From: Holly Willett <willett>
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 18:31:42 -0400

I find that when I read a nonlinear narrative, I am busy putting things "in order" in a linear fashion, rather like working on a jigsaw puzzle. Are there at least 2 kinds of action in a story: The author's chosen trajectory through the events and the reader's reconstruction or personal sense-making? Does this not occur in many stories, and is it only more complex in nonlinear stories, requiring more participation by the reader, the interactivity that Eliza notes?

As for episodic novels, I find that at least some of them have plot threads that tie the episodes together, such as in the _Ramona_ books, in which each chapter is a distinct story, but taken as a whole the chapters add up to a single plot. Rather than a single Grand Narrative Arch, there's a series of smaller arches building up to a climax. One of my graduate students this past summer did not enjoy the Ramona book we read because she felt that it was "all chopped up"; the notion of episodic plot was helpful to her appreciation. Some of the teachers in my classes have also not liked the Magic School Bus books because they can't be read aloud. It is helpful to them to see that each double spread is a web; as often as they use webs with their own students, it seems to be a new idea for them that an entire book could be written as a series of webs. Eliza has suggested that at least some children and young people have little difficulty in adjusting to the expectations of interactive texts and many of the people on this list enjoy them, but others may have to adjust their ideas of
"text" in order to appreciate them.

Holly

Holly G. Willett willett at rowan.edu Library Education Advisor/Coordinator Secondary Education/Foundations of Education Rowan University Glassboro, NJ 08028
(609) 256G59
Received on Sun 04 Oct 1998 05:31:42 PM CDT