Investigating the Role of Intersubjectivity in a Secondary Argumentative Classroom

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

John Brady M.A, B.A.

Graduate Program in Education: Teaching and Learning

The Ohio State University

2020

Dissertation Committee: Dr. David Bloome, Advisor Dr. George Newell Dr. Caroline Clark Dr. Kay Halasek

Copyrighted by

John Brady

2020

Abstract

In a world that is growing increasingly diverse, it is important to understand the ways in which students can come to make sense of, situate, and reconcile perspectives different than their own in English Language Arts classrooms. One approach that researchers (Newell, Bloome &

Hirvela, 2015) have suggested may help students engage with multiple perspectives in a meaningful manner is through argumentation and argumentative writing. Argumentative writing as defined by Newell, Bloome, and Hirvela (2015) is a set of social practices that are contextually defined and constructed for the purposes of developing deep understandings of human experiences. It entails the collection and investigation of evidence representing multiple perspectives to inform the construction of a claim, and the support of said claim through warranting.

In this dissertation I build upon Newell, Bloome, and Hirvela’s (2015) notion of argumentative writing by examining the role that intersubjectivity plays in the argumentative process. To do so, I conducted a year-long ethnographic study of an 11th grade Advanced

Placement Composition classroom during the 2017-2018 school year. I analyze a classroom event multiple times, each with a different focus, to investigate the construction of an intersubjective framework through classroom conversation, the ways in which the intersubjective framework was used to construct student understandings of perspectives that are unfamiliar or dissimilar from their own in said classroom conversation, and how the intersubjective framework was constructed. I framed my study using Bakhtin’s (2010 a) notion of heteroglossia as well as

Rommetviet’s (1974) concept of intersubjectivity.

I found that the intersubjective framework was comprised of 6 distinct, mutually influential, and intertwined dimensions which served different functions including establishing conditions of engagement, the interpretation of content, interactional structure, and epistemological stance towards argumentation. Those dimensions are: avoiding dismissal, trauma, the re-narrativization of personal experiences, argumentation as social awareness, complexity, and third space. To establish these dimensions, the teacher introduced four moves that were appropriated by students throughout the interaction: reflexivity, reflection, reframing memories/experiences, and intercontextuality. In my paper I argue students were able to construct an understanding of an essay conveying a perspective previously unfamiliar through the establishment and appropriation of an intersubjective framework.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my family, partner, friends, colleagues, and professors who have supported and guided me over the past twelve years of my educational and professional journey. It has been a long and difficult road that I could not have traveled without you.

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Vita 2012……………………………….B.A. English, Political Science, University of Michigan

2013……………………………….M.A. Educational Studies, University of Michigan

2015……………………………….M.A. Special Education, University of Detroit Mercy 2013-2015…………………………Hamtramck High School, Hamtramck, MI: Special Educator, Co-Chair of Special Education Dept.

Publications

Bloome, D., Minjeong K., Hong, H., Brady, J. (2018). Multiple source use when reading and writing in literature/language arts in educational contexts. In J.L.G. Braasch, I. Braten, M.T. McCrudden (Eds.) Handbook of Multiple Source Use. New York:Routledge Bloome, D., & Brady, J. (2017). Curricular conversations, reading the world, intertextuality, and doing school in a tenth grade English language arts classroom conversation. In G. Newell, R. Durst, & J. Marshall (Eds.), English language arts research and teaching: Revisiting and extending Arthur Applebee’s contributions. New York: Routledge. Bloome, D., Beauchemin, F., Brady, J., Buescher, E., Kim, M., & Schey, R. (2018). Anthropology of education; anthropologyin education; anthropology for education. In B. Street (Ed.), International encyclopedia of anthropology. New York, NY: Wiley & Sons. Brady, J. (2018). Investigating the relationship between classroom conversation and argumentative writing using writing moves and types of talk. Acta Paedagogica Vilnensia, 40, 94-110.

Field of Study

Major Field: Education, Teaching and Learning

Table of Contents Abstract ...... i Acknowledgements ...... iii Vita ...... iv List of Examples ...... viii List of Figures ...... ix Chapter 1: Theoretical Frame ...... 1 Purpose ...... 1 Introduction ...... 3 Conceptualizing the Utterance ...... 5 The Role of Genre ...... 10 Conceptual Similarities Between Writing and Talk ...... 17 The Role of Chronotopes ...... 23 The Self, The Other, and Intersubjectivity ...... 27 Conclusion ...... 34 Definitions ...... 36 Research Questions ...... 38 Chapter 2: Literature Review ...... 41 Classroom Talk ...... 43 The Negotiation of Multiple Perspectives in Research on Classroom Talk That Incorporates Exploratory Conversational Structures ...... 54 Conclusion ...... 63 Chapter 3: Methodology ...... 65 Methodological frame ...... 65 Settings and Participants ...... 67 Data Collection Procedures ...... 70 Gaining Entrance to the Research Site...... 70 Methods for Data Collection...... 71 Data Analysis Procedures...... 74 Phase One: Data Organization...... 74 Phase Two: Selecting Focal Events...... 75 Phase 3: Transcribing and Searching for Patterns Across Events...... 80 Phase 4: Discourse Analysis of a Classroom Event...... 82

Conclusion ...... 84 Chapter 4: Findings ...... 89 Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space ...... 91 Tracing Intersubjective Dimensions Throughout the Conversation ...... 94 Avoiding Dismissal...... 97 Analysis...... 98 Summary...... 115 Trauma...... 116 Analysis...... 117 Summary...... 131 The Re-Narrativization of Personal Experience...... 132 Analysis...... 132 Summary...... 154 Argumentation as social awareness...... 154 Analysis...... 155 Summary...... 159 Third Space as a Dimension of the Intersubjective Framework...... 160 Analysis...... 161 Summary...... 171 Complexity...... 171 Analysis...... 172 Summary...... 179 Teaching Moves ...... 179 Tracing the Moves Throughout the Conversation...... 181 Embodiment...... 199 Summary...... 200 Conclusion ...... 201 Chapter 5: Conclusions and Implications ...... 206 Summary of Findings in Relation to Research Questions...... 206 Theoretical Implications ...... 210 Methodological Implications...... 212 Pedagogical Implications ...... 214

References ...... 217 Appendix A: Instructional Chain ...... 226 Appendix B: Transcript of the November 2, 2017 Classroom Event ...... 235

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List of Examples Example 3.1: A sample of field notes collected …………………………………86 Example 3.2: A sample of parsing ..…………………………………………….. 87 Example 3.3: A sample of discourse analysis .………………………………….. 88

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List of Figures Figure 4.1: Teaching Moves…………………………………………………… 203

Chapter 1: Theoretical Frame Purpose

Inevitably, when investigating the nature of being human, students encounter perspectives and ways of being in the world that do not overlap with their own. In this pursuit of knowledge, differing perspectives can “other” different ways of being in the world and lead to a disconnect between a student’s perspective and another’s. Such issues become particularly apparent and significant when discussing aspects of social justice, equity, and diversity in classroom spaces. This can be true of the texts used in classrooms as well, which can assist in exposing students to different perspectives and experiences that are not represented within the classroom. As our society becomes increasingly diverse, the need for pluralistic classrooms in which a multitude of ideas, perspectives, and ways of being in the world are increasingly necessary. While research investigating the ways in which multiple perspectives converge in classroom discourses through the argumentative writing process, with the results of constructing new understandings of human experiences has been conducted (Newell, Bloome, Hirvela, 2015;

Newell, VanDerHeide, & Wynhoff Olsen, 2014; Newell, Bloome, Hirvela, & Lin, 2019;

VanDerHeide & Juzwik, 2018), there is very little work that examines the role intersubjectivity plays in the construction of knowledge through argumentation.

Guitierrez (Gutierrez, Rhyme, & Larson, 1995; Gutierrez 2008) discussed intersubjectivity as an aspect of her work on third space, though it was never central. Moreover, her definition is derived from George Herbert Mead’s various works over his career throughout which he postulated unfinished and contradictory notions of the concept. His definition ultimately implies that pure understanding can be reached in which there is a complete overlap between perspectives, with which I disagree. Instead, I derive my definition of intersubjectivity from the works of Rommetveit, 1974; Marková, 2003; and Linell, 2014, all of whom understand

1 intersubjectivity as the tension between perspectives, and the subsequent bridging of the gap between them; though in their definitions a complete overlap of understandings is impossible.

My study aims to explore this conception of intersubjectivity in educational settings to better understand the role it plays in the co-construction of knowledge around multiple perspectives, the ways teachers can facilitate the construction of an intersubjective framework in the classroom, and how intersubjective frameworks foster understandings of perspectives that differ from students’.

In this dissertation, I use microethnographic discourse analysis to analyze an instructional conversation of an 11th grade AP Composition classroom to investigate the role intersubjectivity plays in argumentation in classroom settings, and the ways in which intersubjective frameworks can contribute to the construction of understandings of perspectives that are unfamiliar to students. In the November 2, 2017 interaction, a teacher and her students create an intersubjective framework to assist in constructing an understanding of Brent Staples’ article

“Just Walk on By” after students had “dismissed” his argument in their independent analyses. I analyze the various dimensions of said framework, which was constructed through talk, as well as the moves the teacher made to facilitate the creation of the intersubjective framework.

Moreover, I argue that Third Space (Guitierrez, Rymes, & Larson, 1995)—a hybrid academic space in which both teacher [script] and student [conterscript] converge for the construction of knowledge--is an integral component of the intersubjective framework established in the classroom conversation. Third Space fosters an environment that allows for partially and temporarily shared social realities to develop given the both individual and collective nature of such spaces.

To investigate intersubjectivity, I draw upon the philosophical and theoretical writings of scholars who focus on language and the ways people come to make sense of one another through the exchange of language. Given the theoretical nature of intersubjectivity, I begin this paper with my theoretical frame, explaining my understanding of the theoretical constructs that guide my work.

Introduction

In this chapter I draw upon the works of Vološinov (1986), Bakhtin (2010a; 2010b), and

Rommetveit (1974), amongst others, to conceptualize talk, particularly talk within classroom settings for the purposes of learning by constructing and negotiating knowledge, identities, and what it means to be human in relation to written texts and ELA content. I derive from these works the interactivist foundations of language and socialization, such as the historical and contextual nature of utterances (including issues of time and space or ‘chronotopes’); intersubjectivity as a bridge across tensions between interlocutors; and talk as the social negotiation of meaning for the purposes of constructing ourselves and reality.

I begin by discussing the foundations of my understanding of language which entails the definition of the utterance--the smallest unit of conversational meaning exchanged between interlocutors. I do so by examining Bakhtin’s and Vološinov’s discussions of utterances, the differences between their understandings, and the implications their works have for my own understanding of the utterance. Upon my definition of the utterance, I build my understanding of the exchange of utterances between interlocutors and the ways in which externalized and internalized speech are pertinent to co-constructing understandings. However, the co- construction of meaning through the exchange of utterances is complex and requires the consideration of genre, media, time-space, and interpretive frames. Throughout the rest of the

3 chapter, I give each their own section in which I define and discuss the respective implications each has on the co-construction of meaning between interlocutors: I discuss the ways in which genre helps to construct interpretive frames through which utterances are interpreted, why writing is an extension of talk, the role that time-space plays in the interpretation and re- interpretation of an utterance, and the ways in which the conception of self vs. other, genre, time- space, and medium are all aspects of a temporarily shared social reality that facilitates sense- making between interlocutors.

While these works were written across several years, and at times contradict one another,

I aim to establish connections between these texts for the larger purpose of arguing in this dissertation: 1.) The purposeful construction of intersubjectivity facilitated a shared understanding between students and an author that had not been apparent to student before an intersubjective framework was constructed; 2.) The participating teacher used teaching moves to construct an intersubjective framework through engagement in verbal argumentation around a written text (which functioned, to a degree, as an interlocutor in the conversation); and 3.)

Through the facilitation of an argumentative discussion, the teacher was able to establish an epistemological stance towards argumentation as social awareness and a process through which students can construct understandings of the world. I do so by analyzing one classroom conversation using microethnographic discourse analytic methods, which were guided by my theoretical understandings laid out in this chapter. In order to understand the function of the intersubjective dimensions, as well as the teaching moves made by the teacher, Ms. Night, it is necessary to first discuss the central concepts at play to achieve this. For this reason, the next section introduces the smallest unit of meaning, the utterance.

Conceptualizing the Utterance

To contextualize the aforementioned discussion of this dissertation study, this first section will focus on defining what an utterance is and how it functions. I view the utterance (the

“word”) as the smallest unit of conversational meaning, upon which all meaning making is built.

To do so, I draw upon the theorizations of Vološinov (1986) and Bakhtin (2010a; 2010b).

Although the two theorists do not wholly align in their definition of the utterance and its function in human life, both serve as heuristics that help explain my own understanding. Specifically, I find Vološinov’s explanation of signs and his consideration of inner speech to be integral to understanding the utterance as a means for making sense of, and situating oneself in, a socially complex world in a manner that allows one to internalize the thinking of others. Bakhtin’s focus on interaction and the convergence of multiple perspectives, as well as his alternation between writing and speech are also useful to my conceptualization of talk for the purposes of investigating the relationship between classroom talk and argumentative writing.

In order to offer an understanding of what classroom talk is and what it does, I first examine Vološinov’s discussion of language (1986), in which he particularly examines the nature of language and language use. I find his notion of “signs” and the idea that language reflects and refracts society useful for conceptualizing what language is and what it does. He begins by arguing that “signs” are material representations of the abstract, claiming “signs also are particular, material things…A sign does not simply exist as a particular part of reality—it reflects and refracts another reality. Therefore, it may distort that reality or be true to it, or may perceive it from a special point of view, and so forth” (p. 10). I understand signs, and by extension utterances, as reflecting the reality of society by reproducing, perpetuating, and

5 reifying ideologies, narratives, and histories—and refracting the reality of society by contesting, redefining, and re-contextualizing ideologies, narratives, and histories.

This is supported by Vološinov when he explains that “[e]xistence reflected in sign is not merely reflected but refracted…” which is determined by, “…an intersecting of differently oriented social interests within one and the same sign community” (p. 23). The reflection and refraction in the use of utterances creates tensions between what is, what was, and what might be, allowing people to establish shared understandings while simultaneously allowing for the evolution of language-use and meaning.

Language is inherently social and because of this, meaning does not reside within the individual, but instead in the interaction in which the utterance is spoken. Vološinov explains:

“The meaning of the word is determined entirely by its context. In fact, there are as many meanings of a word as there are contexts of its usage” (p. 79). However, I would extend this notion further by arguing that contexts are multifarious, layered, and bear influence on the meaning of an utterance, as much as who speaks and receives it. Thus, meaning emerges through a negotiation between interlocutors occurring within the tensions of layered contexts [with meaning being defined as, “…belong[ing] to an element or aggregate of elements in their relation to the whole” (p. 101).] The negotiation of meaning is particularly important to my study, as intersubjective lenses play a large role in the ways in which people interpret, and in turn negotiate the meaning of utterances.

But even when not actively engaged in the negotiation of meaning, there is the ever- present anticipation of an audience (even when speaking to oneself there are considerations of others that influence word meaning). However, since intended meaning will always be tied to signs--which are representations of the abstractions in an individual’s mind--meaning will never

6 be perfectly aligned between two interlocutors. For example, if I say the word “dog,” I imagine a tiny, short-haired chihuahua-mix named Chip who has lived in my grandmother’s home for 15 years, and yet the likelihood that you also imagined that same dog, and by extension my experiences tied to that specific dog is impossible. More than likely, you considered your own childhood pet, or maybe a neighbor’s pet, or a creature that frightened you at one point in your life, or even a commercial for dog food. For this reason, these individual abstractions must be co- constructed for the purposes of understanding. By this, I mean that we may need to consider whose dog is being discussed, or use adjectives to make ourselves clear, etc. In some cases, the differences in abstraction will not necessitate negotiation, but there will always be a negotiation between intentionality and uptake, with uptake being crucial for defining the significance of the utterance because that is where materiality lies. Ultimately, the meaning and significance of an utterance in any situation will be determined by both speaker and listener; by both intended meaning and perceived meaning; and by the ensuing actions of the interlocutors that occur as a result. A distance between interlocutors regarding meaning is unavoidable and always present, which is foundational to the notion of intersubjectivity as I define it in this paper. Dissonance is innate, and so we must construct interpretive frames that can help to alleviate tensions in meaning.

Further support for this perspective (philosophy) of language come from Bakhtin, who argues, “The word in language is half someone else's. It becomes ‘one's own’ only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention” (Kindle location 4132). I interpret this to mean that a word both reflects and refracts simultaneously, as all words are populated by not only the speaker’s thoughts, but other people’s as well. As such, when people use language, they

7 reflect the thoughts and intentions of others and refract those thoughts to meet their own intentions and purposes. Because of this reflection and refraction, words are never solely our own, but instead always belong to others as well. Meaning is constantly negotiated as speakers attempt to appropriate words for their own purposes which are contextualized by prior usage, or what could be called the word’s “history”. A word’s meaning is not just about who is saying the word at a given moment, but who has said it in the past, in what contexts, and for what purposes—all of these considerations contribute to intersubjective understandings.

However, it is not my goal to reconcile Bakhtinian and Vološinovian theories. I find both authors useful for different reasons. Vološinov is interested in how individuals embedded in socially complex worlds situate themselves within and construct the world around them through languaging, whereas Bakhtin is more interested in a moralistic accountability for the individual that is predicated upon the appreciation of others and the ways in which people and utterances converge to construct meaning (Bazerman, 2004; Hicks, 2000).

As such, Vološinov conceptualizes the utterance as having no boundaries. It is not only external, but internal, and forever-ongoing, ebbing and flowing between the two while extending backwards and forwards in time. However, more importantly, this perspective aligns with

Linell’s (2014) work on intersubjectivity and interactivity, which I discuss in a later section.

Vološinov’s definition of the utterance differs dramatically from Bakhtin’s, who conceptualizes the utterance as having definitive boundaries based upon externalized speech

(without considering the role of internalized speech). While the social nature of Bakhtin’s definition is still useful to consider, Vološinov explains in more depth how we engage with and populate each other’s words and has a much more developed and consistent concept of the utterance as “inner speech and inner genre” (Prior, 2009).

These differences might be attributed to Vološinov ’s interest in non-literary contexts compared to Bakhtin’s fixation on the literary aspects of discourse, which colored his essays on language (Bazerman, 2004; Hicks, 2000; Prior, 2009). Although the interests and frames of the authors differ, drawing upon different aspects of their work has enabled me to develop an understanding of how the world is socially constructed through interaction that is inherently intertextual by nature. Bazerman (2004) defines this as “a mechanism whereby we write ourselves into the social text, and thereby the social text writes us” (p. 54). I’ve included this discussion because, it is this intertextual relationship—one that is inherently interactive—that predicates the human need for intersubjectivity.

Despite its fixation on literary aspects of discourse and omission of inner speech,

Bakhtin’s expansive theory of language is quite useful to me because he conceptualizes discourse by alternating his discussion of the innovation of the novel with the novel as a metaphor for social discourse. This blurring of lines between speech and writing is pertinent to my own thinking about classroom talk and argumentative writing, and how I define argumentative writing and argumentation. Bakhtin does so for the purposes of establishing a heuristic for heteroglossia, or the convergence of multiple voices within a single text (implying that any single text or voice is in fact also intertextual and multiple). He posits that language is inherently dialogic. Utterances never solely belong to the individual, nor are they derived purely from the internal machinations of an individual’s mind--words are always steeped in histories

(with meanings that are tied to the speakers’ and listeners’ local histories as well as the global histories of words) and the time and space in which an utterance is spoken. In this way, language is highly subjective and the uptake of language (the outcome or tangible result of the act of speaking) is integral to an utterance’s meaning as intentionality; thus, it is not just about the

9 intentionality of the speaker, but what those words do in social contexts that give words their materiality. Based upon uptake, which is inherently informed by who said what, where, when, and how, speakers can engage in discourses in which meaning is (re)negotiated through the exchange of utterances.

In this section I established the socially embedded, subjective, and inherently interactive nature of language. These notions of subjectivity and interactivity establish the need for intersubjectivity in human interactions, as well as the underlying understandings upon which my notions of intersubjectivity are built. The next section explores how people use genre as interpretive frames to assist in sense-making between interlocutors as they exchange utterances across mediums. In particular, I explore how people use genre to further assist in sense-making and social action. I explain the integral role genre plays in establishing intersubjectivity between author and reader and speaker and listener, including those who are not familiar with one another; and how genres assist in the construction of interpretive frames.

The Role of Genre

In the previous section I established the subjective and interactive nature of language, and the ways in which the meaning of utterances are socially embedded and negotiated. Given that utterances are informed by myriad factors including historical usage, speaker, listener, and other contexts, the need for intersubjectivity between interlocutors is apparent. By this I mean that if meaning is negotiated, then uptake is never going to perfectly overlap with intended meaning. As such, people must draw upon intersubjective—interpretive—frames to assist in coming to a shared understanding. Sometimes these frames are constructed by interlocutors, while at other times they are inherent to a given situation (setting, time, race, gender, etc). One way in which interlocutors construct frames is through Genre.

Genre describes social interactions (Miller, 1984) that signal the ways with which a text should be engaged by providing “…interpretable clues that allow people to make sense of each other’s utterances and…frame utterances…” by “…identifying the recognizable kind of utterances we believe we are producing or receiving” (Bazerman, 2012, pp. 230-231). In other words, genres help us to accomplish action in the world by providing interpretive frames that aid in sense-making.

Bakhtin (2010a) writes extensively about genre, which has influenced my understanding of writing as an extension of talk. While Bakhtin (2010a) uses Discourse in the Novel to discuss the novel as a metaphor for societal discourse, and at times to launch a critique of the USSR, he is also legitimately interested in the novel as a fairly new genre circa his writing. And while I have discussed some of his philosophy around societal discourse above, the latter is also important to my conceptualization of classroom talk, because Bakhtin often discusses written language and spoken language interchangeably and delves into the significance of genre for making sense of language and how other’s might interpret language.

Before doing so however, it is worth noting that although many researchers have taken up

Bakhtinian frameworks for their analyses of talk in classrooms, Barnes (1971;1990) and Mercer

(1996; Wergerif, Mercer, & Dawes, 1999; Mercer & Dawes, 2008), two highly influential researchers in the area of classroom talk, did not draw upon Bakhtin to solidify their conceptualization of talk. As subsequent researchers have taken on the task of investigating the relationship between classroom talk and argumentative writing, the two mediums are commonly conceptualized as separate entities.

However, like myself, Bakhtin does not share this perspective. In his discussion, the novel and discourse are often considered to be interchangeable, and in many instances, he

11 discusses the novel as being synonymous with discourse. This is significant, because it implies that writing should be investigated as a part of the ongoing conversation. Bakhtin’s conception of the utterance as discussed above can be applied to both spoken and written discourses. Whether written or spoken, context, audience, and history are integral to the construction of meaning.

And since uptake of the utterance is key to meaning, one can argue that while the medium of discourse changes, and even the conventions, the concept itself remains intact. This is true for several reasons.

One reason is that meaning is derived, at least partially, from speech genres. Speech genres vary across communities and contexts, and as such, language conventions and usage change across them. Often, a speech genre can simultaneously serve as a centrifugal force to unitary languages in some contexts, while also having its own tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces within the genre itself. Bakhtin discusses written texts specifically when he proposes this notion in Discourse in the Novel,

Literary language-both spoken and written-although it is unitary not only in its shared,

abstract, linguistic markers but also in its forms for conceptualizing these abstract

markers, is itself self stratified and heteroglot in its aspect as an expressive system, that

is, in the forms that carry its meanings. This stratification is accomplished first of all by

the specific organisms called genres. Certain features of language (lexicological,

semantic, syntactic) will knit together with the intentional aim, and with the overall

accentual system inherent in one or another genre: oratorical, publicistic, newspaper and

journalistic genres, the genres of low literature (penny dreadfuls, for instance) or, finally,

the various genres of high literature. Certain features of language take on the specific

flavor of a given genre: they knit together with specific points of view, specific

approaches, forms of thinking, nuances and accents characteristic of the given genre

(Kindle Location 4064-4069).

