Performing Curriculum: Building Ethos through Narratives in Pedagogical Discourse

Abstract

This study examines the problem of how teachers establish desirable positions of authority in their classrooms. The interpretive analysis draws on insights from narrative theory in order to consider the following question: How does one teacher establish authority in her classroom through the means of narrative performance? I articulate a rhetorical framework for exploring this question, particularly elaborating the notion of ethos, defined as the rhetorical invention of one's identity for persuasive purposes. I also establish a performance perspective to the study of narrative in teaching. In analysis, I have systematically examined one artful teacher's corpus of narrative performances in a 6-week Holocaust unit. This article overviews the occurrence of narrative events throughout the unit, characterizes the frame space of narrative discourse in the classroom, elaborates the variance in emerging ethos through narrative performances, and identifies and interprets the different types of narrative events in the class. I find that narratives serve as a hybrid frame space, allowing this teacher to establish a dynamically negotiated, yet nonetheless authoritative, ethos that emerged in response to the content material and to students.