"But You Said This ...": Students' Management of Disagreement Within a Dialogic Approach to Literacy Instruction

• In Event: 56.081 - Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: 56.081-16 - Daring to Disagree: Dialogic, Critical, and Social Justice Approaches

Abstract

Proponents of dialogic teaching argue for changes to classroom interaction to promote student language use and higher-order thinking. An under-researched aspect of dialogic approaches is the way students initiate and manage disagreement during their talk. This paper examines interaction in whole-class talk during a literacy lesson in an elementary school classroom, focusing on the ways students disagreed with each other during discussion of a controversial topic. Conversation analysis delineates methods used to disagree with the perspectives of others and to diffuse disputes that sometimes arose out of disagreements. The study highlights interactional practices employed by students to disagree, including those commonly found in ordinary conversation, and playful use of more academic and institutional ways of engaging in disagreement.

Authors

• Christina R. Davidson, Charles Sturt University

• Christine Edwards-Groves, Charles Sturt University