Thus, genres play a large part in guiding language-use and participation in the exchange of language, as well as how utterances themselves will be understood. According to Bakhtin, this concept can apply to spoken language as well,

It is in fact not the neutral linguistic components of language being stratified and

differentiated, but rather a situation in which the intentional possibilities of language are

being expropriated: these possibilities are realized in specific directions, filled with

specific content, they are made concrete, particular, and are permeated with concrete

value judgments; they knit together with specific objects and with the belief systems of

certain genres of expression and points of view peculiar to particular professions. Within

these points of view, that is, for the speakers of the language themselves, these generic

languages and professional jargons are directly intentional-they denote and express

directly and fully, and are capable of expressing themselves without mediation; but

outside, that is, for those not participating in the given purview, these languages may be

treated as objects, as typifactions, as local color. (Kindle Locations 4073-4078).

Across media, genres provide interpretive lenses that contribute to the here-and-now and help to establish tacit meta-contracts (Rommetveit, 1974). In regard to talk, Bakhtin provides the example of professional jargon, but we can see genres across discourse communities, including within individual classrooms.

`This can be illustrated by examining how the word “argue” is used in different contexts.

In my own experiences, I have found that it has a different meaning in each classroom I have studied, all of which might differ from classrooms of 20 years ago. Moreover, outside of those

10th and 11th grade classrooms, the same word can carry diverse meanings and usages. The ways in which a political pundit on a television news channel conceptualizes and defines “arguing” when participating in televised partisan political discourse is probably quite different from lovers

“arguing.” The intended outcomes and the uptake differ greatly across these contexts, with different professional and personal meanings.

Thus, the genre of lovers’ quarrel, versus the 10th grade ELA classroom, or political commentary changes the meaning and use of the word, as well as the way in which interlocutors go about participating in those interactions. In the classroom, the teacher may serve as a mediator who helps students take turns, listen to and challenge each other’s perspectives for the purpose of constructing deep understandings of a topic. Political pundits, on the other hand, may try to talk over each other using competing statistics in an attempt to prove an opposing perspective is irrational and incorrect, which differs greatly from the two lovers who may choose to yell at one another, or refuse to speak at all. In all cases, there may be some sort of understanding that arguing includes differing perspectives (this may be attributed to the unitary language), but the speech conventions, intentions, uptake and local meaning changes from community to community and indicates different types of relationships between people. Moreover, one person can define what it means to “argue” differently as they move from one context to the next, because the meaning of the word changes with the contexts.

Though I will discuss chronotopes more thoroughly later in the chapter, I think it is important to acknowledge that they play a significant role in constructing meaning, as they

“provide a useful way of characterizing the expected knowledge and reasoning to be found in a genre” (Bazerman, 2012, p. 233).Within writing, there is the same tension between centripetal and centrifugal forces (and between reader and writer), with genres of writing reifying and

14 challenging unitary languages while simultaneously providing interpretive lenses, Bakhtin explains,

Within the scope of literary language itself there is already a more or less sharply defined

boundary between everyday-conversational language and written language. Distinctions

between genres frequently coincide with dialectological distinctions (for example, the

high-Church Slavonic-and the low-conversational-genres of the eighteenth century);

finally, certain dialects may be legitimized in literature and thus to a certain extent be

appropriated by literary language (Kindle Locations 4132-4139).

Thus, writing reflects and refracts society, because, like spoken discourse, different ways of speaking and different ideologies converge to shape meaning. So, at least regarding function, the medium of the discourse can vary without fundamentally changing the negotiation of meaning between intended meaning and uptake, and between the centripetal and centrifugal forces.

Rommetveit (1974) elaborates upon the ways in which sense-making occurs around written and verbal texts, which is in part due to genre. The author views intersubjectivity as a bridge between the understandings of interlocutors that establishes and assumes a temporarily shared social reality. The occurrence of intersubjectivity requires tacitly and reciprocally produced meta-contracts made between interlocutors based upon assumptions and presuppositions that are tied to the contexts in which they occur.

Sense-making between author and reader functions similarly. While there are asymmetrical relationships and unknown factors involved, this is also true of spoken interaction.

For example, when speaking in front of a crowd, a lecturer has a similarly limited knowledge of her students, the store clerk knows little about the customer with whom they interact, and yet intersubjectivity occurs. This is due in no small part to the aforementioned assumptions,

15 preconceptions and meta-contracts. Rommetveit discusses the adoption of a perspective of the generalized other that is constructed by interlocutors in speech or written texts, which is related to the “anticipatory decoding” done by the unknown interlocutors; he explains,

…anticipatory decoding may also be conceived of as a simulation of the other in the

sense that the listener’s temporary social reality is inferred on the basis of the speaker’s

knowledge of what the listener thinks and feels in other situations. The speaker may in

that case be said to act on assumed uniqueness, i.e. he assumes at the very outset that the

listener is different from himself (p. 59).

In other words, we are constructing versions of others based upon assumptions derived from what we know about an individual and the contexts in which the interaction occurs. When we know very little, we construct a generalized other that is, “a projection of self” (p. 59). And this is true of both written and spoken texts. But such conceptions are still reliant on contexts, and genres can contribute to how we construct generalized others and interpretive frames.

Rommetveit explores the differences signaled in interaction between two genres of written text: poetry and newspapers. In poetry, there is an assumption that words should not be read in a purely literal sense (if they are, many poems may not appear coherent) and so readers, without knowing the author, understand that they are expected to construct connections between the utterances in order to co-construct the meaning along with the author. However, when one reads a newspaper, the role the reader takes requires them to more closely align their perspective with the author’s. Again, without knowing anything about the author, they must assume that the reporter is recounting events in a factual manner that accurately captures what happened and is reasonably “objective.” However, such interpretations are always tied to the here-and-now in which the interaction is situated. Thus, a news story from three weeks ago will be read with

16 consideration of current happenings, allowing for information about events that may not have been known at the time of the initial writing to influence one’s meaning-making.

Conceptual Similarities Between Writing and Talk

Throughout this chapter, I have noted the ways in which sense-making functions similarly across the media of writing and talk. In this section, I argue that writing is a medium of talk. While previous sections have focused more broadly on establishing what utterances are, and how people come to make sense of utterances shared between them (both through talk and writing), I will now discuss the mistake of separating one from the other. I argue that writing is a medium of talk not only because sense-making functions in the same manner across media, but also that the arguments scholars have made for separating writing from talk (mainly that of the relationship between reader and author across time and space) contain logical fallacies when examined more closely.

For this discussion, I once again turn to Bakhtin. Bakhtin (2010a) argues that, at least within the novel (a heteroglot text), the author adopts a “common language” and in turn a common view of the world, which can serve as a backdrop against which the author can juxtapose various perspectives and viewpoints, creating an internal discourse that at times can adopt common views, and at other times reject these views for the purposes of expressing their own “truth,”

The author is not to be found in the language of the narrator, not in the normal literary

language to which the story opposes itself (although a given story may be closer to a

given language)-but rather, the author utilizes now one language, now another, in order to

avoid giving himself up wholly to either of them; he makes use of this verbal give-and-

take, this dialogue of languages at every point in his work, in order that he himself might

remain as it were neutral with regard to language, a third party in a quarrel between two

people (although though he might be a biased third party) (Bakhtin, 2010a, Kindle

location 4407-4414).

Thus, the words of the author are not a monologic representation of thought, but instead, the convergence of multiple perspectives mediated through discourse that draws upon loaded language for which meaning is in a constant flux due to its relationship to context. Integral, however, is that within the novel (and I would extend this to argumentative writing) the author’s intentions are not reflected but refracted. The meaning is represented through multiple voices and in turn negotiated by the reader to construct meaning.

This is not to say that written discourse does not differ in any manner from spoken discourse. For example, spoken utterances are much more constrained to specific times and places, whereas the written word can be re-read, re-written, revised, and reinterpreted in the presence of different readers in multiple contexts. However, emphasizing these differences implies that people do not have any agency over what they say or how they say it and that a certain type of internal revision process does not occur in one’s head while ideas are articulated to an anticipated audience. People speak in different registers and utilize different genres of talk depending on their audience; they can carefully choose the words they speak, and elaborate upon their original meaning through interaction.

Moreover, while the spoken word in some sense is tied to the now-ness of the act of speaking, it can be remembered, shared, and repeated. But beyond all of this, spoken discourse can be recorded and shared outside of the immediate time and place in which it was spoken

(through writing and other methods). How does one separate recorded speech from un-recorded speech? Does recorded speech constitute a distinction, as has become so ubiquitous in

18 conceptions of writing? Moreover, with advances in technology, written dialogue has become increasingly more synonymous with talking. Media, such as text messaging, online forums, social media, email, and other forms of instantaneous communication have blurred the line between spoken discourse and written discourse. And though those instantaneous modes of communication exist, it is at the interlocutors’ discretion to determine when an appropriate response will occur. They can respond in 5 seconds, 5 days, or 5 years. Considering this begs questions such as, “if writing is not an extension of talk, then how does one differentiate between the two?” My argument is that we do not make a distinction. We can investigate the differences in media, but should recognize the ways in which they function similarly; both situated within the larger discourses of classrooms. As Bakhtin (2010a) writes:

We can go so far as to say that in real life people talk most of all about what others talk

about-they transmit, recall, weigh and pass judgment on other people's words, opinions,

assertions, information; people are upset by others' words, or agree with them, contest

them, refer to them and so forth. Were we to eavesdrop on snatches of raw dialogue in

the street, in a crowd, in lines, in a foyer and so forth, we would hear how often the words

"he says," "people say," "he said . . . " are repeated, and in the conversational hurly-burly

of people in a crowd, everything often fuses into one big "he says ... you say ... I say. . . ."

Reflect how enormous is the weight of "everyone says" and "it is said" in public opinion,

public rumor, gossip, slander and so forth. One must also consider the psychological

importance in our lives of what others say about us, and the importance, for us, of

understanding and interpreting these words of others ("living hermeneutics"). The

importance of this motif is in no way diminished in the higher and better-organized areas

of everyday communication. Every conversation is full of transmissions and

interpretations of other people's words (Kindle location 4179-4726).

Talk and writing do in fact overlap significantly. In both cases, the utterances are still steeped in history, reflect and refract society, and ultimately require a negotiation of meaning between the producer of the utterance and the consumer, in a sense rendering the interlocutors as simultaneously co-producers and co-consumers. Moreover, whether an utterance is consumed on the page or in conversation, the meaning is always tied to the context in which that utterance was exchanged. Bakhtin explains, “For this reason we cannot, when studying the various forms for transmitting another's speech, treat any of these forms in isolation from the means for its contextualized (dialogizing) framing-the one is indissolubly linked with the other (2010a, Kindle location 4749-4750). This point is particularly important for those researching both talk and writing, as one cannot be privileged over the other, but instead both must be investigated in situ.

Prior (2009) builds upon this idea, similarly arguing that writing is not just a means to produce written product, but rather a process that occurs across time and space. For Prior, the utterances themselves not only have history, but the process of composing the text does as well.

He categorizes written utterances, and those that are prepared for some sort of formal performance (whether it be a speech, a play, a poetry reading, etc.), as “composed utterances,” which in tandem with having the histories tied to the utterances themselves, also have a history of the compositional process. He argues that of equal significance to the composed utterances are the “shadow conversations” that are a part of the composition process. This concept is borrowed from and defined by Irvine (1996), who describes “shadow conversations” as behind the scenes conversations that influenced not only the words that were performed by the speakers she studied, but also the ways in which those were taken up. Despite those conversations occurring

20 in other times and spaces, their influence was present in the speaker’s words. Prior (2009) argues that these types of conversations occur during the process of writing and in turn, written texts index these histories, contributing to their meaning.

While I agree with Prior that both utterances and compositional processes have histories, his stance implies that meaning resides with the author more so than the reader and discounts the integral role uptake plays in sense-making. Intentions do not determine meaning and since readers do not exist in a vacuum, they too come with their own histories that provide lenses of interpretations. While shadow conversations can be important for determining authorial intent, they are not required for sense-making to occur between authors and readers. Nystrand (1992) offers a challenge to Prior’s stance, arguing

…the contention that writers are handicapped by their inability to “know their readers” is

misleading. To begin, writers need know no more about their readers than speakers do

about their conversants since in each case, the range of knowledge required is radically

constrained by the purpose, context, and topic of discourse. One simply does not need to

know everything about one’s reader or conversant in order communicate satisfactorily”

(p. 159).

Extending the social interactionist theories of Bakhtin and Rommetveit, he argues that textual meaning is always constructed in situ, written or otherwise. He explains the relationship between reader and author as one of reciprocity,

…the shape and conduct of discourse is determined not only by what the speaker or

writer has to say (speaker/writer meaning) or accomplish (speaker/writer purpose) but

also by the joint expectation of the conversants that they should understand one another

(producer-receiver contract). Discourse may consequently be viewed as a social act

based on the premise of common categorization and mutual knowledge” (Nystrand &

Himley, 1984, p. 200).

Like Rommetveit, Nystrand and Himley (1984) argue that for intersubjectivity to occur in spoken or written text, the interlocutors must engage in a tacit “meta-contract.” There is an underlying assumed intersubjectivity and shared social reality that is necessary for sense to be made between the reader and the writer, but what is important is that meaning equally lies with the reader as with the writer:

In every instance, writers and readers meet each other more or less half way, each brining

their respective purposes to bear on the text and each proceeding in terms of what they

assume about the other, Text meaning is uniquely configured by what both writer and

reader bring to the text and consequently how they interact’ (p. 159).

Authors assume that readers do in fact have some prior knowledge, and that readers often select texts based upon an assumed prior knowledge, as Nystrand explains, “The intersecting expectations of the conversants, in effect, set up a textual space (ef. Nystrand, 1982a) defining the parameters of and possibilities for text meaning, which unfolds during reading like a drama played out upon the stage of writer-reader mutuality” (p. 163).

With written texts, as with spoken texts, the interlocutors do not exist in vacuums. Texts have different meanings in different contexts. The same text can have a different meaning to the same person at different times and places. However, the parameters of sense-making are based upon a temporarily shared social reality established through that tacit meta-contract discussed above. And so, authorial intent should not be privileged over uptake, as that intent alone does not dictate meaning. While the original meaning of the author may not be fully realized, meaning is still constructed between the author and the reader based upon both context and a reciprocity

22 between the reader and writer. For this reason, the relationship between reader and writer should not be viewed any differently than that of speaker and listener.

The Role of Chronotopes

Having discussed how interlocutors make sense of utterances, the impact of time and space on the interactions still warrants further discussion. In this section, I will discuss chronotopes and how time and space influence meaning in both writing and talk.

As with talk, writing does not exist in a vacuum, but is instead situated within multiple discourses across times and places and extends those discourses in some fashion,

A dialogue of languages is a dialogue of social forces perceived not only in their static

co-existence, but also as a dialogue of different times, epochs and days, a dialogue that is

forever dying, living, being born: co-existence and becoming are here fused into an

indissoluble concrete unity that is contradictory, multi-speeched and heterogeneous”

(Bakhtin, 2010a, Kindle 5080-5081).

Thus, all language is situated within time and space, and that time and place must be considered.

To better understand this, the concept of the chronotope is fundamental to conceptualizing how talk (and writing) function. The term chronotope means time-space and is useful, because it emphasizes the inseparable nature of space and time. The two are intrinsically interconnected and have a reciprocal relationship in the ways in which people experience and conceptualize them. By this I mean spaces influence our perceptions of time, and time influences our perceptions of spaces. We are always somewhere and some time. In Bakhtin’s (2010a) essay, he discusses the significance of chronotopes in literature and the ways in which time and space dictate genre and influence how characters and meaning are constructed. He argues,

The chronotope in literature has an intrinsic generic significance. It can even be said that

it is precisely the chronotope that defines genre and generic distinctions, for in literature

the primary category in the chronotope is time. The chronotope as a formally constitutive

category determines to a significant degree the image of man in literature as well. The

image of man is always intrinsically chronotopic” (Kindle location 1314-1317).

While this concept is fundamental to interpreting written texts, it can be extrapolated more generally to the human experience. People are positioned not only in relation to each other, but in relation to their time and place; the chronotopic nature of existence is significant to understanding how people, ideas, and values are defined and experienced. In a way, these notions construct a center, around which everything in a given context can be oriented.

However, chronotopes are complex. There are many factors that comprise conceptions of time and space, both on a micro and macro scale. For example, we have individual chronotopes, in which individuals experience time and space through personal lenses in a single moment.

These types of chronotopes can be layered with the surrounding goings-on of their life, in addition, there can be a layer of the social-collective conceptualization of space-time and significant cultural events, as well as a layer of the chronotope that pertains to societal goings-on and histories, and so on and so on. Each added layer changes the ways in which people are perceived and positioned, and the meaning that is constructed around events.

Moreover, there is a myth around the linearity of time and space, which allows for an artificial separation of the past, the present, and the future. Time in its ubiquitous usage is a social construct. The Roman calendar and the 24-hour day are widely used, but still socially constructed heuristics that serve to simplify and standardize time. Notions of the past and future are overly-simplified. These times (and places as they are conceptualized in relation to that

24 specific time) do not exist. Past events are socially constructed and biased by the person who is remembering. The future is even trickier, as it lies in anticipated events, hypothetical interactions, and educated guesses. Much of the future simply cannot be constructed in the mind before it happens. For example, there are people you have not met yet, but with whom you will one day become familiar with and who will bear influence in your life. However, in the present, you are not yet able to imagine this person in any sort of accurate way, nor anticipate the ways in which they may influence your life and incite change to your world-view, or way of being. So, for the purposes of moving through our day, the heuristic of ubiquitous western time can be helpful; however, this is not the only way to measure/ perceive time, and in some communities, time is conceptualized quite differently.

To understand the significance of time and space in the construction of meaning related to events, people, and places, we instead must, however, consider the ways in which the past, present, and future are mutually informative of the other. The past will not only inform the present and future, but is also informed by the present and the anticipation of the future. The past will always be colored by the lens of the present, and the present and future will always be colored by a lens of the past. These three heuristics are constantly used to co-construct the other and are so intertwined that attempts to separate them do not adequately capture the true complexity of any given moment. Nothing is fixed, and meaning--as tied to experience and human interaction--is in a constant flux as well. Second to second, how one perceives an event can change, whether it be located in the past, present, or the future, and often this is exactly what happens during the process of constructing knowledge.

Revisiting talk, the intertwined-ness of time--what Tusting (2000) calls the “Ever- emerging present”--is key because this plays a substantial role in the ways in which the meaning

25 of utterances is constructed by interlocutors. As previously stated, chronotopes help to situate people and events and in turn, the words that are spoken in those times and spaces. When is a context (Erickson & Schultz, 1997) is an integral part of the meaning making process. If language is steeped in history, we have to then ask ourselves what “history” means. Whose history? And what is the scope? The layering of chronotopes helps to make sense of this, both by those engaging in an interaction, but also by researchers who aim to analyze these conversations.

Inherently, chronotope is inseparable from talk because time and space are always of immense import to the co-construction of meaning.

Similarly, we can examine writing as being situated in this process as well. Prior and

Shipka (2003) argue that the writing process is laminated by multiple chronotopes, which converge to transform spaces, influence what one writes and how to go about writing and constructing meaning. This is important to consider because writing doesn’t always extend discourses that happened immediately before writing occurs, yet it is expanding upon discourse.

Writing can and often does participate in conversations that occurred in distant times and places.

For the purposes of classroom writing, it can sometimes be observed that writing extends upon classroom conversations that occurred several days or weeks before an assignment. But sometimes writing extends discourses from outside of the classroom, merging interlocutors across time and space through text. However, the negotiation of the meaning of utterances is still occurring between previous interlocutors, the writer, and an anticipated audience, and in that process constructing complex ideologies and understandings of events. Thus, while the medium may differ, the underlying philosophy of how meaning-making occurs remains intact.

The Self, The Other, and Intersubjectivity

In the previous section, I briefly touched on the concept of intersubjectivity in relation to utterances, genre, and writing. In this section, I build upon my discussion of talk, shifting my focus to how people construct meaning through intersubjective interactions using utterances. I consider how people go about conceptualizing and making sense of the world, which entails explaining the relationship between the self and other, defining intersubjectivity, explaining how people engage with one another intersubjectively, and how such an understanding supports human agency and avoids extreme relativism and isolation.

To do so, I draw upon three theorists—Linell (2000; 2014), Marková (2003), and

Rommetveit (1974)--and their conceptions of intersubjectivity, which are all derived from

Bakhtinian perspectives on language. While I understand that my perspective is an a priori conception of intersubjectivity, this narrow definition of intersubjectivity accurately reflects my own understanding of the concept and the role it plays in meaning-making between interlocutors.

My research further investigates the role intersubjectivity in the teaching and learning of argumentation in classrooms, and in turn the ways in which those findings might extend a definition and understanding of intersubjectivity in classroom spaces.

I begin this section by establishing that people conceptualize themselves in relation to others. I then define intersubjectivity and explain how people establish intersubjective relationships through interaction. Next, I argue that interactivity is at the core of all human experience and drives human interaction, before finally revisiting the roles that centripetal and centrifugal forces of language play in establishing temporarily shared life-worlds between interlocutors (Bakhtin, 2010a).

To understand the negotiation of meaning between interlocutors, we need to consider how people conceptualize themselves and their experiences, which is always going to be in relation to others (Bakhtin, 2010b). Shotter (1993) argues that the social construction of identities occurs “…in the creative work of semiotically linking ourselves, meaningfully, both to each other and to our surroundings…” (p. 468). Marková (2003) investigates this notion further by examining the different ways in which subjectivity, and intersubjectivity have been taken up and theorized by different philosophers and psychological theorists. Sometimes referred to as

Ego and Alter, intersubjectivity defines the relationship between I and other and “…aims to reduce the distance between I and Other(s)” (p. 253) through participation in interaction.

Marková contends that such a conception of intersubjectivity--as a negotiation reducing the gap between perspectives--is an apt characterization, and one that emphasizes the need for a dialogical understanding of the construction of self and reality, in that social recognition is both integral to such constructions and a driving force in the human experience. Moreover, dialogic conceptions of reality are necessary because a pure consensus can never be reached. No matter how small the intersubjective gap is, one can never purely understand others, which creates the need for dialogic interaction in the first place. Dialogic interactions help us to construct complex understandings of ourselves and the world; a world populated by the words and perspectives of others. Shotter (1993) articulates this well, saying

…no matter how systematic the speech of each [person] may be while speaking, when

one person has finished speaking and the other can respond, the bridging of the ‘gap’ is

an opportunity for an utterly unique, unrepeatable response, one that is ‘crafted’ or

‘tailored’ to fit the unique circumstances of its utterance” (p. 467).

Thus, intersubjectivity establishes the utility of a Bakhtinian perspective on language, which is predicated on the belief that words are not our own; they will always partially belong to others and be populated with others’ consciousnesses and experiences and histories. Every utterance is co-authored by both speaker and listener, as well as previous speakers and listeners, in order to negotiate meaning in a unique context that will never occur again.

Rommetveit (1974) refers to this unique context as the here-and-now-- a set of presuppositions about shared knowledge and perspectives of the speaker and listener that tacitly establish a “meta-contract of communication” that has, “been tacitly and reciprocally endorsed” by speaker and listener (p. 58). It is these preconceived assumptions made by interlocutors that allow for sense-making to occur because they establish interpretive frames that are applied to help dictate how interactions will occur and be understood. These presuppositions can be, and often are, incorrect (though they can be corrected through talk), but for intersubjectivity to occur, there must be an assumption of a shared social reality in place before an interaction, which acts as an intersubjective bridge across the gap between speakers. These assumptions are based upon interlocutors’ knowledge of each other and the here-and-now, such as when, who, where, and what, including the speaker’s anticipation of “decoding” by the listener and the listener’s perception of the speaker’s intentions.

