Students’ stance-taking in the literature classroom
Submitted by:
Kristine Kabel
Abstract:
Key words: Literature studies, lower secondary school, disciplinary literacy, interpersonal meaning-making resources, sociological knowledge theory.
In this paper, I present and discuss two key findings from a recent study on disciplinary literacy in the literature classroom in L1 Danish (Kabel, 2016). The study addresses a national research gap. In particular, I explore students’ choices of resources for stance-taking in their written interpretations of literature and I relate these choices to students’ reflections on the discipline and to aspects of the pedagogical context, namely which resources the students are encouraged to apply in writing.
I employ a qualitative and multiple case study research strategy. The case study comprises three cases, which in turn comprise units of work on short stories in three Year 8 classes (13-14 year-old students) in three different schools. Data includes 43 written student interpretations of short stories, 51 interviews of pairs of students, and video observations of and field notes from 41 lessons.
I explore stance-taking with tools from APPRAISAL, a social semiotic system that I re-model to suit the present study (Macken-Horarik & Isaac, 2014). I also incorporate concepts from new literacy studies and sociological knowledge theory into the theoretical framework (Maton, Hood and Shay, 2016).
The first key finding is that all the participating students choose the same combination of resources for stance-taking in their written interpretations. I call this repeated pattern subtle commitment, which I use to describe a marked meaning-making practice in L1 Danish in lower secondary school.
The second key finding is that the participating students choose different resources in regards to literary terms and in regards to how explicitly they convey their own values in their written interpretations. I explain this difference by distinguishing between a knowledge-orientation and a knower-orientation, and I suggest that the presence of these two distinct orientations highlights a vagueness in what is considered valuable in the discipline of literature studies at lower secondary school.
By adopting a social semiotic perspective on disciplinary literacy, this study can contribute to supporting students’ access to learning and knowledge production in the L1 literature classroom and to supporting students’ transitions between different school subjects and between different stages of school.
Kabel, K. (2016): Danskfagets litteraturundervisning. Et casestudie af elevers skriftsproglige måder at skabe
stillingtagen på i udskolingen [Literature studies in the school subject Danish: A case study of lower secondary students’ resources for stance-taking in their written interpretations of literature]. Aarhus Universitet. Ph.d.-thesis.
Macken-Horarik, M., & Isaac, A. (2014). Appraising Appraisal. In G. Thompson & L. Alba-Juez (Eds.),
Evaluation in Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Maton, K., Hood, S., & Shay, S. (Eds.). (2016). Knowledge-building: Educational Studies in Legitimation Code Theory. London: Routledge.