Chapter three in Kieran Egan's book, Imagination in Teaching and Learning, discusses the general characteristics of the imagination that occurs in our students between ages eight and fifteen. Egan states that there are two main obstacles that bar the implementation of imaginative development in our teaching methods and curriculum: the technical and the theoretical. The technical obstacle comes in the form of how do we teach what the government curriculum documents while at the same time developing the imagination of our students. The theoretical obstacle we face is that the imagination, like the bodies of our students, are subject to age and experience related changes and there could be no blanket curriculum to develop the imagination. Despite these above obstacles and with no educational research to back him up, Egan explains that by breaking down the imaginative lives of our students into general characteristics we can learn how to engage and involved our students effectively. In chapter three, we look at the prominent features and general characteristics of the imaginations of our students between the ages of eight and fifteen.
The first main characteristic of imaginative lives is the connection to stories. When emotions are involved it is human nature to connect to a narrative or story that can create meaning in our lives. These stories do not always have to be fiction, but any context in the form of a narrative. It is through these narratives that teachers can engage their students" imaginations and involve them into the material of the lessons being taught. Not only will the knowledge that narratives will engage our students help develop their imaginations but also the types of narratives. The narrative content must be a complex story structure that the students will find meaningful to themselves. Egan's main point of this section was that to engage imagination, we must engage emotion.