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Stories Of Resistant Play: Narrative Construction As Counter-Colonial Methodology, Drew Chappell, Sharon Verner Chappell

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

Narrative construction has an important and under-explored role to play in examining questions of power and privilege in P-12 classrooms or higher education courses in education and the humanities. In this paper, the authors utilize pedagogical deconstruction and reconstitution of stories about childhood play, examining how young people embody cultural narratives of power through their play. Through narrative construction, the authors envision utopian moments of resistant play, in which youth question old scenarios and imagine more equitable and examined possibilities for play. Counter-narrative writing strategies include recombining events from the historical record, contemporary news accounts, or popular culture; playing with …