This paper reports on research into the ways in which student teachers' experiential learning is mediated by socioculturally situated narrative resources. The research uses Wertsch's idea of the narrative template as a co-author of individual narratives. This idea is developed to be useful in the particular context of initial teacher education (ITE). Transcripts from post-lesson observation discussions between student teachers, school-based mentors and university-based tutors are used to analyse the processes by which beginning teachers master the use of narrative templates for making sense of and, therefore learning from, their experiences. This research is put into the context of debates about the centrality of "on the job" learning to ITE and developing interest in recent decades in models of teacher knowledge and teacher learning.