Dialogic Pedagogy, Univocal Texts: Advancing Dialogue Within the Existing Language Arts Curriculum

• In Event: The Role of Texts in Dialogic Teaching

Abstract

Objectives
Productive classroom dialogue is characterized by opportunities for students to express their thoughts and deliberate about complex problems (Resnick, Asterhan, & Clarke, 2015). Yet many of the texts in the existing primary language arts curriculum seem ill-suited for productive dialogue since they focus readers' attention on seemingly indisputable, "right" answers. Nevertheless, working within the existing curriculum has its advantages vis-à-vis teachers' expertise, resources and support. Our aim in this paper is to investigate ways in which teachers re-orient towards and open up for discussion "univocal" texts.

Theoretical perspectives
This study builds upon and integrates Reznitzkaya and Wilkinson's (2017) ideas about the qualities of texts that are well-suited for dialogic teaching; Wertsch (1991) and Lotman’s (1988) theorizing about univocal and polyvocal texts; and Luke and Freebody's (1999) model of reader resources, especially their idea of the text critic.

Methods
This case study draws on data from the development year of a design-based research study investigating academically productive dialogue in Israeli language arts classrooms. The general goal of the design is to offer comprehensive instructional units for upper elementary language arts classrooms to initiate pupils into purposeful, meaningful and critical textual engagement. The design work included developing different processes for school-based professional development, such as critical rereading of curricular texts, to support dialogic teaching.

Data sources
The data set includes video-recorded design meetings (60 hours), design materials, classroom lessons (45 hours), and interviews and informal meetings with teachers, coaches, and principals. Relevant video and audio-recorded sessions were transcribed and analyzed using linguistic ethnographic microanalysis (Rampton, 2006). The analysis focused on the emergence of critical interpretations and readings, and how they were taken up in the critical prereading discussions.

Findings
The case study focuses on two episodes of critical discussions of two different texts. The first text is a short story that has a straightforward moral: harming the weak is bad; taking responsibility for those who cannot fend for themselves is generous; forgiveness is righteous. The second, an expository text, recounts the revival of Hebrew as spoken language. While the renaissance of Hebrew is presented as necessary and positive, no clear arguments or explanations for this position are discussed. In the first episode, the discussion took a critical turn and new readings of the text emerged. This happened chiefly through the participating teachers' adaptation of professional interactional norms and use of disciplinary tools. In the second episode, teachers were reluctant to assume a critical position, pointing to overall text quality – not just its dialogic quality – as limiting. Our findings problematize the professional development design and point to interactional, professional and textual conditions that support and constrain teachers in assuming a critical – and consequently dialogic – orientation.

Scholarly significance
The study highlights the importance of teacher orientation towards curricular texts for dialogic teaching, and the conditions under which such orientations shift. The study also deepens understanding of the challenges of advancing dialogic pedagogy within existing language arts contexts.

Authors

• Matan Barak, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Adam Lefstein, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev