Bob Fecho

Society's Child: Social Context and Writing Development

This article draws from discussions that have been taking place over the last 20 years concerning the interplay of social contextual research and theory and knowledge about writing development. Beginning with a survey of these academic discussions and then detailing what this theory suggests through an examination of the academic literature and classroom examples, the article suggests that writing development is (a) reflective of social historical contexts, (b) variable across local contexts, (c) reflective of classroom curriculum and pedagogy, (d) shaped by social interactions, (e) tied to social identities, and (f) conceptualized as a nonlinear process. It then argues that a social contextual stance on writing development shifts perspective not away from the individual writer and the individual product, but toward seeing that writer and text in multiple contexts that complicate our understanding of writing process.

Feasts of Becoming: Imagining a Literacy Classroom Based on Dialogic Beliefs

Bakhtins language theories give educators a view into how people develop and communicate with language through dialogue. These conceptions can be applied to teaching in a variety of positive ways. The authors explore how teaching based on Bakhtinian concepts might function in the classroom, paying particular attention to the concepts of dialogue, heteroglossia, carnival, and hybridity. Although they do not provide a specific model, they refer to five pedagogical practices that might take place: •Raising questions and authoring responses by and among all participants •Embracing the importance of context and the non-neutrality of language •Encouraging multiples perspectives •Flattening or creating disturbance within existing hierarchies •Agreeing that learning is under construction and evolving rather than reified and static The authors argue that a dialogic classroom is one where language is central to a meaning-making process that, in turn, informs us about language. By opening up dialogue within classroom contexts by reference to Bakhtinian theories, the authors see opportunities for increased student engagement, more voices within classrooms, and more invigorating academic activities.

In rehearsal: Complicating authority in undergraduate critical-inquiry classrooms

If we in teacher education want emerging teachers to inquire into the complexities of authority and to reimagine how it might operate in schools, then we need firsthand experience troubling it in our own classrooms. To this end, we - three reading education professors - problematized our classroom authority as we sought to enact critical inquiries with preservice teachers. In this qualitative study, our contention is that preservice teachers, in addition to eventually having to manage curriculum, must also face the reality of having to function as authority figures while still maintaining a classroom conducive to meaning making. However, in order to interrupt their traditional images of teacher as authority figure, they need to experience contrasting images. This article provides three lenses through which to explore how authority can be reimagined in critical-inquiry reading education courses.

Reclaiming Literacy Classrooms Through Critical Dialogue

Authors Fecho, Coombs, and McAuley discuss the integral role of dialogue in literacy classrooms dominated by standardized testing, curriculum, and instruction. Their argument in support of the dialogical literacy classroom begins with a historical and theoretical justification for these principles, then transitions into a discussion of the troubling condition of schools as a result of the current lack of dialogue. By including the voices of students and teachers, the authors offer glimpses into classrooms in need of dialogical transactions. This commentary concludes with a call to teachers, policy makers, and community members to consider what educators risk when they fail to open up classrooms as places where diverse perspectives can be heard and individual meaning can be made of the texts of students’ lives. In addition, the authors argue here that establishing a critical dialogue in literacy classrooms is needed, perhaps now more than at any time in our past.

When figured worlds collide: Improvisation in an inquiry classroom

Students and teachers inevitably enter classrooms with differing expectations and experiences; those differences provide opportunities for both conflict and growth. This article examines this phenomenon in an undergraduate teacher education course on reading instruction at the middle‐school level, presents case studies of students’ improvisations in the face of this tension, and makes implications for teachers and for teacher education regarding these types of conflicts. Students in the course were middle‐school education majors and speech pathology majors; the educational backgrounds and identities of these students presented lack of fit with each other and, for some, with the inquiry‐based nature of the course pedagogy. Using Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain’s (1998) concept of figured worlds, our case studies present one speech pathology major – Kathryn – and one middle school major – Allie – both of whom were successful in improvising their own ways through the conflict between their backgrounds and the differing requirements and content of the reading education course. We also provide implications for teachers and teacher educators who face similar disjoints between their own figured worlds and those experienced in classrooms.

