The Construction Zone: Literary Elements in Narrative Research

Narrative research has become part of the landscape of education inquiry, yet its theory and practice are still debated and evolving. This article addresses the construction of narratives using literary elements common to nonfiction and fiction writings. The authors discuss these elements and use four narratives to illustrate them. They address how literary elements intersect with more familiar practices of generating and analyzing evidence to reveal themes, and they relate these intersections with wider issues about what can be known from research and how it can be learned.