The literature classroom: Spaces for dialogue.

Abstract

'…all languages of heteroglossia, whatever the principle underlying them and making each unique, are specific points of view on the world, forms for conceptualizing the world in words, specific world views, each characterized by its own objects, meaning, and values. As such they all may be juxtaposed to one another, mutually supplement one another, contradict one another and be interrelated dialogically. As such they encounter one another and co-exist in the consciousness of real people…these languages live a real life, they struggle and evolve in an environment of social heteroglossia.' (Bakhtin, 1981, pp.291-292) Abstract: The following article constructs an account of the pedagogy of a teacher of literature in an Australian secondary school. It provides a small window on her professional practice, and draws on a range of data, including notes made by a 'critical friend' as she observed the teacher giving lessons over several days. The participating teacher shared her lesson plans and engaged in conversations with her critical friend, as well as writing reflections about her teaching. In addition to recording classroom observations, the critical friend wrote extended reflections about what she had observed, sometimes in response to the teacher's ensuing reflections about the success of the lessons. The study thus arises out of a professional dialogue between the teacher and her critical friend, and it attempts to convey a sense of their continuing conversation, as they reflect on what they have learnt from their collaboration. The article captures not only the professional learning which the teacher and her critical friend experienced through their ongoing dialogue, but the exchanges that occurred in this teacher's classroom, as her students engaged in interpretive discussions in response to the text they were studying. The very best literature classroomsso this article maintains -enable students to engage in exploratory talk (Barnes, 1978), where the very notion of 'literature', as an esteemed body of texts, is open to interrogation. The students in this classroom appropriate the language of literary analysis in a dialogical way (Bakhtin, 1981), making this language their own through their discussions of the work of a distinguished Australian writer. The protocols for classroom observation that were followed derive from the International Mother Tongue Education Network (IMEN), which positions teachers and academics as collaborators in research on the 6 B. DOECKE, P. GILL, B. ILLESCA, & P.-H. VAN DE VEN teaching of L-1, with the aim of facilitating comparative research on mother tongue education in various national settings. Rather than judging the work of individual teachers, the aim is to create opportunities for them to reflect on their teaching and to articulate their views and values in dialogue with educators in other countries. The goal of the following article is not simply to present the results of a research project, but to prompt readers to enact the interpretive activities at the heart of this i...

Multiple voices: Learners reflect on literature

“…For example, a survey of the articles in Reading & Writing, looking at the titles and key words between 2015 and 2020, suggests that most research is carried out at the tertiary level (see Boakye & Linden 2018;Nkoala 2020) Ideally, learners would develop a love of reading literary texts through their engagement with these at school but this personal response needs to be affirmed and nurtured. The requirements of the examination system and the need to produce essays that meet these requirements mitigate against this (Doecke et al 2009). Both teachers and learners are assessed on how successfully they navigate this system, which may leave little space for developing a personal response to the literature.…”