Narrative and reflective practice: recording and understanding experience

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine techniques for creating understanding through observing, writing and reflecting. In order to do this the emerging argument utilises three illuminative vignettes in considering a range of approaches to narrative. A central concern is to make connections and identify shared understandings regarding the generation of reflective practice through storying. In all of the illustrative examples storying is conceived of as discourse via narrative, which, through a set of constructed statements, interpretations and meanings, produces a particular version of events. Such an approach to reflective practice invites the learner to enhance thinking and doing through interrogating, rediscovering and redefining a particular view of an issue. The underlying assumption of the article is that this process demands the creation of a text or story derived from lived experience, which in turn produces rich, authentic data. The article examines this data using techniques developed by Freire, such as the categorising and coding of content, identifying themes and ideas and the building of concepts. In conclusion, the article sees the learners involved in the construction of such narratives as not merely ‘component parts’ but ‘shapers’, enabled through experience, in using story as a medium for facilitating understanding and generating new knowledge.