like Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, and Hunter S...
- Carrie Hintz, Eric L. Tribunella(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Broadview Press(Publisher)
...History, science, and life writing can seem purely fact based, and it is undeniably true that such books aim to communicate factual information. Yet nonfiction for young people often includes stories designed to enliven the reading experience and spark an imaginative response. Reading such texts critically involves discerning whether the fictive elements diminish the capacity of the nonfictional text to communicate ideas and information, but it also involves an understanding of how a fictional element might add to a nonfictional text. Nonfiction works without fictive elements can also be read critically, with attention to the way they structure information, whether through a comparison/contrast structure, the exposition of a process or cycle, a question-and-answer format, or some other arrangement. Nonfiction trade books frequently overlap with the kind of reading that children complete in school classrooms, where they often use textbooks. However, nonfiction trade books are a thriving literary genre in their own right. The American Library Association (ALA) acknowledged the literary and cultural value of nonfiction in 2001, when it began awarding the Ronald F. Sibert Informational Book Medal for the best informational book published in English in the United States. Likewise, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) offers the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children, named after Johann Amos Comenius’s Orbis Sensualium Pictus (The Visible World in Pictures, 1658), considered the first work of nonfiction for children as well as the first picturebook...
eBook - ePubA Guided Reader to Early Years and Primary English
Creativity, principles and practice
- Margaret Mallett(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...CHAPTER 7 Non-fiction literature in English lessons Introduction English lessons are the special home of fiction and this is reflected in the length and depth of analysis of a range of genres in Chapter 6. However, some kinds of non-fiction have an important place in the English curriculum and have, perhaps, not always received the attention they deserve. And yet the best writing of this kind has qualities which help develop critical literacy and accelerate children’s progress in reading and writing. What are the genres of non-fiction of value in English lessons? I include here autobiography and biography, ‘lyrical’ texts and those texts in print or on-screen which set out arguments to inform and nourish the debates that are a feature of lively English lessons. The extracts in Section 1 are concerned with diaries, autobiography and biography. Extract 53 takes up a broad canvass and confirms the place of literary kinds of non-fiction including diaries, letters, autobiography and biography – in the English programme. Extract 54 sets out Sue Unstead’s review of Michael Rosen’s biography of Roald Dahl and indicates what she values in his innovative approach to informing and involving his young readers about a gifted writer and sometimes eccentric human being. In Section 2, Extract 55, from Mallett’s Bookmark publication on the lyrical voice in non-fiction, attention turns to a poetic non-fiction text which describes the life cycle of the eel in such a way that text and pictures combine to draw upon and develop the imagination and feelings as well thinking and understanding. Calling such creations ‘information picturebooks’ hardly does them justice; children who have shared this book with me have commented that it is a ‘sort of poem in words and pictures’. Section 3 turns to some of the texts that support and inspire that part of an English programme which allows children to reflect on all the many issues that concern human beings as they live their lives...
- ANNABEL WATSON, Ruth G Newman, Annabel Watson, Ruth Newman(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Interwoven into these sections are practical activities for you to try out and take into your classrooms. These activities are centred on exploring writer’s language choices and how they have been crafted to convey meaning to the implied reader. At the end of this chapter you should be able to: develop understanding of the sociocultural views of reading, writing and genre; understand the reciprocal relationship between reading and writing; develop knowledge and understanding of how model texts can be used to explore real writers’ uses of language, as well as scaffold pupils’ own writing; develop knowledge of the ways in which language, grammar and structural features can be used to convey meaning. Non-fiction across UK curricula If you take a moment to consider the range of non-fiction texts which circulate in our communities, it becomes evident that the list is an incredibly long one. From formal newspaper articles to celebrity ‘insta’ captions, non-fiction texts permeate our daily lives – informing us, advising us and most definitely persuading us! Therefore, it is of little surprise that non-fiction reading, and writing, is embedded in curricula across the nations of the UK. All curricula highlight the need for pupils to read and write for ‘a variety of purposes and audiences across a range of contexts’ (DfE, 2014c, p. 3) and develop ‘an understanding of how meaning is created’ (CCEA, 2017). As a result, this synergy across the four corners of the UK indicates the importance non-fiction plays in our society, and given how new media technologies grant us (and at times bombard us with) constant access to online content, there is little wonder why twenty-first-century pupils need experience analysing and evaluating non-fiction texts where potentially biased statements and ‘fake news’ can be presented as verifiable truths and facts...
