Connecting "man in the mirror": Developing a classroom dialogic teaching and learning trajectory

Abstract

In this paper I argue that dialogic teaching and learning is and involves a stance and comportment to-ward experience and information that is marked by joint purposes and intertextual ties that are mani-fest in classroom talk across time and across time scales. I assert that classroom talk practices must be examined in terms of patterned use and uptake; as part of a repertoire of past, present and anticipated discourse practices; and through ways they contribute to an overall classroom community teaching and learning trajectory. For this study I conducted a sociocultural discourse analysis on a daily five-minute activity Song of the Week in an urban second grade classroom community. I investigated ways this activ-ity shed light on a classroom community dialogic trajectory of teaching and learning. I contextualized this activity in terms of selections of Songs of the Week across the year, and as a recurring activity of Morning Meeting. I purposefully selected and then examined the classroom talk around one song, "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson, and explicated planned and in-the-moment intertextual ties that connected content and procedures across events and experiences, and across time. My findings showed how embedded connections within and across talk practices, and predictable but flexible procedures and routines, sustained shared dialogic purposes across interactions. This study is important because it showcases this classroom community's dialogic teaching and learning trajectory to situate and unfold an understanding of dialogic teaching and learning as a "big picture" and idiosyncratic process.