Collaborative storying

According to Bishop et al. (2003), effective partnerships are developed through conducting a spiral discourse in which the participants in learning collaborate to tell and retell stories, co-constructing knowledge in ways that validate the diverse knowledge and identities of all. They developed a collaborative storying technique that draws on the narrative inquiry tradition.

We are suggesting a pedagogy where the participants in the learning interaction become involved in the process of collaboration, in the process of mutual story telling and re-storying, so that a relationship can emerge in which both stories are heard, or indeed a process where a new story is created by all the participants … This new pedagogy recognises that all people who are involved in the learning and teaching process are participants who have meaningful experiences, valid concerns and legitimate questions.

Bishop and Glynn, 1999, page 201

Collaborative storying enables all participants to explore ideas, highlights, and conclusions in ways that help them to critically examine the assumptions and implications of the viewpoints that they have expressed.

Bishop et al. (2003) used this approach in Te Kōtahitanga, when they collaborated with students to create a series of narratives of experience that emphasised the meanings that each person gave to their experiences. They were able to use those narratives in the professional development phase of their project to counter, in a non-confrontational way, the effects of deficit theorising among teachers. They then developed a dynamic model of professional development in which the relationship between developers and teachers paralleled the relationship that was proposed between teachers and students. They recommend collaborative storying as “a very useful professional development tool that could well be used for pre and in-service teachers’ personal reflection and professional development on a wider basis” (page 36).

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