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Carolyn Steedman, "The Tidy House"
Stephanie K. Dalquist
-Steedman seems to make quite a few statements regarding the process children
use to write. Does she do this from having been a child writer? Doing
interviews? Or is this pure theory like Rousseau, no first hand experience?
-p445 - Why do we have to remove children's works from art to understand
them in terms of child development? Can this be done? Can anything similar
be done with adult art to understand their development?
-p447 - The desire for children is called "unchildlike" and a "neurosis"
- why isn't the subject treated similarly with preteen mothers and the
large market for realistic vomiting defacating whining baby dolls?
-p450 - Steedman describes the kids' imagery as dull and uneventful -
it seems sometimes that the best symbolism can be extricated from the
mundane!
Max Bajracharya
-Is there a fundamental reason why children tell stories about a past
as opposed to the future? Or is this a specific case where it happens?
It seems like children are more likely to talk about past events than
think of possibilities for the future -- is this because they are simply
limited to the culture that they have already seen (how does television
and media affect these stories)?
Walter Dan Stiehl
-Why is there no mention of any stories by young boys? How would these
stories have differed?
David Spitz
-Steedman's argument points to the dilemmas of understanding children's
writing. Why might also ask, Who do children perceive as the audience
for their writing? Assuming most children's writing is prompted by adults
(maybe this is not a fair assumption), to what degree do children cater
that writing to the adult, be it their teacher, parent, or psychiatrist?
-Or, do children see writing as a 'safe space' for expression? Is it more
or less safe than the spoken word?
Girim Sung
-How can adults accurately interpret or "translate" children's text without
imposing adult cultural definitions-even a slight rewording of the language
can be mapping adult ideas into children's text?
Hilarie Claire Tomasiewicz
-"The three children were almost entirely without sympathy for their creation
[Carl]." (437) Do you think that this has to do with the girls' ages and
the corresponding age appropriate belief that "boys are gross" or does
it reflect the girls unconscious feelings toward what is socially disapproved
of in little girls? It seems to me that the very fact that Carl embodies
some of the characterisitcs which are discouraged in little girls would
make him that much more appealing to the girls.
Christian Baekkelund
-"For all three children the writing of The Tidy House was a way of trying
to figure out life's mysteries." The Tidy House talks a bit about what
children are able to do in writing stories. But most of the points made
as to what children are able to achieve (such as "the means to reflexion,
to speculation, the route to conscious thought") are pretty mature and
complex. How aware are children in writing literature of what they are
achieving within themseleves outside of actually creating the work?
-Additionally, what draws children to want to write? Outside of obvious
adult influences, what will be a child's draw to write something down?
Mike Ananny
-Is writing the first socially acceptable form of independent communication?
(E.g. writing in a diary is considered insightful and reflective; talking
to ones self is considered an indicator of mental imbalance.) Is this
because, in writing, there is almost always a separation in both space
and time between author reader but in speaking there is almost never a
separation in both space and time between two interlocutors? Does a child's
appreciation of this difference and use of written expression indicate
a change in cognitive capacity?
Jennifer Chung
-When children write, is it more of a 'stream of onsciousness'-type writing,
or actual narrative? Also: How, really, are things different between the
writings of children in different social classes? (And do you have a copy
of the entire story?)
Char DeCroos
-I was struck most by the bleak psychological lifestyle portrait of the
tidy house. I was wondering if anyone investigated why some people are
comfortable accepting the lifestyle they're born in as their own, while
others struggle furiously against it?
Carlos Cantu
-Now that kids are becoming more techno-savvy at such a younger age, is
creative writing (and its thereaputic values) getting brushed aside? Can
devices like StoryMat or certain software programs (Renga etc) though
heading in the right direction, foster such intimate creations as The
Tidy House? How might media tools foster this intimate creativity in the
future?
Adam Smith
- How much of Tidy House was written for the adults who commissioned it
vs. the girls writing to express themselves?
Melanie Wong
-How is this story interesting? It basically reaffirms that "hey, even
insignificant children are storytellers, too". When we, at all ages, try
to map personal experience into oral or written semi-fictional tales.
Daniel Huecker
-While the narrative is interesting, I found the researcher's method of
many mediums to be the most important to me. The combination of layers
of text, observations, audio, drawings, and reflections produces 'something'
that compliments the complexity of the girl's narrative. How much of the
richness of the data and the narratives is lost when they are compressed
into the linear text of a scholarly article? I hope she is making a CD-ROM
as well as the book.
Peggy Miller, et al., "Narrative Practices and
the Social Construct of Self in Childhood"
Stephanie K. Dalquist
-Are self narratives subject to the same errors in simplification as decision/judgment-making?
(ie attribution, self-bias)
-Many cross-cultural differences are chalked up here to variation in culture.
What about linguistic differences in construction, like the "blameless"
constructions used in Spanish?
Max Bajracharya
-When children tell a story from another voice, do they actually believe
at times that this actually happened to them? Does this happen to adults
some times as well -- an appropriation of a story w/o the realization
that it has happened?
Walter Dan Stiehl
-How does the old phrase "Children should be seen and not heard" reflect
some themes from this article?
David Spitz
-The authors introduce storytelling as, among other things, a means of
language development and cultural-cognitive construction. It made me think
of several of my friends who, in the late 70s, were the subject of a study
to see whether their language development was affected by their Caribbean
nannies. Apparently, language was not affected. However, what might be
the cross-cultural influence of storytelling? This subject seems very
rich.
Girim Sung
-Is storytelling a product of the cultural environment or is it inherent
in our basic need for communication?
Hilarie Claire Tomasiewicz
-How great an influence is culture in narrative practice? Is there an
ideal form of storytelling, culture notwithstanding, that would best foster/encourage
the child's sense of himself?
