Revisiting the black Jesus: Re-emplotting a narrative through multiple retellings

Author: McVee, Mary B.

Source: Narrative Inquiry, Volume 15, Number 1, 2005 , pp. 161-195(35)

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

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Abstract:

<br />This article proposes that close examination of story retellings, both oral and written, can reveal a narrator's attempts to re-emplot a story in various ways. The retellings presented occurred in the context of a teacher education course where, across the semester, Ellie a white teacher, retold the same story six times. The retellings provided a unique opportunity to add to previous research on retold stories by examining differences and similarities in the six narratives that surfaced issues of culture and race related to teaching. The article also contributes methods of narrative analysis used to analyze and compare narrative structure and evaluations across the retellings. Discourse patterns revealed changes in narrative emplotment and evaluation and in the narrator's positioning of herself, a Euro-American teacher, and others, primarily African American students.

Keywords: Narrative; Positioning; Race; Re-emplotment; Re-telling; Teacher education; Teaching; Whiteness

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ni.15.1.08mcv

Affiliations: 1: University at Buffalo, SUNY

Publication date: 2005-01-01