Goodwin's Theory and it links to Newspaper Articles

Goodwin's Story Structure:

Charles Goodwin proposed a model of storytelling that highlights the interactive nature of storytelling. He suggested that there are six interactional techniques that speakers use when putting narratives together; these narrative features were:

• Story Preface: A signal that a speaker wants to tell a story and an invitation for others to show interest.
• Story Solicit: A response from someone else that they want to listen to the story.
• Preliminary to the Story: Background information to the story that provides context to it, this is usually in the form of 'who', 'where', 'what' and 'why'.
• Story Action: The main body of the narrative.
• Story Climax: The conclusion of the narrative.
• Story Appreciation: Signals from the audience that communicate their response to the narrative.

Application to newspaper articles:

Here is an application of Goodwin's theory to an exemplar article taken from a online news story in the Bristol Post:

The emboldened title catches the attention of the reader and 'invites' them to show interest in the article, this is the story preface, and the reader would respond by clicking on the link and reading the rest of the article, this is the story solicit. The paragraph underneath the title provides context to the reader so that they understand the meaning of the title, this would be the preliminary to the story.

This is the main body of the narrative of the article that follows up on the story preface that gets the attention of readers and the background to the story that provides context. Being the main body of narrative means that it is the story action in Goodwin's model of storytelling.

This is the concluding paragraph of the article that explains what chief executive the PA (Parent's Association) thinks about the charges against the hospital and how the parking prices of the hospitals. This piece of the article acts the story climax in Goodwin's theory of storytelling.

However, with newspaper articles it is difficult to apply story appreciation as it is difficult for readers to directly interact with the article (with the exception of reading the article). On the other hand it could be interpreted that the readers read the article then they discuss the article with others who have also read the article.