ARLE 2024 in Melbourne
Abstracts for 'ARLE 2024 - PhD Pre-Conference (online participation)'

Jennie Darcy	Title: The A/Effects of teaching literature
Sohyun Eum	What Each Writer Learns in Groups: Roles in Collaborative Writing and Their Impact on Learning
Andressa J. Godoy Amélia Lopes	Fifty years of Literature Teaching in Portugal - A study based on Teachers' Life Histories
Sue Pinnick	How might the use of drama-based pedagogy in the English classroom (11-14 years) support the interpretation of prose and poetry: an exploratory case study.
Christian Smidt Alenkjær	How to compare practice architectures without losing analytical sensitivity?

Jennie Darcy (Australia)
TITLE: THE A/EFFECTS OF TEACHING LITERATURE

At the heart of this PhD project are questions concerning the purpose of studying literary fiction and the role of teachers in realising its affective value and regenerating ‘enjoyment-joy or interest-excitement’ (From Silvan Tompkin's Affect Theory Ahmed, 2010, p. 18). Positioned within a historical discourse which argues against reductionist notions of education, this research is interested in a social-relational approach to teaching literary fiction, allowing students insight into themselves, their place in the world and the wider human condition.
As an experienced English teacher, I researched alongside eight colleagues from a Victorian Catholic Diocese in a collaborative community of reflective practice. Bracketed by two Professional Learning Days (facilitated by myself), most of this data was generated through a series of one-on-one, semi-structured interviews via Zoom. Through a process of thematic analysis, the Theory of Practice Architectures (Mahon, Franciso, & Kemmis, 2017) was used to identify pre-existing cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements which shape English teaching praxis, enabling and constraining attempts to realise the affective value of literature.

The data generated from this study raises specific issues related to regional contexts where classrooms are populated by teachers with marginal literature/secondary teaching expertise. It highlights the ways in which those positioned as ‘newcomers’ to English teaching are more susceptible to neo-liberal pressures of accountability and assessment. It also brings into focus ambiguities concerning English teaching identities and conceptualisations of English teacher’s work, specifically in relation to ‘difficult knowledge’(McLean Davies & Buzacott, 2022). Simultaneously, it demonstrates the affordances of approaching English teaching as ‘Rhetoric’, thereby generating ‘effects of power and persuasion, yes, but also effects of pleasure and effects of learning, and more….’(Green, 2017, p. 76).

Discussion Points

1) What matters when teaching literature?

2) What are the boundaries of L1 teaching responsibilities (specifically in relation to difficult knowledge)?

3) How do conceptualisations of English teaching identity (or lack thereof) shape understandings of what constitutes knowledge in L1?

Keywords

English teaching and:
• Knowledge
• Identity
• Rural
• Affect
• Literature

References
Ahmed, S. (2010). Happy Objects. In M. Gregg & G. J. Seigworth (Eds.), The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, UNITED STATES: Duke University Press.
Green, B. (2017). English as rhetoric? - Once more, with feeling. English in Australia, 52(1), 74-82. doi:10.3316/informit.725864472094375
Mahon, K., Franciso, S., & Kemmis, S. (Eds.). (2017). Exploring Education and Professional Practice - Through the Lens of Practice Architectures. Singapore: Springer.
McLean Davies, L., & Buzacott, L. (2022). Rethinking literature, knowledge and justice: selecting ‘difficult’ stories for study in school english. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 30(3), 367-381. doi:10.1080/14681366.2021.1977981


Sohyun Eum (Korea (The Republic Of))
WHAT EACH WRITER LEARNS IN GROUPS: ROLES IN COLLABORATIVE WRITING AND THEIR IMPACT ON LEARNING

Collaborative writing, an effective pedagogic approach embodying the dialogic and contextual nature of writing, has been demonstrated to scaffold learners' writing abilities through peer interaction. However, roles within collaborative writing groups, driven by diverse factors such as personality, peer status, gender, and race, can significantly impact learning outcomes (Floriani, 1994; Christianakis, 2010). While previous studies (e.g., Marttunen & Laurinen, 2012) attempted to categorize learner roles that emerged in small groups, the specific learning outcomes based on roles within small groups remain unexplored. This study aims to determine how emerging roles in collaborative writing affect cognitive, behavioral, and affective learning dimensions.