Ultimately, meaning is socially derived from what is at least a partially shared social reality that is established through talk, environment, assumed intention, and uptake. Conversely, a failure to reach intersubjectivity can be attributed to alienation resulting from social realities not overlapping or being shared. This theory is particularly useful for explaining how people draw upon the layering of multiple contexts in sense-making, because it connects the social

29 nature of language and thinking to the individual by establishing how people begin the process of understanding one another in order to avoid extreme relativism and isolation.

Rommetveit (1974) derived these ideas from Bakhtin’s (2010b) argument that any given event includes the experience of the self and of the other, neither of which necessarily constitute the “true” form of the event, but instead interpretations. When co-constructing the consensus of what occurred during an event, multiple perspectives must be considered since no two experiences are the same. Despite individuals perceiving their own perspectives/experiences as

“true,” their perspectives are constructed with a narrow and personal scope that cannot capture all the different ways an event was experienced, perceived, and made sense of by others involved, all of which are integral to defining the event. Bakhtin’s (2010b) relative nature of

“truth” contests Kant’s categorical imperative, which argues that morals and ethics are universal and absolute in all situations. Bakhtin instead believes that ethics and morals are relative, and therefore emphasizes the contextual nature of human experience. What is right in one situation may not be in another, and similarly, the perception of an event and how to respond can differ between people. This is important because Bakhtin emphasizes the significant role language occupies in daily life in co-constructing the world and understanding of the Self, and establishes a foundation for heteroglossia by applying this perspective to utterances, and extrapolating it to apply to society at large.

While not overtly stated, Bakhtin’s idea of heteroglossia alludes to an understanding of the world as interactive, meaning, “…language, and other semiotic resources, have their home- base in the interactivities and interrelations between individuals in social interaction, and between individuals and the ecosocial (i.e. physical and social world…” thus, “Language is

(inter)relational, not thing-like” (Linell, 2014, p. 170). Thinking of language as interactive and

30 inter-relational expands Bakhtinian notions of language by recognizing the dialogic nature of reality, which requires both a collectivist and individualist understanding. The world is intersubjectively constructed through dialogic interaction, using words that hold collective meanings, but individuals retain agency in their thinking and interactions. Their thoughts, while composed of words used by others and influenced by others, still reflect some aspect of individual agency located within the self (as the individual has both a body and brain that is unique to them), which is directly tied to social recognition and interaction. Sense-making individuals, then, “…are social individuals who use and make meaning together” (p. 171) and

“…use embodied brains for the processing of sense-making, and …exploit the ecosocial environment for the content of sense-making” (p. 172). Because of this, people can hold differing perspectives that converge through interaction to construct new meanings.

Such an understanding situates interaction as being inherent to the human experience, with interaction predicating intersubjectivity, making interaction the foundation of being human.

Interaction and language are a precursor to the individual. From birth, interaction is an innate feature of the human experience, which creates the need to understand and learn from one another. This also provides a useful foundation for understanding dialogism.

Linell (2000) defines the tenets of dialogism as interactionism, contextualism, and communicative constructionism (all of which have been discussed above, though not in those terms), which converge as the co-construction of meaning-making within a world that is concrete. Through languaging, meaning is constructed, but the “reality of things” is still acknowledged, effectively addressing the problem of extreme relativism that conceives of every aspect of existence as being purely a social construct unique to each individual or small groups of individuals, and thus isolating.

The works on intersubjectivity by Rommetveit (1974), Linell (2014) and Marková (2003) provide an explanation, in part, of how humans go about constructing shared understandings of language to make sense of one another through interaction; addressing issues of human agency, relativism, and isolation on an interpersonal level, but not necessarily how we account for variances in the versions of language people use. To address this issue, we must look again at language and how language functions. Bakhtin (2010a) posits that there are unitary languages that provide access points for wide-spread understanding, and that these are in a constant negotiation with diverse types and uses of languages that are more specific to the communities to which they are tied. In other words, centripetal and centrifugal forces of language vie for meaning. He explains,

A unitary language is not something given (dan] but is always in essence posited (zadan]-

and at every moment of its linguistic life it is opposed to the realities of heteroglossia.

But at the same time it makes its real presence felt as a force for overcoming this

heteroglossia, imposing specific limits to it, guaranteeing a certain maximum of mutual

understanding and crystalizing into a real, although still relative, unity-the unity of the

reigning conversational (everyday) and literary language, "correct language" (Bakhtin,

2010a, Kindle location 3832-3838).

Thus, a unitary language is centralized language systems and practices stemming from and perpetuating dominant societal ideologies. This can be described as “stable,” meaning language that is commonly recognized as “official” or “correct”. For my purposes, a good example might be the academic language genre that is often prevalent in classrooms. When teachers task students with writing formal essays, there is a certain academic language genre that is expected, which might be considered unitary language (as opposed to slang which often is derived from,

32 and representative of, non-dominant cultures and ideologies). From this perspective, language is not “…a system of abstract grammatical categories, but rather language conceived as ideologically saturated, language as a world view, even as a concrete opinion, insuring a maximum of mutual understanding in all spheres of ideological life” (Bakhtin, 2010a, Location

3832-3838). It is this unitary language that serves as the ligaments in the body of societal discourses across time and space.

However, unitary language, while useful for the purposes of establishing understandings across groups of people in different spaces and times, can also be imposing, colonizing, and enslaving. Since unitary language represents ideologies, it creates value systems regarding ideologies and the communities from which those ideologies stem. Thus, unitary language plays an important role in dictating what constitutes valid content, and works to place power in the hands of those whose own ideologies most closely align with the unitary language. Bakhtin considers unitary language to be a centripetal force of “the life of language” that is constantly working to centralize language.

In opposition to this is Bakhtin’s notion of heteroglossia. He claims,

At any given moment of its evolution, language is stratified not only into linguistic

dialects in the strict sense of the word (according to formal linguistic markers, especially

phonetic), but also-and for us this is the essential point-into languages that are socio-

ideological: languages of social groups, "professional" and "generic" languages,

languages of generations and so forth. From this point of view, literary language itself is

only one of these heteroglot languages-and in its turn is also stratified into languages

(generic, period-bound and others). (Kindle location 3840-3855).

So, he contends that language is tied to social groups and the ideologies of those groups, similar to Vološinov ’s discussion of signs. These vying voices contest unitary language and work to pull “the life of language” away from the center, allowing it to represent more diversified perspectives. This heteroglossia inspires the evolution of language use in a society and the development of non-dominant ideologies. Moreover, it is in the tension between the centrifugal pull of heteroglossia and the centripetal pull of unitary language in which language use exists.

Language use is always both centralizing and decentralizing; Bakhtin argues “Every utterance participates in the "unitary language" (in its centripetal forces and tendencies) and at the same time partakes of social and historical heteroglossia (the centrifugal, stratifying forces) (Kindle location 3840-3855). So, we can understand the utterance as simultaneously representing/being steeped in specific mechanisms, histories, and ways of being while also relating to the common usage of the word in the context of dominant societal values and usages. Again, since this is the convergence of ideologies, one must recognize that these ideologies are always in negotiation, with meaning and usage always being found within that tension.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I drew upon the works of Vološinov (1986) and Bakhtin (2010a; 2010b) to establish a baseline definition and theoretical understanding of the utterance and the co- construction of meaning derived from the exchange of utterances, which functioned as a foundation upon which my understanding of intersubjectivity was built. I used the writing of scholars such as Rommetveit (1974), Linell (2000; 2014), and Marková (2003) to define intersubjectivity and the role it plays in meaning-making between interlocutors.

After discussing the exchange of utterances, I explore the ways in which genre, medium, chronotope, and conceptions of self affect how people make sense of one another. I argued that

34 people are always situating their own experiences and perspectives in relation to, and in conjunction with others. I defined the concept of intersubjectivity, explaining how people establish intersubjective understandings in both talk and writing, and why intersubjectivity is integral to meaning-making between interlocutors. I built upon discussions of intersubjectivity had by Marková (2003), Linnell (2000;2014), and Rommetveit (1974), who define intersubjectivity as both the tension between perspectives and the bridging of the gap between perspectives. By this they mean that intersubjectivity serves the function of bringing two perspectives closer to one another, which entails the recognition of an inevitable tension between perspectives and the assumption of some sort of shared social reality upon which two interlocutors can come to make sense of one another. After doing so, I argued that interactivity precedes intersubjectivity and drives human interaction

I focus on the construct of intersubjectivity because it is an integral piece for understanding how relationships between interlocutors are established, how the necessary lenses of interpretation are formed between interlocutors to make sense of each other’s utterances, and how the exchange of new and differing ideas can occur and be understood to construct new meanings. This concept, as I define and use it, builds upon Bakhtinian perspectives on language

(Bakhtin, 2010a; 2010b) by (1) further exploring and theorizing how people construct realities that are integral to sense-making between interlocutors and (2) explaining how people who do not share similar life experiences can come to integrate diverse perspectives into their own understandings. Such a framework provides potential for exploring how students are appropriating and synthesizing multiple perspectives through dialogic literary argumentation to construct new and complex understandings of the world.

Finally, I used Bakhtin’s concepts of centripetal and centrifugal language forces to explain how people can establish intersubjective relationships despite the relativistic nature of human experiences.

This chapter establishes my underlying theoretical approach to an interaction I analyze— an interaction situated within and informed by a larger year-long ethnographic study. My study focuses on the establishment of intersubjective frameworks and the ways in which those frameworks are used to facilitate understandings of perspectives that differ from those of students in a classroom. Through my analysis I concluded three important findings that I will thoroughly discuss in Chapter 4, which are: 1.) The purposeful construction of intersubjectivity facilitated a shared understandings between students and the author that had not been apparent to students before the intersubjective framework was constructed; 2.) The teacher used teaching moves to construct an intersubjective framework—comprised of 6 dimensions—through engagement in verbal argumentaion; 3.) Through the facilitation of an argumentative discussion, the teacher was able to establish an epistemological stance towards argumentation as social awareness and a process through which students can construct understandings of the world.

Definitions

Talk is the co-construction of meaning using linguistic systems and structures for the purposes of accomplishing social action within and across contexts. Inherently social, talk is the reflection and refraction of ideologies, histories, contexts and larger ongoing social discourses; as well as individuals’ desires situated in local social values and cultures. Talk is also locally and globally defined, revised, and redefined across time and space, including participatory structures, definitions, appropriate usage, and group identification. Local and global usages have reciprocal influence and complementary roles in the construction of meaning.

A frame is an underlying assumption, belief, or understanding, that influences how an interlocutor will make sense of a text (spoken or otherwise), event, or action. Frames can be layered for the purposes of constructing an understanding. When frames overlap, at least partially, a temporarily shared social reality is constructed. For the purposes of this paper, frame is interchangeable with “dimension.” Frames can be created or established through languaging, or be constructed a priori.

An intersubjective framework is the amalgamation of various frames—also known as dimensions for the purposes of this paper—that are layered over each other for the purposes of constructing a new way of observing, analyzing, exploring, and discussing a given topic.

Intersubjective frameworks can be constructed through languaging and contributes to the establishment of a temporarily shared life world by facilitating the overlapping of frames between interlocutors.

Argument is a set of claims, evidence, and warrants, etc., used to set forth a proposition.

Andrews (2009) describes it as, “a connected series of statements intended to establish a position” (p. 39). It is the result of argumentation; the noun to argumentation’s verb.

Argumentation is the “process of developing arguments” (Andrews, 2009, p. 39). This entails the collection, exploration, and scrutiny of evidence; the exchange of claims, ideas, and positions (whether between two interlocutors exchanging utterances through conversation, or across time and space through other mediums of talk); the social construction of warranting; and the social construction and appropriation of a set of social practices for the purposes of creating and exchanging arguments. While all components constitute a complete argument, in the process of teaching and learning argumentation, some elements may not be present depending on how far along a teacher and her students are in the process of the teaching and learning argumentation.

I define Argumentative Writing operationally as student work products. These student work products may have been composed in or outside of the classroom. Student work products include, for example, traditional work products such as student essays and less traditional products such as PowerPoints. It can include elements of argument such as evidence, claim, and warrant, though not all must be included for a student’s work product to be defined as such.

Moreover, argumentative writing will be defined by the social norms of the classroom at the time

(what the teacher and students define as argumentative writing).

Teaching moves or moves are “actions people take to get work done” (VanDerHeide,

2017, p. 3). These moves can be transferable across genres of argumentation and are identifiable in argumentation and argumentative writing. For example, one might make a claim, which can be done so verbally, in a formal essay, or in a PowerPoint.

Argumentative Texts are texts used to make an argument (Toulmin, 1958/2003) using at least some of the components as established by Toulmin (claims, evidence, warranting, qualifiers, backing, rebuttal). Argumentative texts are not a singular genre--for example, fiction can construct allegories that make an argument—and in turn, argumentative texts are not always read as such; an essay can be read as an argument about society, or as a glimpse into someone else’s life, in which the argument is never dissected. When engaging with argumentative texts, one must do so with the expressed purpose of engaging with or identifying the argument in some manner, and based on reader engagement, nearly any text can be framed as an argumentative text.

Research Questions

In this dissertation, I begin to address a need to examine the role intersubjectivity plays in argumentation in classrooms, and the ways in which intersubjective frameworks can contribute

38 to the construction of understandings of perspectives that are unfamiliar to students. I studied the teaching and learning of argumentation and argumentative writing in an 11th grade AP

Composition course for the entirety of the 2017-2018 school year. Due to the class’ focus on argumentative writing and rhetorical analysis, it was a rich setting to examine the ways in which students learned to engage with perspectives that differed from their own in the context of a classroom in which the teacher had previous experience with Dialogic Literary Argumentation as defined by the members of Argumentative Writing Project, under whom this study was conducted.

My two research questions are the following:

1. What role does intersubjectivity play in the argumentative classroom discussion observed

on November 2, 2017 and how does understanding the relationship between

intersubjectivity and the aforementioned argumentative discussion in turn inform how we

understand the construct of intersubjectivity itself?

2. How does the English language arts teacher use a series of teaching moves to

interactionally construct an intersubjective framework with her students?

In order to answer these questions, I conducted a microethnographic discourse analysis on a transcript of a classroom event that took place on November 2, 2017. My analysis was informed by the larger corpus of data collected over the course of the ethnographic study, as well as the theoretical frame established in this chapter.

Chapter 2 situates my scholarship in relation to four important concepts related to languaging in classrooms: classroom talk, cultural modeling, third space, and argumentation/argumentative writing.

Chapter 3 recounts my research methods, data collection procedures, and analysis procedures, including the theoretical assumptions that drove my methodology.

Chapter 4 presents the findings of my study, which are: 1.) The purposeful construction of intersubjectivity facilitated a shared understanding between the students and the author that had not been apparent to students before the intersubjective framework was constructed; 2.) Ms.

Night used teaching moves to construct an intersubjective framework—comprised of 6 dimensions--through engagement in verbal argumentation (languaging). Those moves are reflexivity, reflection, reframing memories/experiences, and intercontextuality; 3.) Through the facilitation of an argumentative discussion, Ms. Night was able to establish an epistemological stance towards argumentation as social awareness and a process through which students can construct understandings of the world. To do so, I analyze the transcript of a classroom event multiple times, with a focus on a different dimension of the intersubjective framework in each section, before doing a final examination with a focus on the teaching moves employed to facilitate the construction of the intersubjective framework.

Chapter 5 presents a synthesis of my findings, addressing each research question, as well as discussions about the methodological, theoretical, and pedagogical implication of my study as well as the need for future research.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

In this review of literature, I situate my study in relationship to existing bodies of research that have meaningfully impacted the field of educational scholarship for decades. I recognize that the investigation of teaching, learning, and language use speaks to aspects of the human experience that extend beyond classroom walls. Research related to these issues, then, must account for the various conversations across space and time to which classroom events contribute. Languaging (Becker, 1991; Fishman, 1965) in classrooms not only shapes students’ ideas of content-area specific knowledge, but the ways in which they perceive themselves and the world that surrounds them. Thus, my study aims to investigate the role intersubjectivity plays in classroom discussions that shape students’ understandings of unfamiliar perspectives they encounter in their English Language Arts classrooms, argumentation, and themselves in relationship to the world at large. I take up the following questions:

1. What role does intersubjectivity play in the argumentative classroom discussion observed

on November 2, 2017 and how does understanding the relationship between

intersubjectivity and the aforementioned argumentative discussion in turn inform how we

understand the construct of intersubjectivity itself?

2. How does the English language arts teacher use a series of teaching moves to

interactionally construct an intersubjective framework with her students?

To frame these questions through a review of literature, I situate my scholarship in relation to four concepts related to languaging in classrooms: classroom talk, third space, cultural modeling, and argumentation/argumentative writing. I chose these four areas because they relate to various elements of the event I analyze in Chapter 4.

In this study, the notion of talk is foundational, as I use an exploratory classroom conversation that occurred on November 2, 2017 to investigate intersubjectivity, so I thought it pertinent to establish the works that inform my own understanding of talk in classrooms.

Moreover, the scholarship around the exclusive study of classroom talk has seemed to stagnate, and so I think the conversation around intersubjectivity adds a new dimension to that body of knowledge by positing how people come to make sense of one another when navigating multiple perspectives.

Another aspect of my study involves the third space (Guiterrez, Rhyme, & Larson, 1995;

Gutierrez, 2008) that is constructed by the students and teacher as part of the intersubjective framework through talk. This dimension helps to situate and explain the ways in which the conversation builds a bridge between teacher script and student counterscripts through the establishment of an intersubjective framework. Gutierrez’s (2008) notion of Third Space also draws upon a version of intersubjectivity that is different than my own, and so I believe that my work could contribute a different way of understanding intersubjectivity in educational spaces and in turn the role that it plays within the construction of third space for the purposes of constructing knowledge through talk.

Related to Third Space is Cultural Modeling, (Lee, 2001; Lee; 2003; Lee 2004; Lee,

2006) which entails heteroglossic conversations in which students are co-equal participants with their teacher. This negotiation of multiple perspectives interests me, and shares commonalities with my study. Beyond this, Cultural Modeling looks at the ways in which students possess academic knowledge that is drawn from their everyday lives, which assists in the ways in which students frame content. However, her studies examine homogenous classrooms—as described by

Lee (2003;2004;2006). My study is tangentially related because I look at similar participatory

42 conversational structures but consider the ways in which students engage with perspectives and experiences that are unfamiliar to them.

Finally, I draw upon the field of argumentation/argumentative writing as understood and defined by Newell, Bloome, & Hirvela (2015), which examines the ways in which argumentation can be used in classrooms to investigate human experiences, provide a process through which problems can be solved, and come to nuanced and rich understandings through the exploration and synthesis of multiple perspectives. My study aims to contribute to this body of research by further investigating the ways in which students come to explore and make-sense of perspectives that differ from their own through the construction of intersubjective frameworks during argumentative conversations.

I begin my discussion by defining types of talk, before acknowledging the covert role it plays in research on third space, cultural modeling, and argumentation, and the ways in which exploratory participatory conversational structures contribute to the exploration of multiple perspectives and subsequent co-construction of knowledge in classrooms. Then, I discuss the ways in which multiple perspectives are negotiated through classroom conversations in the research on third space, cultural modeling, and argumentation. In this section, I also explain the ways in which my understanding of intersubjectivity diverges from that of Guitirrez (2008) and

Lee (2006). Finally, I touch on the developing understanding of the role of talk in research on argumentative writing. I end this chapter with a brief conclusion and summary of the chapter

Classroom Talk

When Douglas Barnes began theorizing talk, Bakhtin’s work was not yet widely available or used by scholars as a theoretical frame for examining classrooms. Although Barnes

(1990) view of language “…as a medium of learning” (p. 41), aligns with Bakhtinian and

Vygotskian notions of talk, it does not go so far as to conceptualize language use as a social practice. Yet his focus on how people exchange ideas through talk in classrooms is essential for understanding conversational practices and how those practices can influence the co-construction of thought. In his work, Barnes (1971;1990; 1992; 2008) found that what shapes knowledge construction in addition to the ideas introduced in a classroom, is also how teachers and students engage with one another around those ideas.

Although they are not always made explicit, similar notions have appeared as important aspects in the construction of knowledge in the work of other scholars. For example, these notions are central to the investigation of third space (Gutierrez, Rhyme, & Larson, 1995;

Gutierrez 2008), in which the teachers’ scripts and the students’ counterscripts converge, sometimes only momentarily, to construct authentic learning spaces. In these spaces, students’ interests and ways of being in the world are validated and drawn upon to construct meaningful knowledge. Talk is also apparent in the concept of cultural modeling, which centers students’ authentic voices in classroom discussions as a resource upon which disciplinary knowledge is built and also helps to position students as knowers; and in argumentation (Newell, Bloome,

Hirvela, 2015; Newell, VanDerHeide, & Wynhoff Olsen, 2014; Newell, Bloome, Hirvela, & Lin,

2019;VanDerHeide & Juzwik, 2018) in which multiple perspectives converge and are negotiated in the pursuit of nuanced, complex, and layered understandings of the nature of being human are constructed through the investigation of texts.

Talk – and the ways in which people engage in language– is integral to the construction of knowledge in all of these bodies of research. Types of talk are not referenced in a majority of this scholarship, nor is Barnes; and yet, they are covertly present and can help to explain how knowledge is constructed in classrooms. Thus, it is prudent to discuss types of talk in classroom

44 settings further, as my work closely examines the interactional construction of intersubjective frameworks for interpreting argumentative texts in the secondary ELA classroom, which is accomplished through classroom talk.

Barnes categorizes talk as being either presentational or exploratory. Presentational talk,

“…performs a different and more public role. When students are called on in class, when they feel to be under evaluation, they seldom risk exploration, but prefer to provide an acceptable performance, a ‘right’ answer” (1971, p. 50). Presentational talk then, is part of an evaluative process between a student, their peers, and the instructor. When this sort of talk is used, there are often Initiation Response Evaluation (IRE) sequences (Mehan, 1979) that indicate such talk is occurring. Generally, when categorizing presentational talk, it is characterized by an aspect of finality and evaluation; the answer is not up for debate or amendment. These questions are going to pertain to factual content and the interactions tend to be short.

This interactional structure positions the teacher as the authority in the classroom and centers them as the locus of knowledge. In interactions such as these, the teacher’s “script” is often privileged. By script, I mean, “…an orientation that members come to expect after repeated interactions in contexts with particular social and language patterns constructed both locally and over time” (Gutierrez, p. 341, 1994). These scripts reflect and refract how participants are constructed and oriented in relationship to one another and even the world at large. While presentational talk as an interactional structure has a place in classrooms, Gutierrez, Rymes and

Larson (1995) found in their study that, “…the teacher’s power in the classroom…is maintained through a form of monologism that attempts to stifle dialogue and interaction and the potential for taking up a critical stance” (p. 446, 1995). Although the researchers do not reference different types of talk in their article, the talk the teacher sought to engage in was presentational, as

45 evidenced by the IRE sequence they note. In one of the interactions documented in their study, a teacher subjects his students to a “current events quiz” for which students are asked what stories were mentioned on the front page of the L.A. Times. Despite students demonstrating a knowledge of current events, they are unable to guess the correct answer, and obviously had not read the newspaper. This interaction fell into an ongoing IRE sequence, in which students attempted to answer the teacher’s question and he evaluated those responses. As such, there is an assumed “right” answer the teacher possesses and the students are supposed to “know” which are tied to specific cultural practices. Gutierrez and her colleagues argue, “This teacher’s practice is, in fact, an instantiation of the ways in which this particular teacher had been socialized to understand the roles of students and teacher through his own experience as a student, through his experience in pre-service teacher education. [sic] and through is own classroom experiences” (p.

455, 1995).

The “default” script (p. 455) leaves little room for students to explore their own knowledge and practices, or to see themselves in the curriculum. Through this particular form of talk denoted by the IRE sequence, the teacher maintains power over what constitutes knowledge, which perpetuates the teacher’s values, norms, and ways of being in the world. In this regard,

Gutierrez, Rymes and Larson (1995) argue, “While the teacher presents the quiz as if it pertains to news about some universally shared ‘world,’ the world he refers to is actually quite specific.

