{"id":2318,"date":"2021-10-02T08:41:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-02T13:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/?p=2318"},"modified":"2023-05-01T19:31:36","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T00:31:36","slug":"expanding-narrations-history-with-comenius-narrations-rebirth-stage-2-the-analytical-didactic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educationalrenaissance.com\/2021\/10\/02\/expanding-narrations-history-with-comenius-narrations-rebirth-stage-2-the-analytical-didactic\/","title":{"rendered":"Expanding Narration’s History with Comenius: Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 2 – The Analytical Didactic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In my last article<\/a> I expanded my treatment of the history of narration<\/a> through delving into a passage from John Amos Comenius\u2019 The Great Didactic<\/em>. I began reading The Great Didactic <\/em>last year while writing the history of narration series and determined that there was more to say about the rebirth of narration during the Renaissance and Reformation eras<\/a>. In fact, Comenius says so much that is pertinent to the teaching tool of narration, that it is tempting to attribute to him the invention of it as a core teaching practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While we know that Aelius Theon<\/a> used written narration to train future orators in memory and invention, and that Quintilian<\/a> saw it as a core practice connected to the ability to learn, it is not really until Comenius that narration is a central teaching method. Erasmus<\/a> too recommended the narration of a teacher\u2019s lecture, thus shifting the focus to knowledge of content and away from rhetorical style and fluency. But only Comenius made of narration a golden key to unlock the doors of knowledge to the student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my article on The Great Didactic <\/em><\/a>we saw how Comenius envisioned teaching as opening founts of knowledge, and the process of students narrating to one another as part and parcel of the nature of knowledge itself: it must be shared! Developing his analogies from the natural world, Comenius advocated for narration under the analogy of intellectual nourishment through collection, digestion and distribution. The teacher first collects and digests knowledge, and then distributes it to others; then, in an ironic transformation the student becomes the teacher to do the same for his fellows. Thus, Comenius recommends a process of repeated narrations of content given by the teacher (or his book) with corrections by the teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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