[xmca] FW: L1, Ed. Studies in Language & Literature - New Issue Alert! - Vol. 9 Issue 1

["Peter Smagorinsky" <smago@uga.edu>]

= = =    New Issue Alert  ? Volume 9, Issue 1 now on-line    = = =

 

With abstracts in English, Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Italian, 

Polish, Portuguese & Spanish!

 


Dear L1 reader,

We are happy to announce that the first issue of vol. 9 of our peer-reviewed
on-line journal has been put on-line. It is a special issue on Verbal
interaction & literary understanding, or how students can be introduced to
literary culture by various ways of ?talking? in the classroom. The guest
editors, Tanja Janssen (University of Amsterdam) and Irene Pieper
(University of Hildesheim) present original research from Melbourne, Geneva,
Nijmegen, Gothenburg, and Amsterdam. As a bonus, Janssen & Pieper offer an
extensive annotated bibliography of this special issue?s theme.


Below you will find the abstracts of each article, and a full bibliographic
reference that serves as a hyperlink. By clicking on the reference your
browser will be forwarded to the L1 on-line repository, where the articles
reside and are ready for downloading or on-line viewing (PDF-format).


For an overview of the full contents of issue 1 of Vol. 9, click
<http://l1.publication-archive.com/public?fn=enter%26repository=1> here.


We thank the authors for their contributions and the reviewers and
translators for their assistance.

 

Please note that the abstracts in the L1 journal are presented in ten
different languages. This covers the mother-tongues of about one third of
the world?s population.


The editors, 
Gert Rijlaarsdam & Mary Kooy

 



Author: Tanja Janssen (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) & Irene Pieper
(University of Hildesheim, Germany)


Title: Introduction to the special issue ?Verbal interaction & literary
understanding?


Abstract. The editors discuss the central theme and present the four
contributions related to the theme.


Keywords: dialogue, exploratory talk, interaction, self-questioning


Reference: Janssen,
<http://l1.publication-archive.com/public?fn=enter&repository=1&article=296>
T., & Pieper, I. (2009). Verbal interaction & literary understanding.
Introduction. L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature,9 (1), pp
1-3.



Author:  Brenton Doecke, Prue Gill, Bella Illesca (Monash University,
Australia) & Piet-Hein van de Ven (Nijmegen University, Netherlands)

Title: The literature classroom: Spaces for dialogue.

Abstract: The following article constructs an account of the pedagogy of a
teacher of literature in an Australian secondary school. It provides a small
window on her professional practice, and draws on a range of data, including
notes made by a ?critical friend? as she observed the teacher giving lessons
over several days. The participating teacher shared her lesson plans and
engaged in conversations with her critical friend, as well as writing
reflections about her teaching. In addition to recording classroom
observations, the critical friend wrote extended reflections about what she
had observed, sometimes in response to the teacher?s ensuing reflections
about the success of the lessons. The study thus arises out of a
professional dialogue between the teacher and her critical friend, and it
attempts to convey a sense of their continuing conversation, as they reflect
on what they have learnt from their collaboration. The article captures not
only the professional learning which the teacher and her critical friend
experienced through their ongoing dialogue, but the exchanges that occurred
in this teacher?s classroom, as her students engaged in interpretive
discussions in response to the text they were studying. The very best
literature classrooms - so this article maintains - enable students to
engage in exploratory talk (Barnes, 1978), where the very notion of
?literature?, as an esteemed body of texts, is open to interrogation. The
students in this classroom appropriate the language of literary analysis in
a dialogical way (Bakhtin, 1981), making this language their own through
their discussions of the work of a distinguished Australian writer.

The protocols for classroom observation that were followed derive from the
International Mother Tongue Education Network (IMEN), which positions
teachers and academics as collaborators in research on the national
settings. Rather than judging the work of individual teachers, the aim is to
create opportunities for them to reflect on their teaching and to articulate
their views and values in dialogue with educators in other countries. The
goal of the following article is not simply to present the results of a
research project, but to prompt readers to enact the interpretive activities
at the heart of this inquiry into the teaching of literature. This article
is itself a vehicle for others to join in a wider conversation about the
teaching of literature across national boundaries.


Keywords: literature teaching, professional learning, practitioner inquiry,
comparative research


Reference: Doecke,
<http://l1.publication-archive.com/public?fn=enter&repository=1&article=293>
B., Gill, P., Illesca, B., & Van de Ven, P-.H. (2009). The literature
classroom: Spaces for dialogue. L1 ? Educational Studies in Language and
Literature, 9 (1), 5-33.



Authors: Christine Gamba & Anne-Christel Zeiter-Grau (University of Geneva,
Switzerland)


Title: Interactive readings of children?s literature in day care:
Microgenetic analysis of the semiopictorial construction


Abstract: In line with educational issues involved in emergent literacy
practices in preschool, in particular those concerning comprehension
processes, this paper focuses on picture-based narrative comprehension
during an interactive reading session of a wordless picture book, involving
a group of children aged three and their teacher. Children are asked to make
inferences about the meaning and outcome of the story, a procedure which
gradually elicits their responses on how events link together, thus
enhancing their capacity to use prior and implicit knowledge to build the
story meaning. Moreover, this study highlights the importance of interaction
for developing comprehension.

