[Xmca-l] BBFE: Invitation for an online forum of Bakhtinian teaching cases

[Ana Marjanovic-Shane]

Dear educator and/or educational researcher–


As a part of our study and future book “Bakhtin from and for educators”,
contracted with the Palgrave publishing house, we (Eugene Matusov, Ana
Marjanovic-Shane, and Mikhail Gradovski) want to invite you to an online
forum to discuss interesting, important, and thought-provoking cases
of Bakhtinian
pedagogy. We extracted these cases from our interviews with self-proclaimed
Bakhtinian educators, who claim to be inspired by Bakhtin’s writings. We’ve
created an online forum to discuss these cases. If you choose to
participate in the online discussion, you will be able to make anonymous or
signed comments on the cases. The discussion will be open-ended. The
authors of the cases can participate in this online forum as well (or not)
– they may also choose anonymous or signed participation. Below is an
example of the beginning of Case#1.


There are about 30 super diverse and thought-provoking cases about
Bakhtinian pedagogy by Bakhtinian educators with their analysis that we
abstracted and edited from our interviews with them. The cases are diverse
by students’ age, by subject, by pedagogical approaches and interpretation
of Bakhtin, by the nature of pedagogical challenges and successes, and so
on. We plan to post more cases in a few weeks for discussion. The past
cases’ discussions can be continued even after posting a new case.


Your participation in the online forum is voluntary. You can skip cases at
your wish (please do NOT feel obligated to read and discuss ALL cases!).
You can reply to the cases directly or to others’ commenting the cases as
many times as you want. Once a day, you will get an email notification
about new postings from the system (if there are new postings on that day).
You can unsubscribe from the forum at any time.


By participation in the online forum, you will agree to be quoted in our
book. If you wrote your comment, which we want to quote, anonymously, then
we will refer to you as “anonymous.” If you wrote your comment and signed
your name, then we will refer to you under your name.  If you want to
withdraw your consent for any particular posting or for all of your
postings, you can do so – please email to us directly with your request

.

If you are interested in enrolling or have questions, please send an email
to Eugene Matusov (ematusov@udel.edu).


Thanks for your attention,

Eugene, Ana, and Mikhail


PS Please feel free to forward this email invitation to educational
practitioners and educational researchers who may be interested in
participation.


PPS Please provide your questions, feedback and suggestions about your
concerns about the forum and suggestions for its improvements by emailing
to Eugene Matusov (ematusov@udel.edu)


-------------------------
Example of a case of Bakhtinian pedagogy for discussionCase#1: “My Papa's
Waltz” tableau

Bakhtinian Educator (BE): In my English writing class for diverse
undergraduate students, "tableau" is, I like to call it, a living snapshot
of, in our case, of a piece of literature. So, what I do is I give my
students a piece of literature that we have already read and discussed in
class and I tell them, "Okay, you're gonna do a tableau. I need a living
snapshot, your representation of a point in time of the piece, what the
piece may mean to you and your group, what maybe anything that has to do
with the piece. You don't have to narrate the piece. You can do anything."

I just had a class do a tableau this semester of My Papa's Waltz, by
Theodore Roethke. I have several different classes using the same text, but
they all obviously did something different with this text in their tableau.
My one class did... There were five students in the group that was going to
do the My Papa's Waltz tableau, and what they did was they separated three
different scenes in one snapshot, and they represented the papa (father)
character, in three different still scenes. One scene was a dance, like a
playful dance, just the waltz itself. The second scene was the father...
One student had a water bottle, so it was representing the father drinking
alcohol, the students said, as they explained later. And the third was the
father and son, the father looming over the son who was cowering on the
floor. So we had a playful father, an alcoholic father, and an abusive
father. Three scenes, three different interpretations all in one snapshot.

Interviewer: Interesting. Okay. So where do you see Bakhtinian teaching
here?

<<read the rest on the web>>

*             *             *
Generic questions for discussion:

   1.

   What attracts your attention in this case and why?
   2.

   What do you like/dislike in this case and why?
   3.

   What (if anything) surprise you about this case and why?
   4.

   What would you like to ask the Bakhtinian educator about this case?
   5.

   Do you think the Bakhtinian educator could have done something
   different, if yes, what and why do you think so?
   6. What do you see Bakhtinian, non-Bakhtinian and anti-Bakhtinian in
   this case and why?

-- 
*Ana Marjanovic-Shane*
Dialogic Pedagogy Journal, Editor (dpj.pitt.edu)
Chestnut Hill College, Associate Professor of Education
e-mails: shaneam@chc.edu
              anamshane@gmail.com
US phone: +1 267-334-2905
Serbian phone: +381 62 1904 110