Dialogic Eventness: Can It Be Created?

• In Event: Critical Inquiry and Dialogic Space

Abstract

Turning educational ideas into meaningful learning requires planning for uncertainty. This presentation presents dialogic theorist Bakhtin’s key concept of eventness as an essential aspect of defining dialogic space, illustrated by examples from student group conversations on literature in Norwegian lower secondary school.
Perspectives
To Bakhtin, an event is something happening here and now, with a degree of open-ended uncertainty tied to what will happen next. Acknowledging this uncertainty – or eventness (Bakhtin, 1990)– might help researchers and practitioners grasp and support the spirit of dialogue (Burbules & Bruce, 2001) in activities aiming for genuine student participation, which is a core concept in recent curricular reforms in Norway. Following Bakhtin, eventness requires teachers to assume both the role of hero, engaging inside the pedagogical interaction, and also the role of author, planning/reflecting outside the interaction.
Methods
To address eventness as a hub for dialogic principles, this presentation features a central case (e.g., Stake, 1995) involving a focal lesson in which a teacher-participant in professional development about dialogic pedagogies allowed a grad-student researcher to teach a lesson in her middle school (8A) literature class. Follow-up studies demonstrated that most students were substantively engaged in this task (Author et al., 2017), and even boundary cases displaying subversive forces could be interpreted as examples of subtle creativity at the hands of the students (Author et al., 2021). However, this case addressed dissonances among inside/outside perspectives of the host teacher and visiting researchers through classroom discourse and interview transcripts.
Findings
Comparing different interpretations of, and reactions to, this classroom event revealed possibilities and limitations for teacher preparation regarding dialogic pedagogies. Planning for open-ended, uncertain events requires teacher-as-author to surrender control; yet without first-hand, insider experience of such uncertainty, teachers may not have the shared experience to make such planning decisions.
Significance
While the idea of the teacher as author is not new (e.g., Lensmire, 1997; Miyazaki, 2011; Author, 2019), and it has proven controversial (Matusov & Miyazaki, 2014), it also opens up a meaningful framework for the challenges we face concerning student participation and dialogic space in education. Assigning group work renders the teacher as an author and observer outside the event, whereas in whole class conversation she must balance the role of outside author and that of teacher-as-hero situated in the heat of the moment. Traditional practice is rooted in scripts and predictable genres and as such imply that the teacher gives privilege to her position outside the ongoing event. What is sacrificed is the live presence of the teacher in the ongoing event, and as such the very spirit of dialogue. The other way around, the teacher might be fully immersed in the moment face-to-face with the students, to the point where connection with the responsible outside position of the teacher-as-author is broken. This might result in a dialogic event, but it is not created as a dialogic space for educational purposes. Considering these roles and inside/outside perspectives may allow teachers and researchers to better discern, describe, and define dialogic space in the classroom.

Author

• Atle Skaftun, University of Stavanger