Arguing Multiple Narratives in Reading Things Fall Apart and The Laramie Project

• In Event: Using the Teaching of Argumentation to Explore Issues of Race, Gender, and Sexuality

Abstract

Purpose
This paper explores how a teacher and her students used argumentation to problematize issues of language, culture, and power as well as what counts as argument. Traditionally, argument has been viewed as making a claim supported by evidence and warrants in pursuit of convincing/persuading others of the “Truth” and validity of a claim. Of interest here are the instructional moves made by the teacher to reach a more complex understanding of Things Fall Apart and The Laramie Project and of argumentation as the layering of stories.

Theoretical Framework
The theoretical frame for argumentation employed here is grounded in Bakhtin’s (1981) discussion of heteroglossia. Rather than viewing arguments and experiences through a singular perspective, they are examined from a range of perspectives and voices in aims of fostering complex and thoughtful meaning-making. From this perspective, argumentation can serve to problematize key constructs by identifying tensions and contradictions among perspectives in service of a process of deconstruction and reconstruction of ideas.

Data Sources and Methods
Data come from a year-long, ethnographic study of an 11th grade AP Language and Composition class. The teacher had 20 years of experience. She had a reputation for being an excellent writing teacher. Data sources include: video-records of 66 class sessions, field notes, audio-recorded interviews, classroom artifacts, and student work samples.

Data analysis involved a microethnographic approach: key events were transcribed, parsed them into message units, coded for conversational strategies, and mapped thematically. These procedures revealed how the teacher and students interactionally constructed knowledge and a shared interpretive framework.

Findings
The teacher wanted students to understand how layering alternative perspectives could contest a single story and in so doing increase the depth and complexity of interpretation. In the instructional units that are the focus of the study, the teacher and her students problematized issues surrounding colonialism and sexuality through challenging dominant narratives and then crafting their own arguments layering multiple voices and narratives. Through seeking to tell a story with the voices of many, and not just their own or those portrayed in the text, the teacher and students created an opportunity to talk about tough issues without requiring consensus. Analysis revealed that students’ written arguments reflected consideration of and appreciation for multiple voices and perspectives. Furthermore, in both their written work and in interviews, students seem to possess an understanding of how argumentation can be used to perpetuate a single story or alternatively to illuminate multiple perspectives and thus either reinforce or challenge dominant structures of social and cultural power relations, respectively.

Significance
This study suggests that when argumentation is constructed and taught as the representation of multiple perspectives (as opposed to more formalist and monologic definitions of argumentation), teachers and students can problematize issues that are often difficult for them to frankly discuss in a classroom setting. In doing so, they are able to create complexity regarding the presence and role of language, culture, and power in texts and in our social life.

Author

• Eileen Buescher, The Ohio State University