Christian Baekkelund
-Some quick generalizations are made about multi-culturalism with respect
to story-telling near the beginning of this paper. I know that different
cultures have fundamentally different ways of telling and interpreting
stories, as well as different types and sets of stories, such as the manner
in which (Australian-Native-Indian) Aboriginies tell stories is frequently
fundamentally different than the way Germanic stories are frequently told.
-At what point do these differences seep into the common cultural space
of storytelling? Do children all across the world start telling stories
at ages 1-4 similarly, but by age 6 or 7 tell stories in their own native
manner in a learned fashion?...or are the cultural story-telling differences
learned as story-telling as a concept is learned?
Mike Ananny
-To what extent are the interactions with the caregivers creating the
construction of self-identity and not the child's actual choice and authorship
of stories? What other kinds of self-construction of identity occur independent
of stories?
Jennifer Chung
-At what point do children get, instead of corrected, berated for appropriating
another's story -- that is, accused of lying? Does this stunting of imagination
(or child-living-vicariously, or whyever this is done; is it possible
that it's the child trying to one-up the original teller, or some other
permutation of a competitive reason?) affect the child, and if so, how?
Char DeCroos
-Miller states that storytelling provides an optimal process for exploring
self-construction, particularly in children. Why is this emphasis just
limited to children? Don't adults (college students especially) still
have needs to express and understand who they are? What other mechanisms
would they use to fulfil these needs?
Carlos Cantu
-I noticed that the researcher isn't always around (example 4 for instance).
How much does this affect the types of narratives that arise? would'nt
parents get a little nervous and start trying to say the "right" things?
Adam Smith
-How are personal stories different those we make up?
Daniel Huecker
-Narrative appropriation by children! Clearly it happens, but I had never
thought of it in this manner. How does the child's narrative appropriation
fit into the studies of appropriation by Prof. Jenkins and others?
Justine Cassell & Kimiko Ryokai, "Making Space for
Voice"
Stephanie K. Dalquist
-Would the commercial toys elicit a different response if the child had
very recently been exposed to the character? Even in the Pooh/Eeyore example
listed, it didn't seem *that* personal - the child still obviously connected
Pooh to the Eeyore he had with him at the moment.
Max Bajracharya
-How do children treat the interaction of the 2D mat objects with
the real objects that they can move and play with? Does a house on the
mat actually symbolize a house even though something can never go in the
house? How did children reconcile these problems?
Walter Dan Stiehl
-What is the Story Mat supposed to replace? Is it supposed to function
as a storyteller who encourages the child to contribute through prompting
of similar stories? Or is it supposed to allow a child to play with a
virtual friend?
David Spitz
-How might adults benefit from engaging narratives like children do? Can
modern adult narratives like news, as opposed to folk lore, be viewed
as in any way comparable to children's narrative? While developing language
skills would certainly be an advantage particular to children, can we
envision advantages to active storytelling that would be particular to
adults?
Girim Sung
-Do children ever project themselves onto the stuff animals---is the use
of stuffed animals kind of meta signaling the child to tell fantasy as
opposed to "real life" stories?
Hilarie Claire Tomasiewicz
-Why did you design StoryMat as encouraging "fantasy storytelling" (child
as narrator) rather than "children's pretend play" (child as character)?
Is it because you felt that there were certain advantages for children
to be able to narrate stories rather than play-act them themselves?
-In terms of benefitting the child, it seem that the ability to act a
part would be just as fun/useful as the ability to tell a story about
that same role.
Christian Baekkelund
-By looking at the dates the various projects mentioned were worked on,
such as SAGE, WISE, and the focus of this paper, StoryMat, what's next?
SAGE and WISE appear to be in a sense storyTELLING systems prior to StoryMat,
where as StoryMat was a storyLISTENING system. Is there a followup to
StoryMat (as well as SAGE and WISE) that is to be another storyTELLING
system?
-Also, the benefits of "fantasy play" are touted in section 2.1. Why is
it that some adults seem to so readily accept some types of "fantasy play"
and yet so quickly and adamantly reject others? For example, in the early
1980s, why did some parents so angrily reject Dungeons & Dragons as a
"fantasy play" environment, yet if their children made up stories with
their Barbie dolls to act out, they probably didn't care at all? Frequently,
where are these distinctions made?
Mike Ananny
-StoryMat does involve the incorporation of decontextualized language
(e.g. stories created by another child in another time) but this seems
like at best only an awareness of decontextualized language; how does
StoryMat encourage the development of the ability to *author* decontextualized
language and all that goes with it (e.g. creation for audience, revision
based on feedback, etc.)?
Jennifer Chung
-I would've liked to know what happened when the child wasn't shown in
advance that StoryMat(tm) was an audience --presumably, the child would
act as a child did on the passive mat until the mat revealed itself to
be talkable-to. The query is, at that point would the child switch into
a more active mode of conversation/story-telling, or not?
Char DeCroos
-Is story mat designed to replace child-child story development, or just
agument it?I guess if one can convince parents that it "supports child
driven play and creativity" it won't really matter.?
Carlos Cantu
-If kids are surrounded by gadgets that do all the imagining for them
(the talking Pooh comes to mind) at a very young age, is it possible that
they forget how to imagine for themselves (I'm not trying to exaggerate)?
Is that even a cause for concern? How do kids who have been surrounded
by such gadgets react to the sudden creative freedom that toys, like StoryMat,
provide?
Adam Smith
-In class Justine mentioned that younger children, before the age of five,
have a tough time acting out events through toys aka, playing with starwars
figures. How could the ideas behind storymat encourage these young children
to create stories.
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