Data collected was analysed following didactic microgenesis, an analytical
approach showing that knowledge built during interaction depends on the
joint construction of a zone of common meaning by which teacher and children
try to adjust to each other. In order to help the process of merging
different meanings of the story built online, a text written by researchers,
following the narrative structure of the story, was read by the teacher
after the picture-based reading. This led us to examine through
interactional analysis which semiotic cues were used during recall on the
following day, as an additional measure of knowledge construction.


Keywords: emergent literacy, narrative comprehension, semiopictorial
knowledge, dialogic reading, didactic microgenesis, interaction


Reference:
<http://l1.publication-archive.com/public?fn=enter&repository=1&article=292>
Gamba, C., & Zeiter-Grau, A.-C. (2009). Interactive readings of children?s
literature in day care: Microgenetic analysis of the semiopictorial
construction. L1 ? Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 9 (1),
35-60.



Author:  Monica Reichenberg (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)


Title: Vocational students talk about texts in small groups


Abstract: The study presents a comparison between how three teachers and
their students talked about texts ? narrative and expository ? in small
groups during a regular lesson and during two lessons where a new approach
of comprehension instruction, Questioning the Author (QtA), was adopted.

The students were 17 years old. The majority of them were poor readers and
they attended the Health Care Programme. The lessons were videotaped. During
the regular lessons, the teachers dominated the text talks and mostly asked
retrieve information questions. The students ? including the immigrant
students ? made few inferences and reflections. 

After the regular lessons, the teachers were invited to participate in
seminars led by the investigator where the QtA model was practised before
videotaping the second time and the third time.

Results showed that during the QtA lessons the teachers´ share of talking
time diminished. The teachers´ questions also underwent changes. The number
of retrieve information questions decreased and construct message questions
increased. The students ? including the immigrant students ? read more
actively during the QtA lessons. They clearly made an effort to explore
ideas in the text and made numerous inferences and reflections.


Keywords: poor readers; immigrant students, reading comprehension; reading
strategies; structured text talks

Reference:
<http://l1.publication-archive.com/public?fn=enter&repository=1&article=291>
Reichenberg, M. (2009). Vocational students talk about texts in small
groups. L1 ? Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 9 (1), 63-90.



Authors: Tanja Janssen, Martine Braaksma & Michel Couzijn (University of
Amsterdam, The Netherlands)


Title: Self-questioning in the literature classroom: Effects on students?
interpretation and appreciation of short stories


Abstract: In this study we examined the effects of self-questioning on
students? interpretation and appreciation of complex short stories. Two
experiments were carried out, in which tenth grade students from different
secondary schools participated. In Experiment 1 self-questioning instruction
was compared to instructor-made questions about stories. In Experiment 2 two
forms of self-questioning instruction were compared: an unguided and a
guided form. Literature discussions in peer groups formed a substantial part
of all conditions.

Results showed that (unguided) self-questioning had a positive effect on
students? appreciation of literary stories, compared to instructor-prepared
questions and to guided self-questioning. The results for quality of
interpretation were more diffuse. In Experiment 1 effects on students? story
interpretation could not be established. In Experiment 2 a main effect on
story interpretation was found for both the guided and unguided form of
self-questioning instruction. In addition, students? reading experience
appeared to be important for the effectiveness of the unguided
self-questioning condition: avid readers tended to benefit more from this
condition than infrequent readers. We conclude that an open literature
approach, based on ?authentic? student-generated questions in response to
short stories, can be beneficial for students? story interpretation and
appreciation.


Keywords: literary interpretation, literature discussions, self-questioning,
story appreciation


Reference: Janssen,
<http://l1.publication-archive.com/public?fn=enter&repository=1&article=297>
T., Braaksma, M., & Couzijn, M. (2009). Self-questioning in the literature
classroom: Effects on students? interpretation and appreciation of short
stories. L1 ? Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 9 (1), 91-116.



Author: Tanja Janssen (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) & Irene Pieper
(University of Hildesheim, Germany)

 

Title: Empirical studies on verbal interaction and literary understanding.
An annotated list of references.


Abstract: The authors present a list of publications that was initially
compiled in preparation of the symposium, ?Verbal interaction and literary
understanding?, held at the 6th IAIMTE-conference, in Exeter (England),
March 27-29, 2007.

The list is based on a search of several digital databases, such as the
Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), PsycINFO, and the Web of
Science. Publications were selected which contained reports of empirical
studies - quantitative as well as qualitative - of verbal interaction in the
literature classroom, the theme of this special issue of L1. The studies
were published between 1985 and 2008. Search terms were; ?empirical?,
?(case)study?, ?research?, ?experiment?, combined with ?literature
discussion(s)?, ?literature conversation(s)?, ?classroom talk?, ?book talk?,
?interaction? or ?literature dialogue(s)?. Only publications written in
English were included.


Keywords: annotated bibliography, literature education, literature overview


Reference:
<http://l1.publication-archive.com/public?fn=enter&repository=1&article=295>
Janssen, T., & Pieper, I (2009). Empirical studies on verbal interaction and
literary understanding. An annotated list of references. L1 ? Educational
Studies in Language and Literature, 9 (1), 117-137.

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