“Can you take a wild guess?” Using images and expanding knowledge through interaction in the teaching and learning of history

Abstract

Abstract This article contributes knowledge about disciplinary literacy practices in school history, with a particular focus on how key subject-related concepts are visually and orally represented and negotiated in teacher-student interaction. Based on a classroom study of history teaching in a linguistically diverse classroom in Grade 6, we use social-semiotic theories to analyze properties of the images themselves and how they are employed as resources in oral interaction, with particular focus on students’ potential involvement in discursive shifts between everyday and disciplinary wordings. The results show that decontextualized, generic images, particularly those of abstract concepts, can obstruct students’ participation in subject-related discourse. Students’ discursive mobility can also be limited by interaction-driven guessing games about key subject-related concepts and misleading use of everyday language. The results also show how L2 students’ creative use of linguistic resources, connections to learners’ prior knowledge, and reiteration of subject-related concepts can constitute valuable parts of discursive shifts. Implications for using images and oral interaction in ways that support disciplinary learning in history are discussed.