This study has two main objectives: (a) to analyze how learners negotiate their roles in collaborative writing groups and (b) to identify how those emerging roles affect cognitive, behavioral, and affective aspects of learning. Based on prior research on behavior functions in collaborative learning and activities following the writing process (Marttunen & Laurinen, 2012), this study first categorizes potential roles that may emerge in collaborative writing groups. Furthermore, as roles are negotiated during collaborative tasks (Mudrack & Farrell, 1995), the study investigates how each learner adopts and challenges one's role in groups. This finding leads to the discovery of the cognitive, behavioral, and affective learning that occurs according to the roles identified within groups.

This study qualitatively analyzes learners' dialogue and collaboratively written products. Middle school students write an explanatory text in groups based on what they have discussed in their language arts class. Groups comprise 3-4 learners with heterogeneous writing abilities, and the writing process is video-recorded. After work, learners write "learner's report" in the form of process logs, reflecting on their cognitive, behavioral, and affective domains of learning. In-depth interviews elaborate on how learners perceive their roles and learning outcomes.

This study aims to refine the dichotomized "leader and follower" or "expert and novice" roles in collaborative writing research, offering a thorough understanding of learning outcomes based on individual participation in tasks. It may contribute to uncovering what students adopting specific roles like "socio-emotional leader" may learn, who are previously considered high in "off-task" utterances.

Keyword : Collaborative writing, Collaborative learning, Roles, Role negotiation, Learning

Christianakis, M. (2010). “I don’t need your help!” peer status, race, and gender during peer writing interactions. Journal of Lite Racy Research, 42(4), 418–458.
Floriani, A. (1993). Negotiating what counts: Roles and relationships, texts and contexts, content and meaning. Linguistics and Education, 5(3–4), 241–274.
Marttunen, M., & Laurinen, L. (2012). Participant profiles during collaborative writing. Journal of Writing Research, 4(1), 53–79.
Mudrack, P. E., & Farrell, G. M. (1995). An examination of functional role behavior and its consequences for individuals in group settings. Small Group Research, 26(4), 542-571.


Andressa J. Godoy & Amélia Lopes (Portugal)
FIFTY YEARS OF LITERATURE TEACHING IN PORTUGAL - A STUDY BASED ON TEACHERS' LIFE HISTORIES

The Carnation Revolution marked the beginning of the Democratic Era in Portugal, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2024. Among the changes resulting from the historic event is the redefinition of the social role attributed to the Language and Literature teaching (Duarte, 2013; Magalhães, 2019). Based on this context, we have been developing a research project aiming to produce professional life histories of teachers who teach or have taught Literature, which will contribute to the characterisation of the paradigms that have guided the teaching of Literature in Portugal during this period. The study consists of three phases, designed according to the life history methodology (Goodson & Sikes, 2017).
The first one involves an analysis of the institutional and academic discourses regarding Literature teaching that may have impacted teachers' professional practices. To achieve this, we conducted a systematic review and have been analysing official documents that guided Literature teaching in Portugal over the last five decades.
As part of the second phase, we plan to conduct semi-directive interviews with Literature teachers who began their careers around the time of the Revolution. We will identify participants through snowball sampling and invite them to share their professional life stories. Afterwards, we will analyse their narratives to write the life stories of each teacher participating in the study.
In the last phase, we will triangulate the results and analyses obtained by the two previous steps to write the prototypical professional life histories of Literature teachers and to characterise the paradigmatical evolution of Literature teaching in Portugal since the decade of 1970.
By doing that, we hope to collaborate with the discussion about the progress and democratisation of Literature Education by amplifying the voices of its contributors.

Keywords: Literature Teaching; Literature Teachers; Life History.

Bibliography:
Duarte, R. S. (2013). Ensino da Literatura: Nós e Laços [Doctoral Thesis] Universidade do Minho.
Goodson, I. & Sikes, P. (2017). Techniques for doing life history. In Ivor Goodson (Ed), The Routledge International Handbook on Narrative and Life History (pp. 72 -88). Routledge.
Magalhães, J. (2019). Literatura e Ensino em Portugal. Impossibilia - Revista Internacional de Estudios Literarios (17), 5-27.


Sue Pinnick (United Kingdom (The))
HOW MIGHT THE USE OF DRAMA-BASED PEDAGOGY IN THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM (11-14 YEARS) SUPPORT THE INTERPRETATION OF PROSE AND POETRY: AN EXPLORATORY CASE STUDY.

