Mary Aswell Doll Like Letters in Running Water

Annotation

Like Letters in Running Water explores ways in which fiction (prose, drama, poetry, myth, fairytale) yields transformative insights for educational theory and practice. Through a series of intensely original, powerful essays drawing on curriculum theory, literary analysis, psychology, and feminist theory and practice, Doll seeks to confront a commonly held bias that reading literary fictions is "mere" entertainment (not a learning experience). She suggests that fiction has immense teaching power because it connects readers with their alliances within themselves and this connection attends to social, outer issues addressed by traditional pedagogies with greater, deeper awareness. Her elaboration in this book of the concept of currere--the lived experience of curriculum--through literature, drama, and myth is a major contribution to the field of curriculum theory.