A dissertation completed at
The Center for Education, Widener University,
One University Place, Chester, PA 19013 		 
RHETORICAL STRUC TURE AND PERSONAL NARRATIVE: THE AFRICAN AMERICAN ORAL TRADITION IN SERMONS, FOLKTALES AND CAMPUS MINISTRY
Barbara White Forney, Ed. D.
October, 1996

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edited 01/17/00

 


ABSTRACT

This study describes how African American sermons and folklore can be perceived to be offering advice or teaching through language. The methods by which the rhetorical structure and personal narrative of sermons and folktales convey moral education will be examined. The content analysis and interpretation of four sermon series and four folktales will be used to develop research implications as discussion points for moral teaching on university campuses.

Interactive interviews and profile sheets will validate that personal narratives and sermons can be used as teaching devices and that they are used to teach:
 
1. self awareness in the form of motivations or purposes;
2. logical thinking;
3. moral responsibility;
4. mastery of literate discourse strategies;
5. framings which provide a means for constructing a world, for characterizing its flow and segmenting events within that world;
6. the need to look beyond one's immediate environment;
7. the skills needed to gain broader perspectives;
8. the need to use learned meaning acquired and shared through acculturation;
9. methods to gain insight on the question of aesthetics into the performance of folklore materials;
10. the tacit meanings expressed in stories.

The background and organizing principles of sermons are the key to their narrative creativity in the black culture. Jokes, folktales, political speeches, raps and toasts - all assume the form if not the identical structure of the black folk sermon when they are performed.

Narratives are part of the very fabric of culture and tradition. This phenomenon is clarified even in small tribal communities where an entire society and its people may be guided by what Kerby (1991) calls a "mythological world view". Once under the influence of such narratives, life becomes simply a repetition of the same stages and orders that are presented from the broader social structure down to an individual's life and its development.

Narratives are clearly a primary vehicle of ideologies, both nationally and on the individual level. The ideologies that we inherit and those we fabricate in our conversations with ourselves and others are a powerful force in providing a delimited world where good is good and bad is bad. It is believed that if communication of moral truths is to take place there must be a shared linguistic code or narrative.

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