Abstract – Sue Pinnick PhD pre-conference submission

SIG Teacher Education
Theme: Teacher education and professional learning

How might the use of drama-based pedagogy in the English classroom (11-14 years) support the interpretation of prose and poetry: an exploratory case study.

For at least 25 years from the late 1980s up until the early part of the 21st century, the use of drama-based pedagogy was recognised as a valuable tool for teaching and learning in secondary English lessons in England (DCSF, 2008; Ofsted, 2012). However, since the removal of the ‘role-play’ speaking and listening element of GCSE English in 2014, along with the lack of talk in classrooms since the Covid pandemic (Oracy APPG, 2021), practice in this area is becoming more and more neglected. While some secondary English teachers occasionally use active approaches to teaching Shakespeare, the potential of drama to explore prose and poetry remains relatively unexplored. This presentation aims to explore how the use of drama might potentially support students' reading skills as well as engaging them in secondary English lessons.

The presenter will provide an overview of the theoretical framework supporting the use of drama in English lessons to enhance reading skills. The presenter will then share some preliminary results of a qualitative case study that has explored the impact of drama-based activities on students' reading skills. The study involved a group of 20 English teachers and lessons using drama-based activities when reading poetry or prose, over a 12 month period from June 2022 to July 2023. Data has being collected through interviews and lesson observations and is being analysed using Reflective Thematic Analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2021).

It is anticipated that the results of the study will contribute to a deeper understanding of the use of drama in English lessons and how it might support students' reading skills, particularly in the areas of inference and interpretation. The presenter will conclude by highlighting the implications of the study's findings for English teachers, Initial Teacher Education (ITE) educators of English and policy, in addition to the need for further research in this important area.

Potential Discussion points:
1. What are the barriers for English teachers in incorporating drama into literature lessons?
2. How can we train English teachers to use drama-based pedagogy effectively?
3. How can we support students in English classes to embrace the benefits of using drama in lessons?

Keywords:
• Reader response
• Dialogic reading
• Embodied reading
• Qualitative Case study
• Reflective Thematic Analysis

References

DCSF (2008) Teaching for progression: Speaking and listening. National Strategies. Available at: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/2528/7/sec_en_speaklisten0075008_Redacted.pdf

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. London: Sage.
Ofsted, (2012). Moving English forward: Action to raise standards in English.

Oracy All‐Party Parliamentary Group, (2021). Speak for Change: Final report and recommendations from the Oracy All‐Party Parliamentary Group Inquiry.


Christian Smidt Alenkjær (Denmark)
HOW TO COMPARE PRACTICE ARCHITECTURES WITHOUT LOSING ANALYTICAL SENSITIVITY?

In my PhD Towards Inquiry-Based Literary History Teaching in Danish Upper Secondary Education I will explore a new way of understanding the subject knowledge of literary history teaching in L1. This new way combines inquiry-based literature teaching, the manuscripts of Hans Christian Andersen and their digital accessibility. The project is a qualitative and multiple case study. Using Design-Based Research (Hansen et al. 2019) as a method, a learning material based on inquiry-based literature teaching and the digitized manuscripts will be designed to bring this new kind of subject knowledge into play in the classroom. In two cases the learning material will be tested in classrooms. These two cases will be compared to two other cases where teaching will focus on the same Andersen works, but not use the developed learning material. Through a comparison between the cases the project will explore whether the learning material brought a new kind of subject knowledge into play. The project will use the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis et al. 2014) to see if the learning material transformed the practices architectures as intended and thereby made a new kind of subject knowledge possible.

The data gathering has shown that the practice architectures of each classroom practice of the four cases are radically different: They are made of a lot of different variables. This poses two questions for my analysis phase (my points of discussion): How to compare different practice architectures without losing analytical sensitivity? And what data to focus on (and what to leave out) in analysis without losing nuance?


Keywords: Design-Based research, the theory of practice architectures, case study analysis and comparison

References:

Hansen, T.I., Elf, N., Gissel, S.T., & Steffensen, T. (2019). Designing and testing a new concept for inquiry-based literature teaching: Design principles, development and adaptation of a large-scale intervention study in Denmark. L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 19, 1-32.

Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Hardy, I., Grootenboer, P., & Bristol, L. (2014). Changing practices, changing education. Singapore: Springer.