It is that world of news that would be available to most middle-class adults who read the paper with their morning coffee” (p. 455).

Similarly, Lee (2006) notes that students—particularly African American students— benefit from a Cultural Modeling classroom, in which students are able to engage in rich discussions about literature through modes of communication that align with their own cultural

46 ways of communicating. She argues: “Based on decades of research on the most dominant modes of talk in classrooms, instructional talk in classrooms tends to be controlled and directed by teachers.” Further, she finds that even many inquiry-based approaches do not capture the unique ways in which people’s communication is influenced by ethnicity/race and language. In her study, she notes that African-American English “served as the medium of communication, providing contextualization cues for roles students were to play” (p. 319). To do so entailed moving away from teacher-centric IRE sequences that draw upon presentational talk as an interactional structure.

Instead, students participated in open-ended conversations in which their ways of speaking and conventions of interaction could remain intact. This served as a foundation the teacher could build upon, as there were many tacitly practiced literary analytic skills that students had embedded in their cultural ways of interacting. However, making them visible and usable required the teacher to de-center herself in the classroom and allow students to engage in a participatory structure that suited the authentic exploration of ideas that drew upon their real- world experiences.

Such understandings have influenced how educational researchers conceptualize what it means to engage in argumentation. Projects like the Argumentative Writing Project advocate for an approach that moves away from a “correct” answer and binary position-taking, in favor of conceptualizing argumentation as the negotiation of ideas and engagement in multi-layered conversations over time and space.

Based on this re-conceptualization of the teaching and learning of argumentation and argumentative writing, VanDerHeide and Juzwik (2018) advocate for the notion of argument as conversation, which “…focuses attention on the significance of an argument, as it enters into and

47 responds to various spheres of communication (Bakhtin, 1986). Indeed, the conversational approach takes social conversation to be the central metaphor for writing.” However, the bridge between classroom conversation and argumentative writing is still being constructed. Some studies on the relationship between talk and writing have been conducted with a broader focus on surface-level structural and factual aspects of student writing. For example, Poole’s (2003) study identifies three speech-writing connections, which are “…spoken reference to a written text or segment, spoken repetition or paraphrase of written language, and text as a determiner of the topics of talk” (p. 103). On the other hand, Dixon, Green, and Brandts’ (2005) study finds that the classroom discussions and texts they examined had a reciprocal relationship that resulted in factual knowledge and references to the teacher’s comments being indexed in students’ written texts.

Other studies in argumentative writing explore argumentative writing as a social practice and situate writing as part of the ongoing process of teaching and learning of argumentation, which includes instructional conversations (Newell, Bloome, Hirvela, 2015; VanDerHeide,

Juzwik, & Dunn, 2016). VanDerHeide (2017) examines how writing moves are taught through classroom conversations, which in turn can be applied to argumentation across genres. In her study, she found that through primarily revoicing and questioning, teachers and students were able to co-construct the argumentative moves necessary to engage in argumentation across genres, which allowed students to utilize genres as a form of social action (Miller, 1984). In

Weyand, Goff, & Newell’s (2018) study, instructional conversations were indicative of argumentative epistemologies that helped shape the ways in which students engaged in the warranting of evidence in argumentative essays.

Newell, Bloome, and Hirvela (2015) did not find any particular type of talk that could definitively be credited with the improvement of student writing. However, across the three cases presented in their book, which focused on classroom talk, they note that how teachers and students talked about argumentation and did argumentative writing reflected that not only were students’ thinking, connections, and understandings valued, but so too were the students’ social practices as individuals and as members of a collective. These particular argumentative writing practices, while not exactly the same across the classrooms, all shared the qualities of promoting active student engagement, appreciating diverse perspectives, reflecting on thinking, engaging and interacting with others as part of the writing process, embracing complexity and tensions in interpretations, allowing time for argumentative writing practices to be played out, linking thinking practices with writing practices, and framing student learning of argumentative writing practices as a “journey” over time (p.114).

The commonality in the talk was an exploration of differing perspectives, active engagement, reflective thinking and the possibility for multiple “correct” answers that would inform students’ knowledge of argumentative practices and the ideas that resulted from engagement in said practices. Newell, Bloome and Hirvela’s (2015) research inspired others to further investigate the relationship between talk and argumentative writing. For example, Brady

(2018) found that exploratory talk as an interactional structure was conducive to the exploration and synthesis of multiple perspectives, which also tacitly informed writing practices. He argues that exploratory talk,

…is an integral component of the teaching and learning of dialogic literary

argumentative writing because of the following aspects: (1) it serves as a medium

through which students can have open-ended, multifaceted conversations about

literary texts and their relationship to the human experience, with authentic

multiple perspectives being expressed; (2) it provides a space for the teacher and

students to define, model and practice argumentative thinking; (3) it constructs a

dialogic text (in this case, a conversational text) that can be drawn upon for both

ideas and structure in later writing assignments (p.101).

In other words, exploratory talk provides both a medium through which dialogic literary argumentation can occur, and a conversational text that can be drawn upon for future reference.

Across these studies, there was evidence that an important aspect of engaging in dialogic argumentation was the need for teachers to move beyond presentational interactional structures.

What also became apparent is that the interactional structures of classroom talk need to suit the desired outcomes, and that most often, presentational talk is not conducive to the exploration of ideas. If argumentation is to be used as a process through which ideas are explored and knowledge is co-constructed through conversation, it would seem exploratory talk would play a key role.

Barnes (1971) defines this second category of talk, exploratory talk, as collaborative and

“often but not always hesitant, containing uncompleted or inexplicit utterances as the students try to formulate new understandings….” it, “…enables students to represent to themselves what they currently understand and then if necessary to criticize and change it” (p. 50). Exploratory talk allows for unfinished thoughts to be shared and built upon. The underlying assumption of this type of talk is that there isn’t a “right” answer, instead ideas can be negotiated collectively. It provides students more agency in their learning, because they can actively participate in the construction of knowledge through social interaction. Indicators of this type of talk are usually classrooms in which the teacher has been decentered and students have more equal roles in

50 conversation. Also, the talk may be less structured and the person talking may speak for longer turns than during presentational talk.

Wegerif, Mercer, and Dawes (1999) build upon Barnes’ work to conceptualize different categories of classroom talk, but still include exploratory talk as the central focus. The authors diverge from Barnes’ notion of presentational talk, and instead categorize this kind of talk as 1) disputational, “...which is characterized by disagreement and individualized decision making” (p.

496); 2) Cumulative, “…in which speakers build positively but uncritically on what the other has said” (p. 496); 3) and exploratory, which, “…occurs when partners engage critically but constructively with each other’s ideas [….]. Statements and suggestions are offered for joint consideration. These may be challenged and counter-challenged, but challenges are justified and alternative hypotheses are offered. Compared with the other two types, in exploratory talk, knowledge is made more publicly accountable and reasoning is more visible in the talk. Progress then emerges from the eventual joint agreement reached” (p. 496).

In their study, they described the relationship between exploratory talk and reasoning as a social practice. They argue: “Of the three types…exploratory talk is the closest to reasoning as a social practice” (p. 496). They expand on Barnes’s understanding of exploratory talk by positioning it as integral to the social process of reasoning and key to Habermas’s (1985) notion of communicative rationality, because it makes reasoning visible, negotiable, accountable, and empirically driven (p. 497). Wegerif, Mercer and Dawes (1999) argue that when claims are presented within exploratory talk, reasoning also follows because there are opportunities for interaction, and these sorts of conversations generally encourage interlocutors to be more

“…open and responsive to the reasoning of others” (p. 497).

The authors used an intervention-based experimental design to compare a control group of students with those engaging in exploratory talk to solve reasoning problems. To do so, they provided one group with “ground rules” that they were to follow. These rules were considered useful for facilitating exploratory talk in the experimental group. The rules are as follows:

1. Discuss things together. That means: ask everyone for their opinion; ask for reasons

why; and listen to people

2. Be prepared to change your mind

3. Think before you speak

4. Respect other people’s ideas—don’t just use your own

5. Share all the ideas and information you have.

6. Make sure the group agrees after talking. (p. 500)

They found that these rules significantly improved students’ ability to solve the post-test reasoning problems in comparison to the pre-test, and that this was not based on any single individual’s improvement, but on that of the group. However, individual reasoning scores also improved. The “key features” of exploratory talk that were represented in the rules were in turn apparent in the group’s talk. They also found that such talk could be facilitated by teachers through interventions. These results suggest that students can be taught conversational structures that facilitate types of talk that are more conducive to certain types of tasks.

In many ways, the rules reflect Barnes’s understanding of exploratory talk, and my own, but diverge in other ways. While the authors seem to align with Barnes’s understanding of exploratory talk as being unfinished, they narrow the purposes of exploratory talk from the co- construction of knowledge, to problem solving, reasoning, and consensus. While not explicitly stated, this perspective aligns with Barnes’ in the sense that there seems to be a social

52 perspective of learning present in Barnes’s work that would align with Wegerif, Mercer, and

Dawes’ adoption of a Vygotskian theoretical frame. In both instances, the authors recognize the social processes that are occurring around learning through talk and investigate how those processes might be internalized. This understanding also aligns with my own, in that I view learning as a social process.

However, Wegerif, Mercer and Dawes adopt Habermas’ notion of communicative rationality (1985), in which “rationality” and problem-solving are fore-fronted in the pursuit of

“consensus”; this becomes the purpose of talk in their study. I contend that consensus is not a necessary outcome of exploratory talk; in fact, I believe consensus can be inhibitive to exploration. While communicative rationality in the Habermasian sense of political decision- making may indeed include an element of majority agreement, the notion of consensus might be instead replaced with intersubjectivity. By this I mean that it is necessary for students to understand the teacher, texts, each other, and the arguments and perspectives that are juxtaposed against their own across multiple contexts. However, those understandings will never perfectly overlap.

People need to have at least a partially temporarily shared social reality to meaningfully understand one another, but that understanding does not have to extend to agreement. In fact, the very nature of exploratory talk is the exploration of ideas and perspectives in the pursuit of co- constructing understandings. I would argue that exploratory talk is an ongoing unfinished process, a conversation that doesn’t truly end, but instead transforms over time. Exploratory interactional structures aid in the construction of ideas and knowledge, but do not result in a singular “right” answer, and as such, consensus is often antithetical to engaging in exploratory talk.

Barnes’ argues: “The struggle to reconcile the old and the new sometimes takes place through writing or through silent thought, but for most of us it takes place most readily in conversations with others” (Barnes, 1990, p. 48). It is here, that my work continues the conversation. While I will not be focusing specifically on categories of talk, I do examine the ways in which teachers and students engage in talk, the structure of that talk, and the ways in which conversations unfold in meaningful ways for students. Moreover, I extend this notion of exploration by further examining the mechanisms that facilitate the co-construction of knowledge across social and cultural thresholds.

The Negotiation of Multiple Perspectives in Research on Classroom Talk That Incorporates Exploratory Conversational Structures

Gutierrez, Rhymes, and Larson (1995) define third space as a hybrid classroom space where, “…the student and teacher cultural interests, or internal dialogizations, become available to each other, where actual cross-cultural communication is possible, and where public artifacts such as the newspaper texts, and even historical events, are available for critique and contestation” (p. 465). Guitierrez (2008) later reflected on her work, concluding that this notion was actually an argument “about the importance of accounting for the interacting activity systems of people’s everyday lives” (p 152). Local literacies steeped in histories that are tied to personhood and culture, as well as the ways in which those literacies converge in classroom spaces to create tensions that can be useful for learning are important aspects of third space.

Gutierrez (2008) comes to understand third space as zones of proximal development, in which third space accounts for the “collaboration of different activity systems” (Tuomi-Grohn,

2003, p.200 as cited in Gutierrez, 2008, p .153), and not merely interaction between individuals.

By defining third space in this way, Gutierrez also redefines intersubjectivity in a manner that not only defines it as shared practice, but a shared “vision” or goal. She argues that

54 intersubjectivity is something that one works to achieve as an end, instead of as an interpretive framework that serves as a foundation upon which people construct meaning through at least partially shared, temporary social realities. While social practices are part of an intersubjective framework, Gutierrez’ notion moves intersubjectivity to mean a complete overlap of understandings, in which students and the teacher move towards consensus, a shared vision. She argues that third space entails the “…push and pull involved in building a collective dream, of struggling for intersubjectivity mediated by the appropriation of tools that extend students’ repertoires of practice…” which accounted for students’ persistence and success in her UCLA program (p 160).

In that same 2008 article, Gutierrez references Goodwin (1995) when defining intersubjectivity as “shared practice” (p. 153). In his article, Goodwin describes his work with a man named Rob who suffers from aphasia. Rob had been a successful lawyer until he suffered a massive stroke that paralyzed the right side of his brain and left him capable of only speaking 3 words: yes, no, and and. Goodwin invokes the notion of intersubjectivity to examine the ways in which functional communication was established through actions, which provided frames through which the words could be interpreted.

For example, Goodwin describes how Rob’s nurse and wife would use activities to frame his speech in a manner that would allow for them to interpret his meaning. Some examples of this could be putting his socks on, picking breakfast foods and toppings for said food, (bagel vs. toast, butter vs. jam). This required a sequencing of questions and activities that allowed for Rob to answer, yes, no, or and to each, before moving on to the next stage of developing meaning.

Goodwin found that, “The texture of intelligibility provided by a mutually recognized activity is central to the processes of inference and action through which Rob and his collaborators

55 accomplish situated meaning…” (p. 236). Intonation, deixis, eye gaze, and gestures all aided in framing Rob’s language in a manner that assisted in meaning-making between the interlocutors.

As such, there was an assumed shared understanding between Rob, his wife, and the nurse. But those understandings, which may appear to be totally shared, only functionally overlap, and are not indicative of the complex ways in which the interlocutors’ perspectives differed despite an apparent shared understanding.

This problem can be traced back to Mead (1934), whose work on intersubjectivity served as the foundation for Schegloff (1992) and Goodwin (1995), both of whom Gutierrez cites in her conversations of intersubjectivity.

Mead’s view on intersubjectivity (Biestta, 1998) is similar to Linell’s (2014) in that he believes that interactivity is innate to the human experience, and as such, intersubjectivity is necessary to make sense of interaction. However, while he does not fully deny the notion of the individual, he discusses people as primarily reactionary and “continually readjusting” to instability. In his understanding of human development, people are driven by reaction, which ignores the role of human agency. Moreover, he claims that when one makes a “vocal gesture”— when someone speaks words-- others will hear their gesture as they do. This view of the world is both interactive and monologic, constructing a logical fallacy that underlies the definition of intersubjectivity, which is that of a totally shared understanding. It helps us to understand the notion of a “shared vision” that Gutierrez (2008) references. However, the notion of a totally shared or overlapping understanding undermines meaningful learning for the individual, and doesn’t help to explain how students can come to understand non-dominant cultures and literacies that aren’t their own.

Instead, this dissertation study conceptualizes intersubjectivity as a partial overlap of temporarily shared life worlds, in which people do not share a perfectly overlapping, or pure, understanding of each other’s contributions to a conversation. Further, it explores how intersubjectivity as I have defined it in this paper can help us to understand how students construct understandings of perspectives different than their own. In particular, I’m interested in how students can engage with non-dominant perspectives, and how the teacher and students construct a rich intersubjective framework through conversation, which is then used to examine texts, reconcile multiple perspectives in a way that is meaningful to them, and how those interactions can construct epistemologies towards argumentation. Instead of the “shared vision”

Gutierrez (2008) references, I would describe my study as being interested in an “informed” vision, in which students interact with and reconcile various ways of being in the world with their own. I will discuss this further in Chapter 5.

Gutierrez’s notion of a “shared vision” is also partially explained by her interests in sociocritical literacy (Gutierrez, 1994; Gutierrez, Rhymes, & Larson, 1995; Gutierrez, 2008), which reframes historical and cultural literacies as “powerful tools oriented toward critical social thought” (Gutierrez, 2008, p. 148). In this way, her work is similar to Carol Lee’s notion of

Cultural Modeling (Lee, 2001; Lee, 2003; Lee, 2004; Lee, 2006) which is predicated on the idea that “…students bring to the Language Arts classroom a rich array of knowledge that is useful for learning generative concepts and strategies in reading and writing” (2006, p. 100).

In her work, Lee focuses on students who speak African-American English Vernacular and the rich language practices that are tacitly engrained in the exchange of AAEV. However,

Lee’s work differs from Gutierrez earlier work in that Lee’s classroom is relatively homogenous and instructed by a person (Lee) who also speaks AAEV and shares some of the history and

57 culture of her students. Gutierrez’ early work, on the other hand, focuses on how dominant literacies (tied to dominant cultures) are taught as “correct” and students resist those narratives through counter-scripts. As such, third space was defined in Gutierrez’s earlier works as a momentary overlap of interests and values that could result in authentic learning. As the conceptualization of third space progressed, Gutierrez began to investigate classrooms where the instructor and the students shared literacies, histories, and cultures, which were then reframed, much like in cultural modeling, to recognize the ways in which those literacies can be powerful tools to construct a shared vision of the future.

However, these do not extend the aforementioned practices beyond homogenous classroom environments, to explore ways in which heterogenous classrooms can also utilize students’ backgrounds to construct understandings of perspectives that differ from their own— particularly perspectives that are non-dominant. For example, Gutierrez, Rhyme, and Larson’s

(1995) study, in which they introduce third space, focuses on the ways in which a lack of shared cultural backgrounds inhibits meaningful learning. In their example of third space, they focus on a squandered opportunity for meaningful learning to happen at the convergence of the teacher’s script and the students’ counterscript. While this moment was organic, it was also unplanned, which resulted in the teacher moving on without substantively addressing the students’ interest in knowing more about the implications of segregation and Brown vs. the Board of Education for biracial students. The authors argue:

The possibility of merging student interest with instructional goals was abandoned.

Also abandoned is the opportunity for both students and the teacher to work

together outside of their own scripts and achieve a productive social heteroglossia

in the classroom, opening their own internal discourse to the diversity and different

that breathe life into a classroom and a society (p. 466-467).

The authors posit that to construct a classroom that is “heteroglossic” and “symmetrical”

(meaning the power for students and the teacher to control the curriculum are more evenly balanced), “requires more than just simply ‘adding-on’ the students’ script (p.468). Rather, it necessitates that students and teachers work together to create a meaningful learning environment.

However, how third space can be constructed intentionally across difference is not fully investigated in later studies; instead, this research moves towards homogeneous classrooms as an answer for how to construct third space. This does not reflect the reality that often teachers and students do not share similar backgrounds or cultures, nor does it help to explain how people can expand their understanding of the world by meaningfully learning about perspectives that are both different than theirs, and not represented in a classroom.

It also beckons us to interrogate monolithic assumptions about culture. Gutierrez (2008) argues that culture is action and as such, her goal of shared practice aligns with this; but even those who come from similar backgrounds can have very different experiences, especially as one considers intersectionality and the ways in which class, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status, and trauma also help to shape one’s understandings and ways of navigating the world.

In many ways, Lee’s work overlaps with Gutierrez’ work, and shares some of the same limitations. An example of this can be seen in a book chapter she wrote called “cultural modeling” (2003), in which she examines how cultural modeling facilitated the co-construction of an argument by drawing upon “nested arguments.” A nested argument is defined as “one in

59 which a larger claim is substantiated through a series of related subclaims” with “each subclaim contain[ing] its own evidence and warrants” (location 9338)—and a situation-based model that

“involves the reader’s using his or her knowledge of the world as a filter through which to make inferences, construct an understanding of themes, and use the text do things in the world”

(location 9457).

The students’ argument structure served as a mediational tool for the segment of instructional talk analyzed in this chapter. Their shared understanding of this argument structure helped to organize their goal-directed activity to make relevant claims, consider the possible counterclaims that their peers might make, garner evidence to support their claim, and invoke real world norms to warrant the veracity of their claims. In this culturally responsive instructional environment, the argument structure was hybrid in nature (Gutierrez, Rymes, &

Larson, 1995). On the one hand, it was grounded in an academic structure, as articulated by

Toulmin (Toulmin 1958/2003) and Kuhn (1991). On the other hand, it was clearly reflective of argument structures found in African American Vernacular English (location 9457).

Lee (Lee, 2003; Lee, 2004; Lee, 2006) draws upon third space (though not by name) as an aspect of cultural modeling in the classroom she researches. The students and the teacher were able to create a hybrid space in which personal literacies and academic literacies converged in a manner that created something new and meaningful to students. Lee and her students were able to purposefully construct a third space that was much more stable than described in Gutierrez,

Rhymes, and Larson’s (1995) paper. Moreover, the students were able to recognize tacit skills in

AAVE that could be translated to academic skills. Lee argues that this is significant, because students are not only practicing what she calls “mediating resources” in school, but across various settings in which students interact, including their homes. In this work and in others

60 work she has published (Lee, 2003; Lee, 2004; Lee, 2006), she notably features the “symmetry” and “heteroglossia” for which Gutierrez, Rhymes, and Larson (1995) advocate. However, similar to Gutierrez’s (2008) work, the classroom is homogenous, and the students’ and teacher’s shared

Blackness1 is treated as somewhat monolithic, with the focus being on the shared language features of AAVE. As is the case for the work on third space, there is still room to examine how these approaches could be modified to apply to heterogeneous classrooms.

Extending these ideas into heterogeneous classrooms has promise, particularly considering the recent conceptions of argumentative writing, such as in the scholarship that has been produced by the Argumentative Writing Project. As I previously discussed in this chapter, there is an emerging body of scholarship that examines dialogic approaches to argumentation through which students and teachers explore multiple perspectives in the pursuit of constructing knowledge that reconciles and synthesizes those various perspectives.

The shift from binary, competitive argumentation, such as what has been common in debate, towards one that seeks to establish nuanced positions reflected in claims derived from evidence and warrants has opened space in the classroom to further explore ideas through various lenses that are unique to individuals in the classroom. In fact, this sort of argumentation requires multiple perspectives and encourages students to seek out perspectives different from their own. VanDerHeide and Juzwik’s (2018) notion of argument as conversation is an example of this. This epistemological stance, sometimes referred to as “social process” (Newell,

VanDerHeide, & Wynhoff Olsen, 2014; Newell, Bloome, & Hirvela, 2015; VanDerHeide,

Juzwik, & Dunn, 2016) situates arguments in relation to real-world meaningful conversations that can have tangible implications for students.

1 I am capitalizing “Black” following Pitner (2015) and using a lower-case w on “white” following Johnson (2015).

Understanding written arguments as entering into conversations shifts the argumentative teaching and learning focus toward the broader conversations of a text and away from the writer’s reasoning processes or formal properties of the text itself. Although the writer’s reasoning processes and the textual form are important and may need to be addressed through instruction, neither is the end goal in this approach.

Instead, reasoning and form are means to a different end: listening and being heard, and becoming empowered disputants in conversations that matter to students (p. 68-69).

VanDerHeide and Juzwik’s (2018) further argue that by “…talking, reading, and writing to effect change beyond the classroom…” (p. 69), the students engaged in multiple spheres of conversation that spanned from local classroom interactions to broader societal conversations that have been ongoing across time. As such, engaging in argument as conversation allowed students to participate in multiple conversations across time, which empowered them to pursue personal interests that reflected their own backgrounds and experiences. The authors note: “This approach potentially facilitates students being and becoming who they are and would like to be, because the writing assignment can ask students to engage with issues that are significant to them” (p. 75). This goal overlaps with those of cultural modeling and third space due to the symmetry, heteroglossia, and practices that are influenced at least partially by students’ own experiences and backgrounds.

However, this research is still scarce, and the role of talk in the process of the teaching and learning or argumentative writing is usually used as a way of situating argumentative writing. This generally leads to studies in which researchers attempt to balance the investigation of classroom talk with the argumentative writing done in classrooms, which limits how intensive and thorough talk can be explored in the published research.

I believe that investigating argumentative classroom talk—which is part of the teaching and learning or argumentative writing over time—is important for understanding how argumentative practices are co-constructed alongside students’ construction of ideas derived from various perspectives. However, at times this may require researchers to take a step back from the writing aspect to better understand the interactions that surround and influence student writing. If argumentative writing is to be used as a means for problem-solving and developing complex understandings of human experiences and the world-at-large, we should look at the ways in which argumentative talk around that writing unfolds, the participatory structures involved, and how teachers and students work together to construct shared frameworks that facilitate rich discussions from which writing may stem.

