"How Is This a Dialogic Classroom?" Examining a Literacy Event From a Languaging Perspective

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Considerations for Languaging in Classroom Contexts

Abstract

While the importance of dialogic pedagogy to enhance student learning, thinking, and problem solving has been widely recognized in the literature, the key analytic construct that has been adopted across most accounts is “talk.” The purpose of this study is to propose a shift in the analytic construct of dialogic interactions from “talk” to “languaging” and to examine the affordances the shift might bring in our understanding of the dialogic pedagogy, classroom interactions, and literacy practices. Primarily drawing upon a languaging perspective and conducting a close analysis of classroom conversation and literacy events in an 8th-grade ELA class, this study presents a case to argue for a languaging perspective as an analytic construct for dialogic pedagogy.

Author

• Min-Young Kim, Grand Valley State University