Dutton is the founder and editor of the Web site Arts & Letters Daily, named by the Guardian as “the best Web site in the world.” In The Art Instinct, Dutton explains our need for art as an evolutionary adaptation. In chapter 6, “The Uses of Fiction”, Dutton focuses on literature and story-telling. Joseph Carroll’s work on the evolution of literature supports the core of his argument.
For Dutton’s review of Joseph Carroll’s Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature see http://denisdutton.com/carroll_review.htm.
4. Kieran Egan. Teaching as Story Telling: An Alternative Approach to Teaching and Curriculum in the Elementary School. University Chicago Press. 1989
My understanding of Kieran Egan’s work is, for all practical purposes, second hand. That said, it is knowledge gained in workshops and conversations from Carol Ann Dahlberg (co-author of Languages and Children, Making the Match) in her presentation on the power and near-necessity of using “story” as the guiding principal for teaching and the designing of lessons at all levels: activity, hour, unit, course. If we teachers (and parents) frame EVERYTHING we do with our learners around a story-structure, we can appeal to an innate function of the human mind that allows us to acquire more efficiently through story.
More from Egan directly can be found at http://www.educ.sfu.ca/kegan/TaST.html
5. Daniel H. Pink. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Riverhead Trade: 2006.
Pink argues that in our current age of Abundance and Automation with much of our information-age work now being done in Asia, that we can and will distinguish ourselves by doing work that satisfies clients’ and consumers’ needs for products and services with high touch and high concept. There is an enormous amount of critical work that can neither be automatized nor outsourced. It is post-information age, post left-brain generated work that will depend on our (and our students’) ability to demonstrate facility in six areas: Design, Symphony, Story, Play, Empathy, and Meaning.
While TPRS and similar Input-driven methods may not employ or require an obvious and direct amount of visual design, TPRS by design does help teachers and students practice Symphony (language not in isolation, but in totality), Story (binding language forms to narratives), Play (the necessity of tomfoolery and goofiness in a TPRS room), Empathy (the teacher MUST know the students for TPRS to work, and the students MUST listen to each other) and Meaning (we learn the language as a vehicle to reach other people, and we constantly ask why, why, why.)
Pink’s work is extraordinary, and Pink is extraordinarily accessible.
http://www.danpink.com/whole-new-mind
[…]”
German Teacher
Appleton East High School
Appleton, Wisconsin