Literacies in Adolescence: An Analysis of Policies from the United States and Queensland, Australia

Look outside of the school walls in nearly every community and you will find examples of adolescents deeply engaged in literacy practices. In Australia, a young man composes a flyer for a lawn-mowing service (Knobel, 1999). Teenagers in Nepal exchange love letters mixing home and school languages (Ahearn, 2001). In the U.S. suburbs, youth race home to read and respond to each other’s web logs (or blogs), public journals that are proliferating among adolescents (Nussbaum, 2004). Shivering in his car, waiting to make a drug deal, a young man writes poetry to express his critique of the societal and institutional structures that constrain his life choices. Across town, his high school classmate composes a play in an afterschool club in order to make sense of her cousin’s untimely death (Schultz, 2003). In a range of settings, responding to a multitude of purposes and audiences, youth gather to document their lives through film, music, photographs, poetry, and political posters posted on the Internet, played out in public performances and written in private spaces they alone occupy. They offer critique and celebration, despair and optimism, unity and diversity

Literacy Practice and the Dialogical Self: Isaac Making Meaning

In this article I make an argument for literacy practice as a means for self and other dialogue. Through a theoretical framework that examines the concepts of heteroglossia and the dialogical self, I explore the literacy practices of Isaac, a working-class adolescent diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and his attempts to bring meaning to his life struggles. I argue that, particularly for those learners whose lives are marginalized from the cultural center, reading, writing, and other forms of expression are valuable media through which learners seek understanding of the chaos around them. Given this existential need to make meaning, I then argue that the teaching of reading and writing needs to be seen as more than the learning of discrete skills and instead should be viewed as providing learners ways to call their own lives and the lives of others into dialogue.

Being, Doing, and Becoming: Fostering Possibilities for Agentive Dialogue

In recent decades, efforts toward standardization in U.S. classrooms have limited what and how students and teachers express the many cultural stances they bring to teaching and learning, providing little to no room for students and teachers to act in agentive ways. Drawing on Bakhtinian and Dialogical Self Theory, we focus on two case studies, both part of larger qualitative studies, to explore how a student and teacher engaged in dialogues with the many cultural I-positions within and the many cultural contexts they encountered. We profile a transgender youth’s heteroglossia in motion and “otherness in the self” as he aimed to support his own and others’ selves-in-dialogue. We also describe a secondary English teacher who, through dialogue with his many I-positions that converged in his classroom, positioned himself as an advocate for un(der)documented students. Finally, we discuss issues these dialogues and contexts raised and consider what is it that schools can and should be doing to foster possibilities for agentive dialogue that supports being, doing, and becoming.

Embracing tension: using Bakhtinian theory as a means for data analysis

In this article we introduce tension as a means for qualitative data analysis based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogical theory. We first explain the foundations of Bakhtin’s theory and show the inevitability of tension in our lives and qualitative data analysis. We then offer a review of how Bakhtin’s notion of tension has manifested itself in qualitative research, which prompts us to establish a tensional approach to qualitative data analysis. Finally, we outline our framework for a tensional approach to data analysis and illustrate examples of putting this approach into practice in our own study. Our tensional approach (1) explores key moments of tension; (2) seeks out unease and discomfort; (3) involves researcher and research participants in ongoing dialogue; (4) and embraces multiple perspectives on a range of tensions during the data analysis process. It encourages uncertainties and questions instead of pursuing certainty of meaning and fixed conclusions.

A silence that wants to be heard: suburban Korean American students in dialogue with invisibility

Korean American students experience invisibility and silence as their culture and presence remain outwardly invisible in the mainstream culture of US high schools. This is further exacerbated by the silent response of the dominant population of the school towards these issues. Yet, to an extent, Korean American students find a sense of comfort within that invisibility; less visibility allows more silence and thus more privacy. This qualitative in-depth interview study focuses on developing understandings of Korean American students’ perceptions and negotiations of education in suburban American schools, specifically through the perceptions of two Korean American female students. When viewed through Bakhtinian perspectives of silence, this invisibility becomes prominent, lending insight into the ways invisibility and silence are both seen as problematic and openly cultivated by these students.