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p.20 Narrative is defined by the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current
English (Allen, 1990) as "a spoken or written account of connected events in order of happening" (p. 788). To narrate means
to "give a continuous story or account of"(p. 788). Egan (1986) states that "[t]he story form is a cultural universal; everyone
everywhere enjoys stories" (p. 2). Barbara Hardy (as cited in McEwan & Egan, 1995) also observes that we "dream in narrative,
daydream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticize, construct, gossip, learn,
hate and live by narrative" (p. vii). Thus I understand that Egan's (1986) ''story" is equal to Hardy's "narrative". However,
Connelly and Clandinin (1991) make a distinction between "story" and "narrative". For them, "story" refers to anecdotes of
specific situations, just like the small pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and ''narrative" refers to long-term life events, the whole
picture of that jigsaw puzzle. Therefore, narrative is a continuous storytelling of connected anecdotes in order of happening.
p.20 Egan (1986) states that "[t]elling a story is a way of establishing meaning" (p.37).
p.21 Mattingly (1991) writes,
Stories not only give meaning to experiences we have
already lived through. They also provide us a forward glance, helping us anticipate meaningful shapes for situations even before
we enter them, allowing us to envision endings from the very beginning
(p. 237).
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