Conclusion

In this chapter I began by defining talk and discussing its covert role in scholarship around the negotiation of multiple perspectives in other bodies of educational scholarship. I establish that the exploratory conversational participatory structure—exploratory talk— facilitates the co-construction of knowledge that doesn’t entail a singular correct answer. I then discussed the exploration of multiple perspectives through talk in research on third space, cultural modeling, and argumentative writing. In these various studies, it was posited that co- equal participation by teachers and students, with students drawing upon their own experiences, led to rich understandings.

However, in the studies on third space and cultural modeling, there was not a clear answer on how such approaches could be used to help students come to understand perspectives that differed from their own, though they establish foundations upon which one might build. This might be explained by the underlying definition of intersubjectivity in the study of third space,

63 and subsequent influence that had on cultural modeling, being rooted in the notion that people can have a pure understanding of one another. I posited that my own definition of intersubjectivity may help to further understandings on how students can make-sense of perspectives that differ from their own. Finally, I discussed the ways in which recent research on argumentative writing provides a useful approach to the negotiation of multiple-perspectives, upon which I will build.

In this study I analyze classroom talk to better understand the role intersubjectivity plays in helping students construct complex understandings of unfamiliar perspectives, their own experiences, and argumentation itself in a homogenous classroom setting. I do so in the hopes that this will serve as a step towards developing a better understanding of the relationship between classroom talk and writing, and the powerful role that talk plays in the negotiation and co-construction of understandings around disciplinary content, the human experiences, argumentative writing practices, and the ways in which students come to situated themselves locally and on larger scales. In the next chapter, I will discuss my methodological approach to doing this work.

Chapter 3: Methodology

In this chapter I will discuss my methodological frame, collection of data, and analytic process enacted over the course of this study. I begin by establishing my methodological frame, situating my microethnographic discourse analytic approach in relationship to my theoretical frame established in Chapter 1. I then discuss the setting of my study and the participants involved. I provide an overview of the demographics of Hanover High School as well as the class involved with the study. I introduce Ms. Night, the teacher, as well. In the next section I give an overview of how I came to work in this setting, as well as my role in the classroom and data collection procedure. I follow this section with an explanation of my four phases of data analysis: data organization—the ways in which I organized data as it was being collected along with preliminary analysis such as analytic memos; selecting focal events—the creation of a instructional chain and coding cycles applied to help recognize patterns for the purposes of selecting focal events; transcribing and searching for patterns across events—the transcription of five events and the subsequent selection of a focal event; and discourse analysis of an event— how I went about applying two cycles of discourse analysis to the November 2, 2017 classroom event I discuss in Chapter 4. I end the chapter with a brief conclusion summarizing the chapter.

Methodological frame

This dissertation is theoretically informed by Bakhtin (2010a; 2010b), Vološinov (1986),

Rommetviet (1974) and Linell (2014), and seeks to answer research questions that investigate the relationship between classroom talk and argumentative writing. For this reason, I adopted a methodological frame tailored for the examination of contextualized dialogic interactions between interlocutors in a classroom setting. As a result, this study draws on a

65 microethnographic discourse analytic methodological frame (Bloome, Carter, Christian, Otto &

Shuart-Faris, 2005).

I chose this frame for two reasons: first, this methodological frame approaches events in a people-centric manner, recognizing that people are situated within layered contexts that are inseparable from their actions and words. By this, I mean that the significance and meaning of a person’s actions and words will always be tied to the unique contexts in which those words and actions occur. This methodology is rooted in the simple understanding that “…people act and react to each other” (Bloome et. al., 2005, location 454). Centering human interaction, this approach recognizes the complex and intertwined nature of humanity and provides tools that will allow me to untangle some of the social webs I observed in the classroom that is the focus of this study. Given the significance of intertextuality (Bloome & Egan-Robertson, 1993) and intercontextuality (Bloome & Bailey, 1992) to the microethnographic discourse analytic approach, the interrelated nature of social interaction contributes to meaning, which aligns with my own conceptions of language and personhood.

Second, this approach is strongly linked to the linguistic turn within educational research

(Bloome et al., 2005; Smagorinsky, 2006). As such, it places language at the center of human interaction, and recognizes that language is a verb used to accomplish action in the world. This allows for an investigation of how and to what end people language in academic contexts, and interrogates the significance of these actions. Similar to how Dialogic Literary Argumentation aims to understand the nature of being human, my study aims to investigate aspects of the human experience in academic settings, and how those experiences relate to the teaching and learning of argumentative writing, particularly through talk.

Settings and Participants

Hanover High School is located in an affluent area of a large city in Central Ohio. The local school system is considered to be one of the highest performing districts in the area. Its reputation is so prevalent amongst locals that it has been the topic of discussion in Ms. Night’s

(pseudonym) classroom during discussions about social class and social-equity. The school boasts a student-to-teacher ratio of 14:1 and a counselor-to-student ratio of 289:1, both of which are lower than the state average. Seventy-seven percent of Hanover High’s graduating seniors enroll in college and students are expected to attend a college or university. This is a sentiment

Ms. Night has shared with me about her own students during interviews, and an issue that came up in classroom discussions. Given that the classroom I observed was an advanced placement composition course, the expectations for students were high regarding the quality of their work and their professional aspirations.

While Ms. Night’s classroom was diverse in terms of race, gender, culture, and religion, it was predominantly white and upper-middle class. This reflects the school as a whole; of the students attending Hanover High School, 90 percent identify as white, 6 percent as Asian, 2 percent as multiracial, 1 percent as Black, and 1 percent as Latinx. Unlike the general population of the school, which was 52 percent male, Ms. Night’s class was predominantly female.

When I began my research at Hanover High School, Ms. Night, had already introduced her students to dialogic approaches to literary argumentation, which were at least partially derived from her work on the Argumentative Writing Project three years prior. She had shared with me that she began her year by introducing her students to claim, evidence, and warranting

(Newell, Bloome & Hirvela, 2015), and hoped to build upon these concepts throughout the year using literature, as well as non-fiction texts and advertisements as a prop for the exploration of

67 ideas. Ms. Night shared with me that the entire curriculum she and her colleagues had developed was built around argumentation and the development of argumentative practices. She felt that argumentation was important to the teaching and learning of writing, and to developing learning practices in general.

Built into her pedagogical approach towards argumentation was an emphasis on social justice. Ms. Night, who is a white, upper-middle class, woman, introduced critical lenses through which students were tasked with making sense of texts. These lenses, which she called “ways of seeing” were a means for students to explore perspectives beyond their own experiences, “to hold it in their hands and touch…” (Observation 11.2.2017). These ways of seeing often challenged the experiences and perspectives of the students. While the classroom was a community of students representing different races, ethnicities, religions, and socio-economic backgrounds, it was predominantly white and upper-middleclass, similar to the community the high school serves. Ms. Night felt that these “ways of seeing” could help students recognize that there are perspectives that may differ greatly from their own, but valid and worthwhile to explore and integrate into their understandings of the world. To do so, she had students read articles and stories through the lenses of race, class, and gender.

Early in November, Ms. Night and her students were reading Just walk on by: Black men in public space by Brent Staples. Ms. Night wanted her students to use rhetorical analysis to identify the author’s argument and how Mr. Staples, as a Black man, goes about bringing the audience (one comprised mostly of women) to “move closer” to his position. However, some students struggled with identifying his argument, which prompted the teacher to respond in a manner that I think encapsulates her philosophy towards her teaching of argumentation, she says:

…if you can dismiss someone’s experience because it’s not yours, something allows you

to dismiss it, you’re in danger of erasing that person’s experience, or you’re in danger of

rejecting it and saying it’s not true… Ok, so, my goal this year is to get you to try out,

hold for a moment a different argument. Hold for a moment someone else’s argument

and recognize that you might be dismissing it too easily or dismissing it at all.

She believes it is important for students to develop complex perspectives and understanding of what it means to be human, which entails reconciling experiences that the students themselves may not have had, or ever have, with their own. To her, argumentation is key to this development, because it serves as a means for broadening and complexifying understandings by juxtaposing varying perspectives against each other.

With a classroom comprised of 22 people it was relatively easy for the students to engage in fruitful conversations, and at times debates, centered around literature and non-fiction texts, often by adopting the perspectives described as “ways of seeing.” These conversations took on different forms. Sometimes, students engaged in small group discussions, and at other times the conversations were teacher-led. At times, students worked with partners, and at other times they worked in larger groups of 4 or 5. The students also participated in colloquies, with half of the class comprising each group. For one project, students constructed arguments in small groups using PowerPoint presentations that applied rhetorical analysis to television commercials. Across these activities, one thing remained consistent; argumentative practices were used to explore aspects of the human experience. This entailed students stepping outside of themselves by adopting lenses through which they examined and deconstructed topics of discussion. In other words, students sometimes did not discuss topics and concepts from their own perspectives, but instead applied different lenses, such as Critical Race Theory. These activities encouraged

69 students to explore and adopt multiple perspectives, and to make sense of them in relation to their own.

Throughout the year, Ms. Night maintained a rigorous class schedule that kept students engaged in daily argumentative activities. Of the 66 days I observed the classroom, only two sessions were not primarily dedicated to argumentative activities. The curricular conversation centered the significance and power of language in people’s daily lives, and Ms. Night situated argumentation as the process through which one can deconstruct and (re)construct meaning. On an interpersonal level, I was able to interact with some students more than others. I gathered some of what I know about the students from my own observations of their classroom contributions and peer interactions. Also, Ms. Night shared some of her own knowledge of the students with me. Beyond this, I had the pleasure of working with some of the students in class and getting to know them in that way.

Data Collection Procedures

Gaining Entrance to the Research Site.

I first met with Ms. Night in August of 2017 before the beginning of the school year.

When I first began conceptualizing a study for my dissertation project, I sought to investigate the relationship between talk and argumentative writing in a secondary classroom. In prior studies, I had worked with teachers who were in their first year of working with the Argumentative

Writing Project. In these studies, I observed how teachers and students began to conceptualize and co-construct argumentative practices over the course of a school year using practices derived from Hammersly and Atkinsons’ Ethnography: Principles in Practice (2007). Senior members of the Argumentative Writing Project recommended I contact Ms. Night due to her previous participation in the project. For my dissertation study, I hoped to be able to work with someone

70 who was familiar with Dialogic Literary Argumentation (DLA), which would allow me to focus on the relationship between talk and writing in a classroom where the teacher felt comfortable with the DLA approach.

During my first meeting with Ms. Night, we discussed my possible role in the classroom, an overview of her course, and a rough timeline of the school year. In that meeting, and in subsequent text and email conversations, we decided that I would not begin visiting her classroom when school began in mid-August, but that I would wait to start my data collection.

She felt that it would be overwhelming for the students to have a researcher present when they were just becoming familiar with her and their fellow classmates. Given that this was an AP composition course, she wanted to make sure that students were first oriented with the important work they would be doing over the course of the school year before having the added element of data collection.

We had also decided that I would observe her 5th period class because it was smaller than her 2nd period class and she felt I would have better access to students. Also, Ms. Night had a lunch period immediately prior, which would allow for us to debrief and plan for data collection.

Methods for Data Collection.

I visited Ms. Night’s class for the first time on September 5th, 2017. During this visit, I introduced myself to the class and explained that I was a researcher with the Ohio State

University working on my dissertation in conjunction with the Argumentative Writing Project.

On this visit, I distributed permission forms to participants and Ms. Night. After this first day, I began attending class regularly, but I did not collect any video or audio data, or field notes.

Once students turned in their permission forms, on September 12th, I started to collect field notes, but after speaking with Ms. Night, I decided to hold off on audio and video

71 recording. We made this decision for two reasons. On the one hand, Ms. Night felt that the data would not be pertinent to the research project. Since I am interested in argumentation, Ms. Night thought that while her initial lessons might be tangentially related, they wouldn’t directly relate or be useful. On the other hand, and more importantly, Ms. Night and I both felt that the students should be eased into my presence in the classroom. We did not want the students to feel uncomfortable, which we felt would be much more likely if I began filming within days of my entry into the classroom.

After several discussions with Ms. Night, I decided to wait until October 2nd to begin filming. However, between September 12th and October 2nd, I recorded detailed field notes in order to provide context for future observations [see example 3.1]. This was particularly important, because I knew that I would be using instructional chains as part of my data analysis procedure, based upon my prior experiences of conducting and analyzing data on the

Argumentative Writing Project.

On October 2nd, I began filming and audio recording classroom events, being careful not to capture any data from the 3 students who decided not to participate in the study. During this initial period of data collection, I established the spaces in the classroom that my camera and audio recorders would occupy, as well as where I would situate myself. Due to the classroom layout and lack of extra seating, I decided to sit in the back of the classroom. The back-left corner of the room was one of the only spaces with an outlet, and so it was there that I set up my video recording equipment, as well as an audio recorder. I sat near the camera to ensure that the video was recording throughout each classroom event, and to use time signatures in my notes. I also placed one audio recorder near the front of the room to capture the teacher and students who were not always audible in the back of the room.

Initially, I mostly acted as an observer. At times, I interacted briefly with students, sharing pleasantries or asking clarifying questions. This role seemed to suit Ms. Night’s wishes and felt comfortable for me. The students often engaged in both small and large group discussions, as well as some individual writing activities, and my participation could have undermined Ms. Night’s goals for her students to work through the content and activities autonomously. Based on our discussions, I knew that Ms. Night did not want me to tell students how to engage in argumentative activities or to assist too strongly in constructing understandings.

However, this was not always the case. Throughout the 2017-2018 school year, I had many opportunities to sit with small groups during different projects. This usually entailed me working alongside students, asking them questions about their work, clarifying things Ms. Night said during class, and being a sounding board for ideas. In these instances, I acted as a participant-observer, sometimes taking notes during conversations, and at other times writing down notes and memos as soon as the observation concluded.

Beyond this, I also conducted several interviews with Ms. Night throughout the school year. This usually took place on evenings at a nearby popular coffee shop chain. These interviews were often guided by questions that I had jotted down in my field notes and partnered with follow-up questions that were inspired by and derived from the conversation that blossomed. In these interviews, Ms. Night shared with me her opinions on her lessons and activities, her hopes for future lessons, her rationale and decision-making about different classroom events, and her understandings and opinions about argumentation.

Ultimately my corpus of data from this study is comprised of 66 days of observation, 55 filmed classroom events, 55 audio recordings of classroom interactions, 10 teacher interviews, 3 student interviews, and over 100 student papers.

Data Analysis Procedures

I analyzed my data in four phases: data organization, selecting and transcribing focal discourse events, searching for patterns across events, and discourse analysis of one classroom event. In this section, I describe each of those four phases.

Phase One: Data Organization.

My data analysis procedure began when I started recording fieldnotes. Throughout my notes, I would inject analytic memos and short notes to myself that summarized, synthesized and made sense of what I observed in the classrooms, following the recommendations of Saldaña

(2016). These memos were sometimes as simple as jotting down short phrases like “synthesized multiple perspectives” and could be as extensive as multiple paragraphs. Usually, my memos pertained to my theoretical frame, because I tied classroom events to theoretical concepts, such as Bakhtin’s (1981) The dialogic imagination or Vološinov ’s (1926/1986) Marxism and the philosophy of language. At times, I also paid attention to attributes of argumentation, drawing upon Toulmin’s (1958/2003) model of argumentation, in an attempt to recognize what aspects of argumentation were being brought into the classroom discussions and activities, and on which days.

I decided that I would keep my notes in a single file in order to be able to easily move between classroom events as I looked across them. However, I organized my other data into folders by date of collection. For example, any handouts, picture, videos, audio recordings, or interviews that were collected on October 2nd would be contained in a folder labeled with that

74 respective date. In my field notes, I also marked which data I collected on a given day to help me connect data with the classroom events. Partnered with the instructional chain I created to map out all the important goings-on of each day, this was useful when I went to select the event on which I focused.

Phase Two: Selecting Focal Events.

In order to narrow my focus for coding and other analyses, I created an instructional chain (VanDerHeide & Newell, 2013) that covered every classroom event I observed in the

2017-2018 school year. Typically, instructional chains entail mapping out classroom events that pertain directly to research interests in a given unit and are used as a reference to quickly and easily see how frequently a teacher dedicates time to a particular subject and in what ways. The instructional chain presented in VanDerHeide and Newell (2013) includes the various types of argumentative activities, but does not go so far as to include the exact content being covered. For example, it may say something like “small group discussion.”

Thus, my chain diverges from that of VanDerHeide and Newell’s (2013) in that it spans the entire year and, instead of categorizing classroom activities, includes the specifics of each day’s activities. I did this to create a map of the observed curriculum, which I used to better understand the relationships between lessons by tracing the trajectory of the development of topics across the year. Once I completed my instructional chain, I completed a first cycle of coding using descriptive codes, "a word or short phrase – most often a noun – the basic topic of a passage of qualitative data” (Saldaña, 2016, p. 101) and in vivo codes—sometimes referred to as

“emic codes” (Saldaña, 2016, p. 105)--to assist me in categorizing different types of interactions.

I used these codes to construct a picture of what was happening in the classroom organically, preventing a priori assumptions. For this first coding cycle, I used codes such as “evidence,

75 warrant, claim, discussion, rhetorical moves, rhetorical analysis, counter argument, author, audience, ways of seeing, dismissal, race, gender/sex,” and others pertaining to specific classroom events. This allowed me to begin differentiating between various learning activities and content, looking for patterns in the curriculum and how events and content are interrelated.

These codes came from what I observed in the classroom—what people were doing, what were people saying, what sorts of activities were being used, etc. The first cycle of coding was aimed at organizing data in a manner that focused on what occurred during classroom events. This was useful for establishing patterns of practices and topics that I could then examine through theoretical lenses. Saldaña (2016) suggests that some of the purposes of first cycle coding can be organizational, providing a holistic picture of what occurred within your data, and I adopted this approach. Given my argumentative interests, I found it beneficial for me to first look for recurring practices and topics before coding with theoretical constructs, because it served as a means for me to apply theory to data, instead of finding data that fits a given theory.

After finishing the first cycle of coding, I consolidated my codes under the categories of

“rhetorical analysis, rhetorical moves, argument, student experience, multiple perspectives, and other,” which served as an organizational tool to further consider how these events were related.

I coded with a focus on argumentation, with the aim of narrowing my focus on data pertaining to argumentation. These categories were predominantly etic codes, though rhetorical analysis and rhetorical moves were emic codes derived from Ms. Night’s use of those concepts in class when teaching argumentation. I used operational definitions of rhetorical analysis and rhetorical moves from Ms. Night’s lectures when I chose those phrases. The other codes were etic and pertained directly to argumentative practices and components. For example, “student experience” was used as a code for when students’ drew upon life experiences when engaging in discussion—usually

76 in the form of evidence or in a manner that facilitated further exploration of a topic through argumentative discussion. During this coding process, I found that nearly everything the teacher did over the course of the year was related to argumentation.

Once I finished my initial coding cycle, I then applied theoretical codes for what Saldaña

(2016) calls “second cycle coding.” For this cycle, I coded with phrases and concepts taken from

Bakhtin’s The dialogic imagination (2010), Rommetveit’s notion of intersubjectivity (1974), and

Becker’s (1991) Language and Languaging. I chose these concepts based upon the

Argumentative Writing Project’s emphasis on dialogic interaction and languaging, which inform my own thinking about argumentation. The codes I used are “multiple perspectives/Heteroglossia, lenses, self vs. other, personal experience, complexity, dual role audience and author.”

Other than “dual role audience and author” the codes were etic. However, an integral part of Ms. Night’s notion of “rhetorical analysis” was the adoption of the role of both audience and author—a definition that refracts Rommetveit’s notion of intersubjectivity and Bakhtinian notions of language. As such, I coded for instances in which this was either discussed or prevalent within a given event. I used “multiple perspectives/heteroglossia” because it is a

Bakhtinian notion that contributes to my understanding of how ideas are negotiated. This is especially true for argumentation as I understand it. I chose “lenses” due to Rommetveit’s (1974) use of the phrase when discussing intersubjectivity. He argues these lenses contribute to making sense of multiple perspectives. This is tied to the teachers’ use of the same phrase, and her insistence that students need to analyze texts through different lenses. I chose “self vs. other” because, according to Bakhtin, this is an integral aspect of how people come to make sense of the world. “Self vs. other” seemed pertinent to the classroom goal of investigating different ways of

77 being in the world through various lenses, as students were encouraged to think of their own perspective in relationship to others, and to synthesize those two differing perspectives through argumentation to develop an understanding of a given topic. The code “personal experience” was used because it is important to students’ understanding of reality and is related to Rommetveit’s notion of intersubjectivity—namely that personal experiences are an important aspect of how we come to understand the world (including other people’s perspectives). “Complexity” is related to the notion of multiple perspectives. Complex understandings can be tied to the negotiation of multiple perspectives, and so it seemed important to look for instances where multiple perspectives may have been synthesized to construct an understanding that accounted for new information derived from different perspectives. These codes encompass major themes I recognized across classroom events during the first half of the school year and helped me to select the event on which I focused for this study.

Based on the initial coding cycle of my instructional chain, and after revisiting my field notes, I selected 5 potential focal events. These events took place during the first half of the year, as I thought it would be useful to investigate argumentative practices as they were being co- defined and co-constructed as new concepts were being introduced. The Argumentative Writing

Project calls this the “learning to argue” phase. Initially, I had anticipated examining multiple events, which would be used to investigate the relationship between classroom talk and argumentative writing. However, I chose to focus upon a single event in which I analyze classroom talk, to generate a deeper understanding of Ms. Night’s facilitation and engagement in a discussion about race with her students using argumentation.

Once I selected the events, I began the first coding cycle for field notes that pertained to those events, which helped me to select the event I would eventually analyze. I began by using

78 descriptive and in vivo codes such as “dismissal, claim, evidence, audience, author, dual roles, memory, gender/sex, race, scary, trauma,” and other similar codes. Much like my initial use of descriptive and in vivo (emic) codes, these were chosen for the purposes of organizing data around what was occurring. This ensured my theoretical coding was accurate to the goings-on of the classroom.

Then, I followed up on my initial coding by consolidating the codes into the categories of

“rhetorical analysis, epistemology, personal experience, argument, and lenses.” These are etic codes based upon what I had observed, except for “rhetorical analysis” is an etic code taken from

Ms. Night’s classroom interactions, as she characterized much of her instruction around argumentation as “rhetorical analysis”. The teacher’s definition of “rhetorical analysis is

“rhetorical moves” that are used to construct an argument. I think an appropriate alternative name for this could be “argumentative moves” but I did not want to be inaccurate or make logical leaps, so I adopted her language. She had tasked students with writing an essay that rhetorically analyzed Staples’ paper and this discussion was the result of that failed attempt. In other lessons, rhetorical analysis remained important. Some of my other codes fell under that larger umbrella. I chose “epistemology” because the teacher had often tried to establish larger purposes and understandings of argumentation and what it is used to accomplish in the world. In the conversation I analyze for this study, students’ personal experiences were often juxtaposed against Staples’ account of his own personal experiences, so this code was included in this later stage of coding. In addition, the entire framing of the November 2nd discussion related to argumentation, as did many of the events I analyzed, which is why I use the code “argument”.

And finally, I used “lenses” because it reflected aspects of intersubjectivity, which is built upon the notion that people apply different lenses to come to understandings or that result in

79 alienation. Ms. Night and her students introduced new interpretive lenses—which I will later call

“frames”—to create a new reading and understandings of argumentative texts. The code “lenses” is both etic and emic, as I use the code in an etic manner to reflect theory, though the phrase was often used by the teacher when discussing interpretive ideological frames through which students could interpret texts. Once I finished this preliminary coding, I applied a second cycle of coding, for which I used etic theoretical codes. These codes reflected the initial coding of my instructional chain in that they are derived from the notions of heteroglossia and languaging. The codes for the second cycle are “multiple perspectives/Heteroglossia, lenses, self vs. other, personal experience, complexity, dual role audience and author, rhetorical analysis and argumentation as social awareness.”

