Narrative, in a variety of genres, is a common contemporary tool for the exploration of teacher identity. Biography and autobiography are the most obvious examples, since first person accounts of teachers' lives or the lives of teachers as recounted by others are clearly forms of discourse (in the narratological sense of narrative structures and patterns), which readily convey personal, professional experience and knowledge. To put this in the less technical sense adopted by a good deal of the contemporary literature on teachers' work and teacher preparation, teachers' lives are 'storied' and their experiences are shared for the purposes of self-expression, or as a means of breaking through an apparent wall of isolation and self-doubt into a space of shared professional identity. These genres, while familiar and conventional forms of narrative, are not necessarily lacking in innovation and variety and may take the form of writing or even 'storytelling' of the oral kind. A current variation on the autobiographical theme is 'authentic conversation' (Clark, 2001) in which teachers discuss their experiences in regular informal meetings with colleagues or in which pre-service teachers exchange letters, formulating various questions in personal narratives. Narrative is, however, being used in a variety of senses, which move beyond biographical/autobiographical reportage, into 'critical reflection' and the more imagined, or fictive, aspects of storytelling. Connelly and Clandinin (1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000) have written extensively about 'storying lives', 'stories to live by', and 'storied landscapes' while Schön (1983, 1987, 1991) talks about the 'reflective practitioner', as a person who is aware of personal practice, rather than just a practised or experienced professional. Implicit in these approaches is a view that narrative is a tool for shaping experience, not just for representing it.More recently, Mason (2002) proposes a 'discipline of noticing' as an aspect of being professional which takes us beyond reflection into action. As he puts it 'Reflection is a much used word, with meaning varying from '"vaguely thinking back to or commenting on an incident" to detailed written records of as much as can be recalled of an event'. (p.15). In general terms, narrative approaches to teachers' work have not been preoccupied with the collection of data but with 'data storying' (Lather and Smithies, 1997). Connelly and Clandinin (1998, p. 155) alert us to a basis for distinguishing between story and narrative (story as 'phenomenon', narrative as 'inquiry'). However, as they concede in a later work, they do not deal with the 'huge literature' that talks about narrative, preferring instead to concentrate on what 'narrative inquirers' do (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000, p. 49). Our point is that avoidance of the 'huge literature' may lend itself to the emergence of diluted or even distorted forms of narrative enquiry such as the recent use of a portfolio for assessment of beginning teachers. Consideration is also given to the links between critical ethnography and narrative in order to critique the use of teacher portfolios, as in a recent Australian initiative for the appraisal of beginning teachers. The authors conclude with an argument for the refinement of narrative theory in the 'writing' of teacher identity.