Thinking Skills and Creativity 9 (2013) 135–151 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Thinking Skills and Creativity j ourna l h o mepa ge: h t tp://www.elsevier.com/locate/tsc Reciprocity between narrative, questioning and imagination in the early and primary years: Examining the role of narrative in possibility thinking Teresa Cremin a,* , Kerry Chappell b , Anna Craft c a Faculty of Education and Language Studies, The Open University, UK b University of Exeter, UK c Open University and Exeter University, UK a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 21 October 2012 Received in revised form 19 November 2012 Accepted 24 November 2012 Available online 3 December 2012 Keywords: Possibility thinking Narrative Play Imagination Questioning Creativity a b s t r a c t The concept of possibility thinking (PT) as a driving force of creativity has been investigated both conceptually and empirically for over a decade in early years settings and primary classrooms in England. In the first wave of qualitative empirical studies, play formed part of the enabling context. Criteria for episode selection for PT analysis were that episodes exhibited children immersed in sustained focused playful activity. During the second wave of PT studies, the research team’s attention was drawn to children’s imaginative storying in such playful contexts and it emerged that consideration of narrative in PT might prove fruitful. The current paper revisits key published work, and drawing on data previously ana- lysed for features of PT, seeks to explore how narrative might relate to the current theorised framework. Fourteen published PT episodes are re-analysed in order to consider the role and construction of narrative in PT. The new analysis reveals that narrative plays a founda- tional role in PT, and that reciprocal relationships exist between questioning, imagination and narrative, layered between children and adults. Consequences for nurturing children’s creativity and for future PT research are explored. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In recent years increased attention has been paid to creativity both internationally and in early years and primary educa- tion. Scholars have examined its conceptualisation (e.g. Banaji, Burn, & Buckingham, 2010; Craft, 2011; Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009; Sawyer, 2004) and its instantiation in the pedagogic practices both of teachers (e.g. Cremin, Barnes, & Scoffham, 2009; Jeffrey & Woods, 2009), and of artists (e.g. Bancroft, Fawcett, & Hay, 2008; Galton, 2008). The interrelated concepts of creative learning (Jeffrey, 2006; Sefton-Green, Thomson, Jones, & Bresler, 2011) and ‘possibility thinking’ (PT) (e.g. Burnard, Craft, & Grainger, 2006; Craft, Mcconnon, & Matthews, 2012) have also been explored. In the case of the latter, conceptual and empirical studies in England have developed the notion that children’s creativity is driven by PT, exploratory transitions from ‘what is’ to ‘what might be’, encapsulated as the posing of the question ‘what if?’ in different ways and contexts, together with perspective-taking, or ‘as if’ thinking. Initially conceptualised by Craft (2001), and set within broader conceptualisations of creativity as everyday, two phases of empirical work have investigated the nature of children’s PT and how it is nurtured by teacher pedagogy (Burnard et al., 2006; Chappell, Craft, Burnard, & Cremin, 2008; Craft, Cremin, Chappell, Burnard, & Dragovic, 2012; Craft, Mcconnon, et al., * Corresponding author. E-mail address: T.M.Cremin@open.ac.uk (T. Cremin). 1871-1871/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.11.003