Phase 3: Transcribing and Searching for Patterns Across Events.

Once I completed my coding cycles, I decided to transcribe all 5 coded events, as well as two others. I did this to have sufficient time to be close to the data. I often refer to this as “living” in the data, because the process allows researchers to spend several hours with the event during transcription, which helps them know the event well. This enabled me to select the event to analyze and to contextualize it with surrounding events by examining the similarities, patterns, and differences between the conversations.

Based upon my coding and transcription, I decided to analyze a classroom conversation that occurred on November 2nd , 2017. I chose this event, because it serves as a pivotal point in the year that brings together and applies various aspects of argumentation and rhetorical analysis

Ms. Night and her students had been developing since the beginning of the year. The event occurred after students wrote an essay rhetorically analyzing “Just walk on by”. The discussion on November 2nd addresses what Ms. Night felt was her students’ misinterpretation of Staples’

80 argument. This event was followed by several instances of students applying these same techniques and knowledge in a much more effective manner. It was atypical in the sense that the notion of “dismissal” was central to the conversation. This is the only event where “dismissal” and the implications of “dismissal” are substantially and explicitly discussed, which is significant because it plays an important part in establishing the role argumentation holds both in and out of the classroom. Furthermore, in this event Ms. Night transparently discussed the epistemological stance she hoped for her students to hold towards argumentation. And finally, I selected this event because the event specifically addressed racialized perspectives which the students did not share with the author.

I found this event to be a turning point in the teaching and learning of argumentation/argumentative writing in Ms. Night’s classroom. Leading up to this event, the students had spent a significant amount of the year learning about argumentation. At the beginning of October, Ms. Night introduced her students to the notion of rhetorical moves

(which she is quick to point out is not the same as traditional rhetorical appeals). The students were tasked with writing an essay analyzing Staples’ argument and the rhetorical moves he had used to construct his argument before this discussion took place. According to Ms. Night, the students did not identify his argument correctly, which spurred the November 2nd , 2017 discussion. Once this event occurred, I noticed what I believe to be a shift in practice amongst students, where they began looking at texts with the purpose of not “dismissing” arguments.

After this conversation, the class began doing sophisticated analyses of various texts, including commercials, and were able to do so in a manner that was much more in line with the sorts of thinking and practices brought to the forefront during this discussion, as evidenced by my continued observations and teacher interviews.

I think it is worth examining a conversation addressing students’ misinterpretation of an argumentative text, because it helps to expose some of students’ underlying argumentative understandings and practices. When I began my study, I had wanted to develop an understanding of how argumentative writing and classroom talk were related, specifically the ways in which they informed one another. Though my topic evolved throughout this study, this initial interest allowed for me to have a way of knowing whether some sort of change in understanding occurred, because Ms. Night established and shared with me an initial misunderstanding based on the students’ writing. While I was unable to personally read the students’ essays (they were graded and handed back rapidly and I did not have access to those documents), interviews with

Ms. Night and field notes and audio and video data, allowed for me to document whether the discussion led to a change in understanding.

Finally, I was intrigued by the racial components of the discussion because teaching about diverse perspectives in classrooms is both necessary to living in our modern pluralistic society, and often difficult. The question of “how do we teach someone to understand a perspective they cannot have?” led me to want to investigate further. While I would never claim to have answered that question broadly, I believe that the analysis of this event afforded me an opportunity to investigate how Ms. Night and her students were able to co-construct a new understanding of an unfamiliar perspective using argumentation.

Phase 4: Discourse Analysis of a Classroom Event.

After selecting my event, I applied discourse analysis to the transcript. To do so, I began by parsing the transcript into interactional units and message units, looking for contextual clues as described by Gumperz (1992) and by Bloome et. al. (2005). This entails looking for intonation, eye gaze, changes in speed, pauses, gestures, cadence, and other indicators. An

82 example of this process can be seen in example 3.2. Once I finished this process, I copied and pasted the parsed transcripts into a discourse analysis worksheet I created in Microsoft Excel.

Initially, I used categories derived from Hallidays (1975) social interactional functions,

Becker’s languaging (1991), Toulmin’s (1958/2003) notions of argumentation, VanDerHeide’s

(2017) argumentative moves, and codes from my field notes. These categories included

“rostering empathy for author, adopting role of audience, shared experience, individual experience, negotiating interpretations of event, reflexivity, recontextualizing memories, reflection, intercontextual connection, modeling, and reconstituting memory [See example 3.3].

These phrases were variations on the in vivo and descriptive coding of my field notes and transcript of the November 2nd, 2017 event. However, after completing my initial analysis, I found that some of these categories were not present in the data. I also found that “reflection, reflexivity, intertextual connections, and recontextualizing memories,” all of which were informed by my coding, were more prevalent than I had anticipated. These actions had come up frequently in my codes, and so I included them in my discourse analysis. It was through conducting my discourse analysis that I was able to see these actions were consistent and had a significant affect both on how people were engaging in the conversation and the frames students were adopting to examine Staples’ argument.

After coming to this realization, I decided to re-analyze the transcript using categories that explicitly address intersubjectivity, which resulted in the categories of “fostering empathy for others’ experiences, constructing a tssr [temporarily shared social reality]/interpretive lens, and ‘holding’ author’s argument.” These categories were useful, as there were several overlaps between categories that helped me to construct an understanding of the role intersubjectivity plays in argumentation and how Ms. Night was able to facilitate intersubjectivity with her

83 students through the use of reflection, reflexivity, recontextualizing/reframing memories, and intercontextuality. It was at this point that I found these actions to constitute “moves” that significantly facilitated the construction of the intersubjective framework. I later changed the words “recontextualizing/reframing” to “reframing” because I felt that this encompassed recontextualizing, but also accounted for the use of different interpretive frames applied to the memory students were investigating.

Since I focus on talk, it is particularly important for me to pay attention to who is saying what and when. To better understand this, I created a visual heuristic that indicates the frequency with which different interlocutors are engaging, which proportion of the conversation they hold, and with whom they’re engaging, by color-coding contributions to the corresponding interlocutors. In previous studies, this has helped me to examine whether the type of talk I examined was exploratory or presentational, by making the conversational structure more visible. While types of talk are not at the forefront of this study, they still contributed to my overall understanding of what was occurring in the specific event I focused on and helped me to have a fuller picture of what transpired.

Conclusion

In this chapter I discussed my methodological frame, data collection process, setting and participants, and data analysis process. I began by discussing the ways in which my methodology complemented the theoretical frame I established in Chapter 1. After doing so, I discussed the setting and participants of my study. I included demographics, information about Ms. Night, the teacher. I then discussed my data collection procedure and my role as a participant-observer in the classroom. Finally, I provided an explanation of my four phases of data analysis: data organization, which began with the recording of field notes and writing analytic memos that I

84 kept as a single document; selecting focal events, which began with the creation of an instructional chain and preliminary coding, before being followed up by another round of coding that related to my theoretical frame which helped me select initial focal events to analyze more closely; transcribing and searching for patterns across events, which entailed the transcription of five events that I compared and contrasted looking for patterns and atypical occurrences; and discourse analysis of an event, for which I analyzed the data using discourse analysis in two cycles, adjusting the second cycle for what I had learned from the first and accounting for intersubjectivity. In the next Chapter I will discuss the findings that came from my analysis.

Example 3.1: A sample of field notes collected

Example 3.2: A sample of parsing

Example 3.3: A sample of discourse analysis

Chapter 4: Findings

In this chapter I present a discourse analysis of a conversation in Ms. Night’s classroom. In particular, I examine multiple segments of a classroom event to illustrate how Ms. Night helps her students construct understandings of an argumentative text with which they do not recognize commonalities. This dissertation data focuses on an argumentative text, as such, the data does not speak to literary texts. Through my analysis, I aim to answer two research questions:

1. What role does intersubjectivity play in the argumentative classroom discussion observed

on November 2, 2017 and how does understanding the relationship between

intersubjectivity and the aforementioned argumentative discussion in turn inform how we

understand the construct of intersubjectivity itself?

2. How does the English language arts teacher use a series of teaching moves to

interactionally construct an intersubjective framework with her students?

Through my analysis, I conclude three important findings that I will discuss in detail: 1.) The purposeful construction of intersubjectivity facilitated a shared understanding between the students and the argumentative text that had not been apparent to students before the intersubjective framework was constructed; 2.) Ms. Night used teaching moves to construct an intersubjective framework—comprised of 6 dimensions--through engagement in verbal argumentation. Those moves are reflexivity, reflection, reframing memories/experiences, and intercontextuality; 3.) Through the facilitation of an argumentative discussion, Ms. Night was able to establish an epistemological stance towards argumentation as social awareness and a process through which students can construct understandings of the world.

The purposeful construction of intersubjectivity—as defined by Rommetveit (1974)-- facilitated a shared understanding between the students and the text that had not been apparent to

89 students before intersubjective lenses were constructed. Note that I use text instead of author, as it would be nearly impossible to truly know the author’s understanding of the text since I have not consulted with him about his understanding. After completing my analysis, I found that in order for students to be able to recognize and understand an argument by someone who does not share their experiences, they must find commonalities between their own experiences and perspectives and those of another person. This does not mean that it is necessary to share the same experiences--in fact, as I’ve argued in previous chapters, it is simply not possible for two people to have an experience that is exactly the same—but instead, students must recognize that aspects of their experiences overlap with others’, whether that be emotional, social, hierarchical, cultural, moral, or otherwise; moreover, these common aspects are often not apparent and require one to purposefully seek out such commonalities. Intersubjectivity is necessary for developing understandings of those who do not obviously share similar experiences. However, the occurrence of intersubjectivity requires an underlying belief that such commonalities exist and are possible.

In the data I analyze from November 2, 2017, the students in the class did not have many experiences in common with Brent Staples, the author of the essay “Just walk on by: A Black man ponders his power to alter public space.” For this reason, Ms. Night first had to establish a temporarily shared social reality—a set of interpretive frames--through which students could converse with each other and with Staples’ text. This required students to draw upon something that could at least partially overlap with the experience described in the text (and his audiences’ experience as well). This overlap can be understood as something similar to a working consensus

(Goffman, 1959)—an in situ approximated shared understanding of a situation, premise, idea, or experience that can be used to establish a conversational floor upon which ideas can be explored.

Through a guided conversation that was framed by the purpose of not “dismissing” arguments, the students made intercontextual connections between the classroom content, their past experiences, and Staples’ essay. This helped them to recognize arguments they had dismissed in their own lives, each other’s lives, and finally in Staples’ essay. Through this discussion an epistemological stance towards argumentation as being a means of social awareness, as well as a means for problem solving and participating in school were established.

There are multiple layered, interactionally constructed intersubjective frames, which could coincide with aspects of people’s identities, experiences, relationships, and spaces they occupy. In other words, there are more dimensions than could ever be accounted for; instead it is important to focus on those dimensions that are malleable and pertinent to classroom interactions, such as those that teachers and students can negotiate and co-construct, like reframing one’s experiences by drawing on a particular perspective. However, Rommetveit (1974) notes the importance of an overlap of frames, which can create a temporarily shared social reality, at least in part. This perspective posits that everyone is rational, even though rationality and understanding can only be achieved in the presence of a shared “reality” or perspective. My analysis is based on the latter point, as I searched for frames that contributed to a temporarily shared social reality through which a newly co-constructed understanding of “Just walk on by” could be developed.

Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space

In this chapter, I frequently reference “Just walk on by: A Black man ponders his power to alter public space” by Brent Staples, which plays an integral role in the interaction I analyze.

As such, I would like to use this section to provide a brief overview of the text, and to situate the text within this study.

“Just walk on by” 2is an essay written by Brent Staples that was originally published in

Ms. Magazine in 1986. While published in the 1980s, the essay reflects upon his experiences across his lifespan prior to the time of his writing. The 1,249 word essay, which is written in first person, begins with him discussing what he calls his first “victim”—a white woman who broke into a full-blown run simply because Staples was walking some distance behind her on the same street. He uses a vernacular that reflects unfair societal assumptions of his criminality, which is imposed upon him by others (particularly white women) due to his skin color.

After recounting the experience with the woman who ran from him, he contextualizes the event. He was a graduate student at the University of Chicago at the time and was becoming aware of his “ability to alter publish space in ugly ways” (Staples, p.1, 1986). He explains the devastating feelings of being equated with criminality because of his skin color and the danger in which such perceptions place him. He discusses his time in New York and his experience as an

“avid night walker” which continues to provide examples of white women fearing him due to his race. He concedes that women often are targets of violence on city streets at night in the 1980s, but is sure to share that it doesn’t alleviate the pain of racism, nor does it change the fact that he is in danger because of white women’s perceptions of him as a danger.

He also reminisces on his childhood and upbringing in a small industrial town in

Pennsylvania as one of “the good boys”. He posits that perhaps the toughness that his peers often had to display led to their early deaths due to racist perceptions of such behaviors. Later,

Staples shares examples of violence committed against him and other black men in professional spaces due to racist assumptions. He shares that he was once mistaken for a burglar at his own

2 http://www.galasso.ca/english/english/Prose_files/Just%20Walk%20on%20By.pdf

92 place of employment while rushing to meet a deadline. In another example, a colleague was aggressively arrested while trying to report on a murder because police mistook him for the murderer.

Finally, he ends the essay by reflecting again on how racist assumptions directed towards

Black men make him feel, the impact that racism has had on his life, and the ways in which he has been forced to adapt to protect himself from acts of aggression. He ultimately explains that he had to change his behavior to protect himself from people who perceive him as a threat and are inclined to lash out against him.

“Just walk on by” can be read in many ways and for many different purposes. While the essay was used as an argumentative text in Ms. Night’s classroom, in other classrooms it may be read as an example of a personal narrative, a short autobiography, nonfiction, etc. Moreover, while Ms. Night’s interpretation is certainly grounded in the text, there are a plethora of other valid interpretation of the text that are going to be partially defined by the initial framing and purpose readers have for reading the text.

In the event analyzed for this dissertation, Ms. Night explicitly framed “Just walk on by” as an argumentative text that should be analyzed and discussed as such—in fact, she framed many of the texts read throughout the year such as “Big boy” and “The light we don’t see” as argumentative texts, no matter the genre. Ms. Night wanted students to engage with Staples’ essay from a technical argumentative perspective, first and foremost identifying his argument including elements of argumentation such as claim, evidence, and warranting. Once those aspects had been identified, she wanted students to then examine the rhetorical “moves” the author made in order to bring the audience closer to his perspective, which can be understood as argumentative moves the author makes to construct an effective argument. In the days prior to

93 the November 2nd, 2017 event, the teacher asked students to read the text, identify components of argument using highlighters, and to subsequently write a paper identifying both Staples’ argument and the moves that he used to execute his argument in the essay.

However, upon reading students’ papers analyzing “Just walk on by”, Ms. Night expressed to me during an informal interview a dissatisfaction with the students’ papers, as she felt they had not identified the argument. She claimed students had “not seen” Staples’ argument or “dismissed” it. This reflected what she considered to be a larger problem in her classroom around this time, which was that her predominantly white students seemed to adopt a white- centric perspective; one that led many students to reject notions of white privilege or a need for programs like affirmative action. In our discussion, Ms. Night expressed to me that this was something that troubled her, and she felt that students’ papers analyzing “Just walk on by” were indicative of students’ lack of willingness or ability to “see” other perspectives, in this case the perspective of a Black man. From a race and socio-economic perspective, this classroom was homogenous—being predominantly white and upper middle class--and Ms. Night aimed to help students come to understandings of non-dominant perspectives through argumentation and analysis of argumentative texts.

Tracing Intersubjective Dimensions Throughout the Conversation

In this section, I introduce six intersubjective dimensions that comprise the intersubjective framework through which Ms. Night encourages her students to interpret their interaction. The dimensions I discuss are mutually influential and intertwined; they inform each other and together construct an intersubjective framework—the convergence of various frames for the purposes of constructing a new way of seeing--through which students can participate in a conversation about, and analysis of, an argumentative text. Some of the dimensions are

94 conditions of engagement (avoiding dismissal), some are dimensions that assist in constructing the interpretation of the content (trauma and the re-narrativization of personal experience), some are dimensions for establishing an epistemological stance towards argumentation ( argumentation as social awareness, complexity) and one informs the interactional structure

(third space).

These dimensions are by no means all of the possible dimensions at play; however, Ms.

Night particularly emphasizes and revisits the six dimensions described above throughout the interaction with students in her classroom. Further, these dimensions comprise the intersubjective framework Ms. Night and her students construct to bring them closer to Staples and his audience’s perspective. They are significant, because they aid in the establishment of a temporarily shared social reality through which students can find commonality with the author and each other. This temporarily shared social reality also supports students in understanding perspectives that drastically differ from their own, or perspectives they would otherwise not recognize as being similar to their own. In this paper I will analyze the November 2, 2017 transcript multiple times, each time with a focus on a different dimension of the intersubjective framework. The final section will explore the teaching moves Ms. Night used to facilitate the construction of the intersubjective frame.

In my analysis of the dimensions, I oscillate between analysis of interactional text, inferences based on the analysis, and speculation on theoretical constructs. The goal of this organization is to contain discussions of each dimension within its respective section as a way of making sense of each dimension in a manner that is digestible. To do so more holistically would not allow for rich discussion given the density of the chapter. However, in Chapter 5 I provide a more holistic approach in which I revisit my research questions and the overall significance of

95 my findings. Many of the parsed passages of the transcript that I analyze are examined in multiple sections of this chapter. The purpose for this is to deconstruct the frames individually, despite their overlapping and intertwined nature.

The dimensions that Ms. Night and her students establish to construct the intersubjective framework were derived from the teacher’s examination of students’ written rhetorical analyses of “Just walk on by.” In their analyses, none of the students gleaned Staples’ argument that his presence as a Black man in public spaces changes those spaces, which in turn forces him to assimilate. According to Ms. Night, students dismissed Staples’ argument and instead claimed that the author is merely advocating for a better treatment of Black people. Because of this, she decides to facilitate another conversation to bring students “closer” to Staples’ perspective in the hopes of making his argument--and more importantly argumentative practices and purposes tied to said argument-- more apparent.

The interaction I analyze in this paper occurred on November 2nd, 2017. Preceding this event, Ms. Night and her students explored aspects of argumentation—claim, evidence, warrant; the role language plays in argumentation which included a “loaded language” assignment where students researched the evolution of a word’s historical usage over time, contextual factors, and connotations; “ways of seeing” which are literary lenses through which they might read a text, such as Marxist, feminist, etc.; and rhetorical analysis which entailed examining an author’s argument as expressed in a text, the purpose for the argument, the audience, and an introduction to the moves that author made to construct that argument in a manner that brought their audience closer to their argument. Thus, before the event examined in this paper, students had been substantively introduced to various aspects of argumentation and had been expected to engage in argumentative practices in prior classes. This prior experience is a determining factor in her

96 decision to have students attempt to re-examine Staples’ essay using new frames, as she felt part of the issue was not a lack of argumentative knowledge, but a lack of shared perspective with that expressed in the text. As per an interview, Ms. Night felt that her students’ predominantly white, upper-middle class backgrounds contributed to students’ life experiences and perspectives that were drastically different than Staples’ as a Black middle-class man, which she felt was evidenced by students’ misinterpretation of Staples’ argument, as well as recent classroom discussions in which students rejected notions of white privilege and the need for affirmative action. She felt that student’s “dismissed” the argument, and so I felt it appropriate to begin my discussion of my findings examining the dimension of “avoiding dismissal.”

Avoiding Dismissal.

In this section, I analyze a considerable portion of the transcript of the classroom interaction that occurred on November 2, 2017, establishing the dimension avoiding dismissal and the way in which it affects student interactions with the teacher, each other, and Staples’ essay “Just walk on by”. This dimension serves as a condition for engaging in the conversation, as it aims to make students aware of the ways in which they dismiss arguments tied to perspectives that they don’t share. By doing so, Ms. Night proposes students are not able to “see”

Staples’ argument that his presence in spaces as a Black man changes those spaces due to racial prejudices by white people who view him as a threat. This puts him in danger of people interacting violently with him since they perceive him as dangerous, and to accommodate he changes his behavior and dress to appear less threatening. To help students recognize this argument, she encourages them to draw upon their own personal experiences, investigating arguments they’ve dismissed in their own lives and the reason for those dismissals. This conversation grounds the notion of dismissal in the students’ lives, making visible and concrete

97 what dismissal is, how it occurs, and the ramifications of doing so; one of which is you cannot engage with or understand an argument you don’t see.

The focus of the conversation is on a safety program the students took when they were young, the ways in which aspects of their identities influence their perceptions of the safety program, and the juxtaposition of their varying experiences in that program.

Before moving on to my analysis, I would like to define “dismissal” in terms of Ms.

Night’s usage during the November 2nd, 2017 event. Based on my classroom observations and interviews with Ms. Night, I understand “dismissal” to mean either the unintentional or intentional ignorance of a given argument due to the argument being built upon an unfamiliar perspective or premise. The teacher describes it as “not seeing”. By this, I take it to mean that students are not able to identify the claim the author makes, and subsequently they are unable to appropriately identify warranting or evidence the author is using to advance said claim. This stems from a lack of a conversational floor upon which certain assumptions are established, and as a result students see the argument only from their own perspective and therefore look for ways in which the argument could align with their own understanding of the world, instead of engaging with an argument that could challenge their own perspective. She makes some claims later on that this “not seeing” results in erasure, which is a logical leap that she makes without fully unpacking.

Analysis.

Ms. Night begins the conversation by establishing the first dimension, which is “not seeing”—also referred to by Ms. Night as “dismissing” -- the author’s argument and students adopt this dimension throughout the conversation. I will refer to this dimension as avoiding

98 dismissal. It serves as a condition for engaging in the conversation and analysis of Staples’ essay.

The November 2nd interaction unfolds as follows:

3 T: Ok so now I’m going to interrupt you

4 and I want you to so tune into this

5 and I’m gonna pause in a minute and have you take notes on what I’m saying

6 That’s how important it is for the rest of our year

7 One of the reasons that it’s difficult

8 to identify the argument in this particular piece

9 is because whether you realize it or not

10 many of you

11 are dismissing the argument

12 You’re dismissing it

13 You’re not seeing it

14 And when we talk about with seeing whiteness or you know seeing anything

15 um it’s easy

16 to reject something if you don’t see it

In lines 3-6, Ms. Night signals the significance of what she is about to say, when she tells her students: “…I want you to so tune into this and I’m gonna pause in a minute and have you take notes on what I’m saying. That’s how important it is for the rest of our year.” The decision to interrupt student work, to follow that interruption with an assertion that students will need to take notes—an action encouraged for particularly significant information that is shared in the classroom—and the use of the word “important” signals that what the students and Ms. Night are about to discuss something especially significant for the rest of the year. Line 6 establishes an

99 ongoing and integral contribution that will need to be adopted by students as they move through the year, indicating an epistemological stance towards argumentation and how students define it.

After Line 6, Ms. Night discusses argumentation, which is juxtaposed against both an assignment about rhetorical analysis and an on-going curricular conversation about argumentation and rhetorical analysis.

In lines 7-16, Ms. Night establishes avoiding dismissal as the frame through which students should be interpreting Staples’ “Just walk on by” and other similar texts they may encounter in the future, as it resituates the perspective through which students should be engaging with Staples’ text. Instead of engaging the text as they did previously, searching for and considering the argument dismissed or not seen enables them to critically question and problematize the factuality of their own singular perspective. This plays a role in developing their understanding of argumentation as the convergence of multiple perspectives, including those different from their own. By drawing attention to students’ dismissal of an argument, Ms.

Night is encouraging them to open their minds to other perspectives and interpretations of said argument, draw upon literary lenses, and consider ways in which other people see the world. In this case, it is important that students attempt to understand the author’s argument before producing other interpretations, as this activity is tied to rhetorical analysis, which relies upon students’ recognition of an author’s argument before de-constructing how that argument was made.

