Publisher's Synopsis
Telling and listening to stories, reading stories, watching stories (on television or film) are central to the way we live our lives: and are also at the core of teaching and learning about literature. The author explores how stories work and how a theoretical understanding of narrative can be translated into classroom activities which make readers more knowing and more discriminating. He examines how we recognize and read stories, the mechanisms by which stories work on us and the means by which society and its cultures both produce us as readers and at the same time produce the stories we read. He introduces - in an eclectic and practical way - the ideas of literary theorists in the context of familiar classroom texts such as "Spit Nolan", "Jane Eyre" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
