CHILDRENS INTERTEXTUAL STRATEGIES IN ELICITED NARRATIVES - WHEN LITTLE-RED-RIDING-HOOD MEETS YOGI-BEAR IN THE WOODS

Developmental and interpretive stance patterns in children's narrative productions were investigated in the context of a story telling and a story completion task. Twenty-four 2nd and 4th graders told two well- known fairy tales (''Cinderella'' and ''Little Red Riding Hood''), sta ted their themes, then talked briefly about 6 popular cartoon characte rs from a given list. A week later the participants completed modified versions of the same stories, after a cartoon character was introduce d in the plot. This task required drawing intertextual links between d ifferent cultural sources and representations, to weave an original na rrative. Solving the incongruity resulting from the intrusion of a car toon character in the canonical story, by means of a new narrative, el icited children's use of various meaning-making strategies, from respe cting the story-frame to taking a comic and ironic stance toward the c anonical fairy tale. Thematic level responses and types of intertextua l constructions were found to depend on the interaction of grade and n arrative structure-types, while preferences for 'reportive', 'visual', or 'dramatic' modalities of narration were not age-related, suggestin g early differentiation of interpretive stances. Developmental differe nces, however, were found in children's use of evaluative devices and of narrative structure types-ranging from 'unfocused summary' to 'elab orated'. It is suggested that exploring the interpretive dimensions of storytelling is essential in understanding the processes by which chi ldren might become critical consumers of culture and active participan ts in 'authoring' their cultural readings.