Later in the conversation, Ms. Night introduces ways in which some students may be dismissing arguments from their own lives. She implies a gendered narrative around danger in public spaces that teaches women to be fearful. She uses her 2nd period class as evidence to support this claim. The teacher develops this notion throughout the conversation, which is

100 important because Staples’ essay was published in a magazine marketed to women, and students have personal ties to the arguments and their dismissal. Ms. Night proposes:

127 T: So let me,

128 let me share this with you

129 I don’t know that it’s true

130 I don’t wanna make assumptions

131 We’ve already had the conversation here but I’ll just tell you what happened in my

second period.

132 Before we had that conversation

133 specifically like we just did now

134 I asked “raise your hand if you remember that program [a local safety-town type

program] just before we even talk about it”

135 The girls raised their hands

136 and I think 2 boys out of maybe 9 raised their hands

137 It was mostly girls who raised their hands

138 and I don’t know about that Like

139 is that because you were reinforced

140 that story was reinforced as you got older

141 and you had other conversations with your parents

142 I don’t know

143 What else do you want to add before I’m going to draw a conclusion about this?

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Lines 127-143 ground the dimension of avoiding dismissal in the real-life experiences of her students and helps her to meet her goal of bringing them “closer” to Staples’ experience. By juxtaposing students’ experiences against one another, and also against Staples’ essay and their own initial interpretations, students are able to have firsthand experience as to what dismissal can look like and how it might feel in their own lives, which Ms. Night and her students explore further as the conversation unfolds.

Lines 127-143 ground the practice of dismissal in the real world by drawing upon a common experience all of the students shared, but certainly did not experience in the same way as evidenced in the conversation. This, in turn, emphasizes the implications of dismissing another’s argument or perspective in students’ real-lives. If students all experienced a specific event but through discussion are able to see they did not interpret that event similarly, then students become more aware of how events are interpreted through a personal filter which can be challenged or problematized when juxtaposed against another’s. The dimension of avoiding dismissal becomes grounded in reality as students communicate their experiences and see that their dismissal allowed for them to erase fellow classmates’ experiences. This changes their own perspective on dismissal and, over the course of the conversation, how students engage with the author’s argument.

In turn, their understanding of the authors’ argument, and argumentation in general is also modified, which is discussed later in this chapter. The approach concretizes the abstract notion of dismissal (how can one create something out of nothing?) by making it visible and situated within students’ lives. Further, Ms. Night humanizes these abstract concepts and impersonal school-based practices by situating them in authentic life experiences, and personalizes the notion of dismissal by helping students recognize it within themselves and each

102 other. Humanizing these concepts is an important aspect of intersubjectivity, as this assists in the construction of overlapping temporarily shared social realities necessary for sense-making between interlocutors.

By humanizing concepts such as dismissal, students can concretize abstractions in a manner that makes them real, visible, and ideally, relatable. We can see this lens taken up directly beginning in line 145 when Josh says:

Usually whenever I had those talks I sometimes do with my parents I just sort of like in

the back of my mind sort of dismiss it. Not as like, I don’t trust what they’re saying but

like I, this probably isn’t going to happen and even then I’m probably going to be fine. I

can usually manage those kinds of situations and probably get out of that (lines 145-150).

Josh applies the notion of dismissal to the conversation the students are having about their childhood safety program. He uses the word “dismiss” and juxtaposes his perspective against the perspective of one of the female students in the class. This student had contributed “I remember

[feeling] so like terrified and hyper aware” (Line 88). He also juxtaposes his perspective against

Ms. Night’s suggestion that narratives about public danger are often gendered (lines 127-143).

Ms. Night eventually revoices the students’ initial contribution:

157 T: I picked up on that.

158 Ok so for some reason you felt like that

159 wasn’t something

160 those scenarios didn’t need to be kept in the forefront of your mind.

161 You were ok.

162 Ok.

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Through rephrasing, Josh non-verbally confirmed by nodding that Ms. Night’s interpretation of his statement in lines 145-150 was correct. This demonstrates a temporarily shared social reality constructed around the dimension of avoiding dismissal, as Ms. Night and Josh are able to understand dismissal in similar ways, with Josh taking up a gendered narrative of dismissal, demonstrating an overlapping understanding/frame.

Another male student, Ryan, adopts the dimension avoiding dismissal and applies it as an interpretive frame through which he makes sense of the safety program. He affirms that he had been able to dismiss the safety program’s narrative of danger in public spaces, because the danger did not seem to be of concern to a him, since he is a man.

164 RYAN: I was just gonna say that maybe some guys they kind like pick and chose what they wanted to do and what they wanted to hear

165 Because

166 I guess there would be something that would never happen to me like my neighbor would come grab me or something like that

167 Because I don’t know speaking from a guy perspective kind of

168 you wouldn’t think that would happen you would think (inaudible) or something like that

169 Like it’d be more

170 I don’t know

171 I don’t know how to say

172 it’s like a more super dangerous situation

173 maybe that’s (inaudible)

174 T: Cuz it wasn’t dangerous enough

175 because you weren’t talking about weapons

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176 is that what you’re saying?

177 RYAN: I don’t know cuz like I guess, cuz like uhh

178 T: what is happening (laughs)

179 RYAN: I don’t know like it gets sometimes

180 Some people pick and choose maybe that’s why they don’t remember it

181 T: Ok the scenarios you mean

182 you don’t choose the scenarios.

183 RYAN: Like I remember some but I don’t remember like the

184 screaming in a low voice and stuff like that

185 T: Ok because it may not have

186 A piece of you didn’t you just part of what you said say,

187 you wouldn’t imagine that scenario ever happening?

188 RYAN: yeah

189 T: ok so sort of rejecting this proposed argument

190 RYAN: yeah

191 T: a little bit,

192 like “Ok you’re saying I could be in this situation but I’m probably not”

193 yeah alright.

In this exchange, Ryan uses avoiding dismissal as a condition of engagement to try to better understand how he came to perceive danger in public spaces. In lines 164-172, Ryan reflects on his own practice of dismissing the narrative of danger in public spaces, first acknowledging that he dismissed an argument, and secondly attempting to understand why he did so. In this process,

105 he constructs an understanding about dismissal as being tied to personal experiences, rather than a universal truth, claiming “some people pick and choose maybe that’s why they don’t remember it” (Line 182). Line 182 demonstrates that students in the classroom are beginning to problematize and challenge their use of a personal and singular perspective for the purposes of defining “truth” or reality, which resulted in the dismissal of other perspectives. This challenges white-centric assumptions of reality that often discount the experiences of people of color and other non-hegemonic perspectives by making visible Staples’ argument about his experience as a

Black man, one that the predominantly white students in the classroom had dismissed.

The dimension of avoiding dismissal is taken up again in the next line, when Sasha juxtaposes her experience of having female representatives from their safety program coming to talk to her class when she was young against that of Ryan, affirming his claim that “some people pick and choose maybe that’s why they don’t remember it” and providing evidence as to what she remembers and why:

196 SASHA: From my experience (inaudible)

197 Like we’re watching a video and it’ll be a like a girl about to be taken

198 and even the people who came to come do the scenarios

199 they were both girls and like

200 I think that (inaudible)

By contributing this perspective to the conversation, Sasha participates in the temporarily shared social reality, which is constructed through adopting avoiding dismissal as a condition for engagement. She provides evidence of a gendered narrative that made her feel as if she was

106 unable to dismiss the lessons of the safety program. By doing so, she also affirms a shared understanding with Ms. Night, who proposed that safety narratives are gendered.

Ms. Night capitalizes on this exchange to ground dismissal in the students’ reality once again and to create overlap between their perspectives and the author’s. She begins by first revoicing what Ryan and Sasha just shared to affirm her own claim that the narrative of danger in public spaces is gendered:

201 T: The messages.

202 Yeah and I do think that’s reinforced for girls in so many ways as you continue to grow up

203 and I don’t know if it’s rea-

204 I don’t know if reinforced in the same number of ways for

205 boys

Here, Ms. Night proposes a shared interpretation she wants students to see—an interpretation that had been dismissed by many students in her class due to socialized societal norms around gender and race--and one that has now been explicitly tied to dismissal, grounded in reality, and affirmed by students. This establishes a new baseline of a shared understanding upon which she will build later. Since this whole conversation was being juxtaposed against Staples’ essay, she now shifts the focus back to the notion of dismissal and applies the dimension of avoiding dismissal to “Just walk on by.” Lines 206-237 serve the purpose of presenting the idea to the students, now that they have established a temporarily shared social reality using the dimension of avoiding dismissal.

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Intersubjective dimensions are interpretive, meaning the application of the dimension of avoiding dismissal should create a different meaning, even if examining the same text or statements. The dimension of avoiding dismissal changes the context and how students eventually interpret the teacher’s statement about dismissal. In the beginning, students may have not understood what was meant by dismissal, or may have even dismissed the notion of dismissal. However, now that the notion is grounded in reality, with visible implications brought to light through the establishment of a shared lens, the notion of dismissal is no longer being dismissed. Ms. Night continues by repeating what she had said at the beginning of the class in lines 206-212:

206 Ok so this is what I’m gonna say

207 I want you to listen to it first and then I’ll say it again and I want you to write it down in some way

208 For some reason

209 there is an aspect of your identity

210 that is either

211 keeping those situations in the forefront of your mind

212 or there is an aspect of your identity that is allowing you to not think about it

She then expands on the notion of dismissal, pulling influence from the students’ prior discussion. She introduces the idea that dismissal is tied to identity, and that aspects of one’s identity can make it easy to dismiss the arguments and experiences of others. This claim is validated by the gendered nature of how students perceived the previously discussed safety

108 program. The students had a concrete example of how aspects of their identity had influenced their interpretation of an experience or argument being made.

She is careful to point out that no matter how one identifies, there are aspects of one’s identity that can narrow one’s perspective and lead to the dismissal of arguments:

213 I don’t know what those aspects of identity are

214 they might be your sex whether male or female

215 um it might be your race in certain situations

216 It might be your class

217 it might be your stature.

218 Right?

219 How tall you are

220 how much space you take up

221 There is some aspect of your identity that has allowed you

222 to either hang on to “oh my gosh I’m going to be in that situation”

223 or let it slide

224 That’s what I need you to write down

225 There is some aspect of your identity that is allowing you to

226 pay attention

227 to the situation

228 or I’m gonna use this word,

229 dismiss it.

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Ms. Night associates certain practices with dismissal and encourages students to be reflexive with respect to argumentative practices--I will explore more deeply in a later section. For now, it is important to recognize that the dimension of avoiding dismissal is being translated from an abstract concept to tangible social action over the course of the conversation.

She names these actions in lines 230-237 and thereby aids in the construction of argumentation as social awareness, which is another intersubjective dimension that emerged.

230 And I say dismiss it, that’s gonna show up in 2 ways.

231 1. “Yeah I don’t think that’s gonna happen to me”

232 2. “I don’t even remember it”

233 right?

234 Both of those, so it’s consciously dismissing

235 or unconsciously dismissing.

236 So do you have that down?

237 Ok.

Naming the implications of the act of dismissal, the teacher further develops the dimension by naming consequences for such actions and relating them to the students’ personal experiences.

250 If your aspect of your identity allows you to dismiss someone else’s experience

251 you’re in danger of 2 things,

252 1.

253 Erasing it.

254 Right like it doesn’t exist

110

255 erasing that person’s experience and oh my goodness what if it’s a whole groups experience.

256 So again,

257 if you can dismiss someone’s experience because it’s not yours, something allows you to dismiss it,

258 you’re in danger of erasing that person’s experience

259 or

260 you’re in danger of rejecting it and saying it’s not true.

261 So think about first of all what that feels like on an individual level.

Ms. Night first names the consequences of dismissing actions in lines 250-261. She uses the word “danger” when describing this, implying that dismissal can have negative implications for those whose experiences are being dismissed, possibly alluding to the suffering of non- hegemonic groups as evidenced in line 255, “…oh my goodness what if it’s a whole group’s experience.”

Moreover, she mentions erasure and rejection, both of which are alienating and therefore antithetical to understanding another person. Since her goal is to move closer to the author’s argument, to understand it better, and in turn to understand others better, both of the consequences she names are diametrically opposed to the goal of engaging in written or verbal argument, as laid out in this discussion. In line 261, she ties these feelings and consequences back to students’ own lives, asking them to consider their own experiences with rejection and erasure. To do so, she draws on intercontextual connections to foster empathy towards the author’s argument by creating an overlap between the students’ and author’s experiences through

111 the dimension of avoiding dismissal. Ms. Night then directs the students’ attention back to

Staples’ essay.

284 So let’s go back to Staples.

285 I had people write down that the argument was

286 people shouldn’t treat Black people, people shouldn’t judge Black people unfairly.

287 That’s not his argument.

288 What is his argument?

289 We’ve already, in part we’ve already rejected it and that’s a problem.

First, she clarifies what the argument is not. She does so to reiterate that the actual argument being made by Staples was dismissed, and that another interpretation is needed.

Staples argues that his presence in public spaces as a black man puts him in danger because his presence is perceived as a potential threat due to intersecting racist and gendered ideologies that position Black men as threatening. He claims that the stereotype of Black men as violent criminals often leads to white people, particularly white women, reacting extremely to his presence. In his paper, he presents evidence of this through his own experiences. In one instance, a woman ran away screaming simply because he was walking home behind her at a distance. In another instance he had security called on him for showing up to his own office. This puts him at danger of being arrested or injured by those believing they need to protect themselves from him, which forces him to change his dress and behavior to be perceived to be less threatening. To do so, he wears suits and whistles classical music.

Ms. Night calls the rejection of Staples’ argument a “problem (line 289),” and in this instance, she is referencing the students’ ability to deconstruct an argument for the purposes of

112 state assessments on AP exams. Since the class I observed is an Advanced Placement course, students will be expected to take a test that could earn them college credit. As such, Ms. Night is trying to prepare students to do well on that test, while also teaching content. This grounds the need to correct dismissal in students’ real lives for some of the students in the classroom; Ms.

Night speaks about student dismissal in a monolithic manner, implying that all students had dismissed the argument, though she never confirmed this to me in interviews.

In lines 288-320, Ms. Night and her students re-examine Staples’ argument using dismissal as a condition for engagement, which enables students to “see” the argument, as evidenced in lines 294-295, 297, 298, and 311.

290 What is his argument

291 You have it written down, Lauren what’s his argument?

292 Lauren: Inaudible

293 T: Ok you have it (inaudible gestures to other side of the room and her ear)

294 Lauren: Other pedestrians view Black people as threatening and dangerous therefore

changing their body language and actions in a concerning way

295 T: Ok who’s changing the actions, who’s changing their actions?

296 Lauren: The pedestrians

297 ?: Black people

298 T: Ok so so both Right?

299 So this is what happens

300 when you look at that second part of the title,

301 he’s arguing that the Black male body

302 changes public space.

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303 When the Black male body enters the public space

304 things change

305 Right? People react to it.

306 And that what happens in order to

307 in part

308 make things less dangerous for him,

309 what’s the result of that?

310 What’s the next action.

311 ?: He adapts to the circumstances

312 T: He adapts to the circumstances,

313 he makes the change.

314 So the Black male body,

315 his argument is,

316 changes public space

317 and therefore it is the Black male

318 who will change and adapt.

319 This is not to say that he doesn’t share his reactions to that treatment, he does,

320 but by the end of the piece, he’s not making a, he’s not standing on a soapbox going “this

shouldn’t happen”

321 he’s simply saying it does.

Previously, students had not communicated an understanding of Staples’ essay as arguing that

Black people in public spaces change the way that white people, particularly white women,

114 interact with their environment, which perpetuates stereotypes that actually put Black people in danger, because they are treated as suspicious or dangerous people. However, in lines 290-321, multiple students can contribute aspects of Staples’s argument, demonstrating a shift in understanding of the argument. This is evidence that the temporarily shared social reality constructed upon avoiding dismissal as a condition of engagement contributed to the change in how students read and interpret the text, because they are now interpreting the text considering

Staples’ perspective, when previously they hadn’t.

In the exchange (lines 290-321), multiple students contribute to answering the question

“What is Staples’ argument?” and they are all correct. Although they still do not share Staples’ experiences, students were able to be brought “closer” to Staples’ perspective through the shared dimension of avoiding dismissal, as it served as a new interpretive lens through which they could read the text, and their own lives. The lens assisted in establishing shared experiences and ways of seeing the world that were not apparent to students before the conversation occurred, which created a temporarily shared social reality through which they could establish common ground and empathy with the author. Ms. Night and her students continue to discuss dismissal in later parts of the conversation. However, the rest of the conversation is better suited for the section on argumentation as social awareness (in section titled Social Awareness). However, it should be noted that these dimensions overlap and are mutually-constitutive.

Summary.

In this section I established avoiding dismissal as a dimension of the intersubjective framework constructed during the conversation on November 2, 2017. This dimension serves as a condition of engagement in the discussion, and makes visible and concrete what dismissal is, how it affects engagement in argumentation, and the implications dismissal has on one’s ability

115 to engage in argument and societal discourse. I posit that this dimension helps students see overlap between differing perspectives through the construction of meta-awareness of one’s own perspective and assumptions and how that affects the ways in which they view other perspectives. This is integral to understandings different perspectives because it requires a legitimate recognition of the claims, evidence, and warranting of others; predicated on the notion that one cannot engage in an argument to synthesize perspectives unless those arguments are seen. To make dismissal visible, Ms. Night encourages students to investigate a safety program they all had to attend as children, and discuss the ways in which their interpretations of that program differed, including why, which was followed up by an investigation into their biases.

Over the course of my analysis of the last three dimensions—dismissal, re- narrativization, and trauma--, I demonstrated that these lenses were established, mutually influential, and appropriated, which had the effect of facilitating new ways of seeing an argument, one that, on the surface, appeared removed from the experiences of students. By fostering empathy towards the author, Ms. Night was able to create a logical and emotional overlap that recontextualized the article in a manner that made it accessible and familiar.

Trauma.

In this section, I will establish trauma as a dimension of the intersubjective framework constructed over the course of the November 2, 2017 classroom event. I explore the ways in which the dimension is established, and the impact it has on the way students interpret “Just walk on by,” contributions to the conversation, and their own experiences and positionality. To do so,

I examine a substantial portion of the conversation and trace the ways in which trauma is taken up, and how that uptake informs contributions to a conversation around danger in public spaces, gendered narratives around victimization, and how students’ own experiences either challenge or

116 reify these social narratives. I will also illustrate the ways in which these various contributions help to construct an overlap between students’ lives and Staples’ essay, which is dependent on the intertwined dimensions of avoiding dismissal, trauma, and re-narrativization of personal experiences.

Analysis.

Through my analysis of the data I found a third intersubjective frame, trauma. In the next segment, Ms. Night problematizes the students’ experiences in the aforementioned safety program, in which students learned about the danger of public spaces when they were young.

Instead of viewing these experiences as “normal,” Ms. Night frames such experiences as traumatic to young children,

58 So the kids in 2nd period were telling me

59 no we learned it that you stomp on their [an attacker’s] feet (loud claps) and you’re that close

60 you know to the poten-- So that you don’t get kidnapped and I’m like really?

61 And the way that they were describing it sounded

62 traumatic to me

63 if you’re a second grader being told how to physically assault

64 S?: Stomp on their feet

65 T: and you’re a second grader right?

66 Inaudible

67 T: Yeah right?

68 You’re seven.

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When Ms. Night says: “And the way that they were describing it sounded traumatic to me”

(Lines 61-62), she proposes an interpretive frame through which students can make sense of their own experiences and memories, memories which are in some ways “closer” to Staples’ experiences in public spaces. By challenging the training students received, Ms. Night is modeling the problematization of experiences that are otherwise not investigated. She proposes an alternative frame through which students can examine their experiences, one that makes visible underlying logic, beliefs, and assumptions that lead to such practices. These are tied to the aspects of memories on which students choose to focus, how they understand those experiences in relationship to their own identities, how they will outwardly interact with the world, and how they interpret others’ contributions to the conversation.

In relationship to this, challenging societal norms, as done by Ms. Night in lines 58-68, establishes a shared interpretive floor through which students can examine their own experiences and think about public space. In line 60 she says, “…and I’m like really?” In this line, the “I’m” indicates that she is separate from those who aren’t challenging what was being taught.

“Really?”—with an intonation that rises significantly as Ms. Night says the word—is both in response to second period, but also in response to the practice itself. This is supported by “and the way they [second period] were describing it sounded traumatic to me” (lines 61-62). “I” is juxtaposed against “they” which is second period. However, the word “traumatic” is a word that indexes victimization in American culture. People who have been traumatized have undergone an experience that was extremely difficult for them to overcome emotionally or physically, and has resulted in a fear of future victimization by way of a similar manner. The word “trauma” as applied to the second period students positions them as victims.

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Partnered with the positioning of second period as victims is a repeated emphasis on her students’ youth at the time they were participating in the program. In line 63 she says, “ …you’re a second grader being taught how to physically assault”; in line 65 she says, “ and you’re a second grader, right?”; and in line 68 she says, “you’re seven”. Across these instances she is drawing upon a cultural notion that a second grader, someone who is seven years old, is an innocent and relatively malleable vessel; one that would not know the appropriateness of being taught to physically assault. “Right?” in line 65, partnered with the repetition of age, signals a shared understanding that the students’ ages are in fact an important factor to be considered.

Moreover, saying “you’re” includes her students in the same group as her second period class.

This establishes that the students in her class were traumatized by those who ran the safety program, as the representatives from the safety program exposed young children--who were not equipped with the life experience to cope with the possibility of victimization—to notions of societal violence that would cause those students to live in a fear of public spaces. The particularly traumatic part of the safety program’s narrative lies in their teaching of self-defense.

This implies that students cannot escape danger and therefore must take matters into their own hands. However, it is not known whether that is the program’s intended message. There is an emotional aspect that underlies her statements, which is that of fear. The concept of fear in public spaces helps to bring students closer to Staples argument, and the problematization of cultural beliefs or practices does as well, as their ability to “see” others’ arguments lies in their ability to challenge or question reality.

There is also an implication of danger—the antecedent to fear--present in lines 58-68.

Ms. Night says, “…you stomp on their [the attacker’s] feet (loud clap) and you’re that close you know to the potent—” (line 59-60). When she says “you’re that close” she is indicating that for a

119 child to stomp on an attacker’s feet, they would need to be well within reach of said attacker.

This implies a danger that would not be present if students were to run away instead. The notion that a seven-year-old is capable of overpowering adult is biologically unlikely, which means this practice could put the child in potential danger of being overpowered by their attacker. This aspect of danger contributes to the notion of trauma, as it works as further evidence that students cannot simply run away from danger, but must take personal responsibility for their own safety.

By creating a space in the conversation for this memory, she invites students to consider experiences “that would place you on the sidewalk next to him [Staples],” which contributes to an overlap of perspectives through the fear of public spaces due to a distrust of strangers, which establishes a temporarily shared social reality between the author, the audience, and the students—particularly the female students-- all whom are familiar with feeling fearful of possible victimization when in public spaces. This moves students closer to the author’s discussion about public spaces, and then prompts a conversation that explores how those experiences are either taken up or dismissed by students in the class when viewing those experiences through the dimension of trauma. When Ms. Night introduces the intersubjective dimension of trauma, she also problematizes notions of normality, indicating the potential need to challenge the idea that seven-year-old children should fight their attackers (lines 63-68).

There is evidence that this dimension of the framework is taken up in line 70, when Sasha shares that the students had practiced screaming in low-pitched voices in public (lines 70-80).

She then follows this memory up with “I remember so like terrified and hyper aware” (line 88).

In this line, she is affirming that the program was traumatic to her in some manner, as she acknowledged an internalized and consistent fear and alertness that accompanied an ongoing fear of victimization. This acknowledgment is evidence that she too is looking at this event through

120 the dimension of trauma, as she shares the way it made her feel afterwards and the effects the program had on her behavior and emotions. By applying the dimension of trauma, she is discussing the negative lasting effects the program had on her, instead of leaving such aspects of the program unexplored.

More evidence of uptake can be seen In lines 91-99:

91 T: What do you remember?

92 LONDON: Umm They had these skits that they would do its

93 like the stomping was a part of it also like going like to tell your parents and stuff

94 like a neighbor was trying to like—(inaudible multiple people speak)

95 SASHA: (inaudible) watch the situation

96 (multiple people talking over each other

97 T: and that’s how they

98 can take advantage of you

99 How scary

In this exchange, another female student, London, shares memories of what she was taught in her safety program, to which Ms. Night responds: “how scary” (line 99). Through her response, she once again challenges the normalcy of teaching children to physically fight attackers and reframes the memory using the dimension trauma.

Trauma informs the very nature of the contribution the student provides. The students most likely would not have engaged in a conversation about their safety program at all, had it not been the topic of class discussion, and even if they had, it is unlikely that they would have discussed instances that inspired ongoing fear. The lasting effects of the program are what made

121 it traumatic; an ongoing stress and the causes of such stress, both locally and at a societal level are what is being investigated once students examine the ways in which the program may have been traumatic. The concepts of fear of victimization and a need for violent responses, especially by women, are informed by and inform cultural practices and values.

The exchange in lines 91-99 demonstrates that the female students have appropriated and validated the dimension of trauma, and share that frame as they re-examine their experiences in the safety program. This appropriation brings them closer to Staples’ argument, which is that his presence in public spaces changes those spaces based on narratives of fear. However, it also brings students closer to Staples’ audience, which is predominantly white women, who have been taught to be afraid of public spaces and of Black men like Staples. This establishes an overlap of perspectives for students to have a temporarily shared social reality with the author, and one in which they can recontextualize memories.

By this, I mean that they can look at their experiences from using a perspective they may have not used previously, which changes the context around their memories. As I state in the section The Re-narrativization of Personal Experiences¸ while the facts may not change, the significance of those facts and how one understands them may based on the other variables they’re considering. Examining one’s experiences for academic purposes, and in consideration of how that may foster an understanding of a text is one way in which your memory is being contextualized in a new manner, the social implications of certain practices may change how one views their memories as well. For example, some would argue that participating in a safety program that teaches children to fear strangers is good, as it makes them less susceptible to kidnapping and abuse, but they may not consider the psychological effects such a program may have a child and how those programs may reify gendered definitions of victimhood. Similarly,

122 race becomes a consideration. The media coverage of victimization privileges white women over women of color, and privileges women over men in general, which informs cultural beliefs and practices around victimhood. In that same vein, American culture also constructs narratives around who is a perpetrator. Due to racist ideologies there are cultural narratives in America that paint Black men as threatening or as criminals, which is part of Staples’ argument, as this perception inspires fear in those who believe such narratives.

Fear plays an important role in contextualizing and interpreting Staples’ argument, as his argument is to show the ways in which white women and Black men have an overlapping fear of public spaces. Staples discusses walking down the street and recognizing that white women cross the street when they see him, even if he is not exhibiting threatening behavior. While there is a difference in who incites fear for Black men and white women, there exists a shared fear of unprovoked violence being committed against them. In lines 100-103, we see trauma intertwining with that of re-narrativization when Josh makes light of the stories shared by his female peers:

100 S8: I gotta be honest though

101 if I’m walking down the street and an army of second graders start making whale noises and running at

102 me I gotta run

103 (Students laugh)

In response to the female students sharing some of the traumatic aspects of the safety program,

Josh makes light of what they had said by making a joke about the low, whale-like noises they were taught to make if they were being attacked. This is an example of the dimension of trauma being negotiated by the students and the teacher in the classroom, as Josh’s contribution

123 indicates that he has not adopted the dimension of trauma into his interpretive framework at this point in the conversation, which is evidenced by his making light of people’s traumatic experiences in public settings, which is generally considered unacceptable, especially when they are being vulnerable. He is lacking the empathy necessary to understand Staples’ argument, or his classmates’ for that matter, which prevents him from participating in an intersubjective framework.

As I will discuss further in my section on re-narrativization, this lack of a temporarily shared social reality allows Josh to dismiss the very real fear the female students are claiming to have experienced. He constructs a scenario that does not accurately reflect what had been said,

“an army of second graders …making whale noises and running at me,” in order to subvert the notion that one should be fearful of a single stranger. He even says that from his perspective, which is male, he would run away from the children making the aforementioned noises, because it would be frightening. This contribution subverts the dimension of trauma by shifting the narrative of fear from that of the victim to that of the attacker. Ms. Night attempts to situate

Josh’s contribution within the conversation, and make transparent that his contribution is not an accurate understanding of what is being described by his female colleagues:

104 T: So,

105 ok.

106 Levity,

107 levity for this serious situation

108 but that—you know you have a mob of second graders that’s not this situation

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Ms. Night situates Josh’s comments as “levity for this serious situation” (line 107) and thus as a break from an emotionally heavy topic, rather than an insult or dismissal of the students’ experiences. She frames the interpretation of his comment in a manner that makes it the least disruptive to the conversation by not changing topics. She also reiterates the context of the situation about which his female peers have spoken, and signals that his comment suggests a misunderstanding of how one should interpret the comments and situations being discussed. She corrects his statement when she says, “but you—you know you have a mob of second graders that’s not this situation” (line 108).

In line 108 she tells Josh very plainly that his comment is an inaccurate interpretation of the conversation, rejecting the comment and its premise by claiming that his contribution is a false equivalency (line 108). By doing so, Ms. Night pushes back against his challenge of the frame, and re-establishes trauma as the acceptable dimension of the intersubjective frame through which memories of safety town are later interpreted. While some students will claim throughout the conversation that they were not traumatized by their safety town training and the ideas of public danger that inform said training—only boys denied trauma during this conversation—Ms. Night is pushing back against the trivialization and dismissal by Josh of such an understanding, as it is perpetuating the behaviors of dismissal that she talks about at the beginning of the transcript. In this way, she is exerting authority over the boundaries of the conversation in regard to what constituted acceptable engagement. This is effective, as we can see students address trauma despite Josh’s contribution in lines 109-111:

109 T: Yes?

110 S9: Umm I just remember being told that if they grabbed you you’re supposed to take your thumb and

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111 gouge them in the eye

A female student picks up where Sasha left off, talking about a different way in which she was taught to fight her attacker. The contribution is violent, and in my opinion gruesome, and rejects

Josh’s joke by ignoring it. In this way, we can see others incorporate trauma into their intersubjective framework. Several other female students contribute to the conversation over the next few lines, sharing equally vivid memories of their safety training between lines 112-126.

Ms. Night builds on the contributions that her students have made thus far in the conversation, proposing that the traumatic safety program targeted women more so than men, an argument that contributes to her discussion about dismissal,

127 T: So let me,

128 let me share this with you

129 I don’t know that it’s true

130 I don’t wanna make assumptions

131 we’ve already had the conversation here but I’ll just tell you what happened in my second period.

132 Before we had that conversation

133 specifically like we just did now

134 I asked “raise your hand if you remember that program just before we even talk about it”

135 The girls raised their hands

136 and I think 2 boys out of maybe 9 raised their hands

137 It was mostly girls who raised their hands

138 and I don’t know about that Like

139 is that because you were reinforced

126

140 that story was reinforced as you got older

141 and you had other conversations with your parents

142 I don’t know

In lines 127-142 Ms. Night uses trauma to frame avoiding dismissal. As previously stated, these dimensions are intertwined. In this instance, trauma is being used to shape how students are supposed to understand avoiding dismissal as a condition of engagement. The teacher takes the abstract idea that certain aspects of students’ identities allow them to dismiss arguments and concretizes it by tying the notion to gender, particularly by using the example of the safety program.

Evidence for this can be found when she says, “The girls raised their hands and I think 2 boys out of maybe 9 raised their hands. It was mostly girls who raised their hands and I don’t know about that, like is that because you were reinforced—that story was reinforced as you got older and you had other conversations with your parents” (lines 135-141). Here, she uses an observation from her 2nd period class to propose that the narrative of danger in public spaces is more salient for women, and that the cause of this may be rooted in a societal reinforcement of that narrative. She makes the claim “it was mostly girls who raised their hands,” using this as evidence that these narratives around public safety are gendered, and that to be able to dismiss it speaks to gender privilege. It is privilege that allows the boys in the class to forget their safety program, which is a form of dismissal, as they simply don’t need to concern themselves with sexual violence in their day-to-day lives as something that informs their decision-making. Ms.

Night claims that “not seeing” is dismissal, and I would extend that notion and say forgetting is also a means of dismissal. One does not forget something that deeply affects them (barring brain-

127 injuries or degenerative brain diseases). It is also important to recognize that men perpetuate norms around sexual violence and construct environments of fear unintentionally sometimes, due to cultural practices that are informed by the hegemonic power that men hold in society. This interaction parallels dismissing gendered perspectives with dismissing the racial and gendered perspective proposed by Staples, creating an opportunity for overlap.

Lines 135-141 also create a binary between boy and girl, which contributes to the gendered perspectives discussed in the class--which consequently dismisses other genders that fall outside of this binary. She says, “I don’t know about that,” but this statement is double- voiced and should not be perceived as literal, as she has clearly facilitated a conversation that would imply that she does have opinions and beliefs about gendered narratives in this classroom interaction. Instead, this serves as an invitation to students to think more deeply about why and how it is these gendered perspectives develop; she even provides possible reasons: either it was reinforced by participating in society at large, or it was reinforced within students’ homes by their families. “I don’t know about that” also serves as modeling of argumentative practices in that she presents evidence, which precedes claims or warranting, and so she invites further discussion before constructing a formal claim, which is evidenced in line 143 when she asks the students, “What else do you want to add before I’m going to draw a conclusion about this?”

There’s evidence that Ms. Night’s use of trauma to make dismissal more visible is successful. In lines 143-150, Josh, the student who subverted the trauma narrative, demonstrates an appropriation of the dimensions of both trauma and avoiding dismissal:

143 T: What else do you want to add before I’m going to draw a conclusion about this?

144 Yeah?

145 Josh: Usually whenever I had those talks I sometimes do with my parents

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146 I just sort of like

147 in the back of my mind sort of dismiss it.

148 Not as like, I don’t trust what they’re saying but like I,

149 this probably isn’t going to happen and even then I’m probably going to be fine.

150 I can usually manage those kinds of situations and get out of that

Unlike his last contribution, lines 145-150 demonstrate a sincere acknowledgement of the serious nature of the conversation in which both trauma and dismissal are present in his answer. He answers Ms. Night’s question “is that because you were reinforced that story was reinforced as you got older and you had other conversations with your parents” (lines 139-141), which is evidenced by his statement, “usually when I had those talks I sometimes do with my parents…”

(line 145). “Those talks” is a direct reference to Ms. Night’s “conversations with your parents” and demonstrates authentic engagement in the ongoing conversation. He shares that when his parents have discussed possible danger with him when he was younger, he never felt the need to take it seriously, “Usually whenever I had those talks I sometimes do with my parents I just sort of like in the back of my mind sort of dismiss it” (lines 145-147). In line 147 he directly acknowledges dismissal by using the word “dismiss,” and uses reflection to explain why he does so, which is that he felt it was unlikely that he would ever be in serious danger. This is juxtaposed against several of the female students’ stories in which they shared that they felt as if the danger was very real.

His perspective serves as evidence that he, a male, did not feel the need to worry, which is in direct response to Ms. Night’s statements about gendered perspectives about victimization that fuel reasons for remembering or forgetting safety training. By contributing this, he affirms

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Ms. Night’s speculation that narratives around danger in public spaces were reinforced along gendered lines, and by doing so demonstrates a temporarily shared social reality by sharing the evidence of his personal anecdote to support it.

Other students affirm that a temporarily shared social reality is present, and that trauma, re-narrativization of personal experience, and avoiding dismissal are all integral to this shared social reality. Ryan, another male student, agrees with Josh and elaborates on his initial point saying “…speaking from a guy perspective kind of you wouldn’t think that would happen…”

(lines 169-170). Sasha responds to Ryan with “from my experience…” (line 196), which signals a female perspective to counter his “guy perspective” and says it in a manner that is similar to

Ryan’s contribution. She juxtaposes her own experience with his to highlight the differences in experience. By appropriating the intersubjective dimensions of re-narrativization of personal experience, trauma, and avoiding dismissal, she also demonstrates the different realities that men and women occupy in relation to the narrative of danger.

She continues, “…Like we’re watching a video and it’ll be a, like, a girl about to be taken and even the people who came to come do the scenarios were both girls…” (lines 197-200). Her statement speaks to the reification of cultural beliefs around victimization. Women adopt these beliefs and help to perpetuate them, and though the safety program is supposed to train children, the content of the presentation is gendered in a way that emphasizes female victimhood. By doing so, she is once again using the dimension of trauma to draw on an experience in the safety program that contributed to the trauma, and by doing so provides evidence to further support Ms.

Night’s claim. Thus, it is valid for Ryan to not be traumatized, but it is also valid for Ryan to recognize the ways in which that experience constructed the messages of victimization it did.

This recognition can contribute to a temporarily shared social reality because he can recognize,

130 at least partially, the underlying experiences that inform Sasha’s interpretation of the safety program, even if they aren’t his own.

Ms. Night then summarizes Staples’ argument based on contributions students made to the conversation, and the article itself. Students were able to make sense of an article with which they did not have an immediately recognizable shared social reality. This is indicative of the establishment of an intersubjective framework through which students could have access to understanding the article, which was beneficial to the teaching and learning of materials that portrayed perspectives not present in the classroom. In a world that is becoming increasingly conscious of its diversity, it will be necessary for teachers who teach students from all walks of life to be able to find ways to bring their students “closer” to perspectives and arguments that are unfamiliar to their own.

Summary.

In this section, I established trauma as a dimension of the intersubjective framework through which students interpreted each others’ contributions and Staples’ text. I use substantial sections of the transcript from the classroom conversation that occurred on November 2, 2019 to do so by tracing the development of trauma—including the ways in which it was taken up as an interpretive frame to investigate gendered narratives of victimization—throughout the conversation. This frame assisted in the construction of avoiding dismissal by making visible the ways in which students’ experiences differed across shared events. This dimension also helped students to investigate underlying biases and warrants related to prevalent social narratives that influence how students understand the world. By doing so, they were able to consider gendered aspects of victimization, which created an overlap with Staples’ text, bringing students closer to

131 the author’s argument, and helping to see the validity in perspectives that differed from their own.

The Re-Narrativization of Personal Experience.

In this section I will examine substantial portions of the transcript of the classroom conversation that occurred on November 2, 2019. By doing so, I aim to argue that the dimension re-narrativization of personal experiences played a substantive role in students’ evolving understanding of argumentation and “Just walk on by” throughout the classroom conversation.

This dimension facilitates a meta-awareness of students’ perspectives and underlying biases and belief systems around danger in public spaces through the use of reflection, intertextuality, and intercontextuality. Moreover, by drawing upon avoiding dismissal and trauma, students’ experiences are juxtaposed against the experiences of others and prejudiced belief systems, which encourages students to reinvestigate their own experiences and how they understand them, creating an overlap between Staples essay and their own experiences. This does so by framing their experiences in a larger discussion of gendered-victimization, societal values, and danger in public spaces.

Analysis.

Towards the beginning of the conversation of November 2nd, Ms. Night introduces another dimension that contributes to the intersubjective framework through which her students can interpret the text—the re-narrativization of personal experience. This dimension is intertwined with avoiding dismissal, because as students adopt avoiding dismissal as a condition of engagement, they are also developing an understanding of their own perspective as a frame, rather than a universal truth. Unlike avoiding dismissal, this dimension is characterized by its commentary on students’ personal experiences.

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For example, Ms. Night establishes that personal experiences/individual experiences contribute to one’s interpretation of an event, but do not necessarily constitute “truth” or “fact.”

She establishes this dimension of the intersubjective frame over the course of the conversation and does so through modeling and the use of teaching moves that I label “Reflection” and

“Reframing Memories/Experiences”—both of which I discuss later in this chapter (in section titled Teaching Moves). She first introduces this frame in lines 17-36:

17 So yesterday

18 I was asking you what experiences did you have early on and I hoped you thought about

that and had

19 those conversations outside of class

20 What experiences did you have early on

21 that would place you

22 on the sidewalk next to him

23 you know wherever you were the reading

24 and some of you were sharing well you know my parents always told me

25 you know don’t

26 like a student said

27 my parents taught me early on don’t you know

28 check under the car because someone could be hiding under the car and slice your ankles

29 Oh my gosh that’s so dramatic (laughing) to teach you that.

30 Whoa and then my second period class they were told me they were telling me

31 and you tell me if this was true for you too

32 they said in universitytown

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33 we weren’t sure of the grade they thought maybe like second grade earlier than 5th grade early

34 elementary school

35 that you have a program I can’t remember the name

36 and they come in and teach you not just stranger danger

In these lines, Ms. Night introduces re-narrativization of personal experience by first inviting her students to juxtapose their experiences with the experiences Staples describes in his essay. In lines 17-23 she says, “So yesterday, I was asking you what experiences did you have early on and I hoped you thought about that and had those conversations outside of class. What experiences did you have early on that would place you on the sidewalk next to him, you know wherever you were in the reading.” By inviting students to consider and find a commonality between their own experiences and Staples’ in lines 20-22, she builds a foundation for students to create intercontextual connections that problematize their own thinking about the essay.

Beyond this, she establishes a foundation for the dimension of the re-narrativization of personal experience to be built into the discussion; by inviting intertextual connections, she invites students to examine their experiences in new contexts. The re-contextualization of one’s experiences also requires an understanding of that experience that accounts for those new contexts.

Towards the end of the class, Ms Night argues that rhetoric requires one to adopt the dual role of author and audience [lines 360-440]. The notion of dual roles is initially introduced in lines 20-23, when Ms. Night asks students: “What experiences did you have early on that would place you on the sidewalk next to him, you know wherever you were [in] the reading?” These

134 utterances implore students to step outside of themselves as readers and consider how they could see themselves in this essay, thus bringing them closer to the perspective of the author: to occupy dual roles, students need to employ several cognitive and metacognitive practices, such as recognizing and synthesizing multiple perspectives, constructing an understanding of the relationship between author and audience, understanding the ways in which they think about their own perspectives in relation to others, how they go about constructing an argument, etc.

These practices contribute to the dimension of complexity that I’ll discuss later (in section titled

Complexity).

In lines 48-68, Ms. Night continues to establish the frame of re-narrativization of personal experience to students. She does so by introducing some of the experiences that students in her 2nd period class shared with her, which she juxtaposes against her own experiences teaching her daughters about “stranger danger.” Through modeling the juxtaposition of perspectives, she perpetuates the dimension of personal experience by challenging and problematizing students’ experiences that had been accepted as “normal”:

48 T: So let me tell you this is the way they [second period] described it

49 It’s not stranger danger

50 Like this is what I taught my girls

51 I said if you’re in,

52 they would only be in our neighborhood, but right?

53 Little kids

54 and I know I’ve been in every single person’s house in my neighborhood

55 ok I know them all

56 we’ve actually been inside the houses so then you go into anyone’s house you can get to

135

57 You run you go in anybody’s house

58 So the kids in 2nd period were telling me

59 no we learned it that you stomp on their feet (loud claps) and you’re that close.

60 You know to the poten-- So that you don’t get kidnapped and I’m liked really?

61 And the way that they were describing it sounded

62 traumatic to me

63 if you’re a second grader being told how to physically assault

64 S?: Stomp on their feet

65 T: and you’re a second grader right?

66 Inaudible

67 T: Yeah right?

68 You’re seven.

In Line 48 Ms. Night initiates the narrative by announcing that a narrative is coming “So let me tell you,” “me” defines herself as the speaker and “you”—the students—as listeners, which establishes Ms. Night’s authority in this portion of the interaction. Ms. Night begins another narrative on line 50 “Like this is what I taught my girls” with “Like” ending the two-line narrative and beginning another one. She uses double voicing in line 51 when she says “I said if

…” which she employs to connect the current event with a past event. In this intercontextuality, the past context of stranger danger influences the current event by taking over the contextualization by replacing the context of schooling with that of family. This seems to be an important move, since a context of schooling would focus the students on things like grades rather than on their substantive engagement with the text.

136

Ms. Night draws on her personal experiences with her daughters to show dissonance between what students were taught and what she taught her daughters. In particular, she does so by pushing back against the narrative regarding safety. To do so, she illustrates that some people do not learn to fight potential attackers when they are young, but to run away instead. She then directly challenges what students learned by framing the experience from a current perspective, saying, “…and the way that they were describing it sounded traumatic to me. If you’re a second grader being told how to physically assault…and you’re a second grader right?...you’re seven”

(lines 63-68).

Considering that the students in Ms. Night’s classroom are between the ages of 15-17, the safety program’s advice that students should fight their attackers takes on a much different meaning, if students imagine doing so at the age of seven, as seven likely seems young to the students at the time of the November 2, 2017 conversation. The double-voiced statement in line

69, once again encourages students to adopt dual roles, one of themselves sitting in the classroom in that moment, and the other of a 7 year-old. It is through the juxtaposition of identities that a new understanding may be constructed.

Ms. Night calls it traumatic (another dimension of the intersubjective frame I discuss in section titled Trauma), and by doing so, reshapes that experience from one that represents wide- spread cultural values and practices in the United States, to something that is unique to the students in their classroom. In line 60 Ms. Night says “…and I’m like really” with a rise in intonation that not only indicates a question, but concern. The rhetorical question, and the manner in which she asks it, challenges the cultural practice of teaching children to fight their attackers instead of some other alternative option.

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She furthers this challenge by proposing a means of interpreting the learning of such practices as traumatic in lines 61-63, when she says “and the way they were describing it sounded traumatic to me, if you’re a second grader being told how to physically assault.” Here she is emphasizing oxymoronic logic in the practice of teaching children to assault their attackers. When she says, “if you’re a second grader being taught to physically assault” (line 63) and then saying emphatically “you’re seven” with a drop in intonation, she indexes the cultural values of childhood innocence and the protection of children from danger. If it is a common belief that a seven year old is an innocent vessel, and one that must be protected, then teaching seven year old children that they must live in fear, and to such an extent that they may need to physically harm others, sullies childhood innocence and subverts the notion that it is adults who should be responsible for their protection, thus stigmatizing the practice of teaching children to violently respond to such situations. This point is emphasized by her repetition of their age in relationship to the self-defense skills being taught (lines 63, 64, & 67).

Lines 60-63 develop re-narrativization as the conversation continues, as students offer their own interpretations of their experiences in the safety program. Many of the students discuss their experiences contextualized by trauma. Ms. Night’s introduction of the dimensions trauma, avoiding dismissal, and social awareness reframes or recontextualizes students’ memories, which changes how they perceive those experiences. This creates an environment in which students are juxtaposing their experiences against each other’s. In turn, this brings to the fore that within the classroom, students do not share a singular interpretation of their safety program experiences.

Two students appropriate Ms. Night’s example by sharing their own experiences in their safety program with each other, narrating the experiences from the dual perspectives of a scared

138 child, and as themselves in the current day. In their discussion, they provide evidence of trauma to support Ms. Night’s claim; which is evidenced in line 70 when Sasha says, “we were” indicating that she is recounting a memory she has of the safety program, with “we” serving an acknowledgement of the “you” Ms. Night uses in lines 60-68. Lines 70-80 are a response to Ms.

Night’s claim “The way they were describing it sounded traumatic to me if you’re a second grader being told how to physically assault…and you’re a second grader right…you’re seven”

(lines 60-68). In lines 70-80, students share a practice they learned in the program

(screaming/making whale-like noises), which provides evidence for Ms. Night’s claim that what they were learning may have indeed been traumatic.

The students index trauma by discussing “screaming like they taught us” in a low-pitched manner. Screaming, especially when juxtaposed against assault, denotes danger and indexes societal understandings of screaming as being associated with darker aspects of human behavior and victimhood. Moreover, students are appropriating the juxtaposition of childhood innocence, indexed in line 79 by the word “recess,” against wails of distress being “screamed right in their

[the attacker’s] face” (line 75), which are different than the screams of “all little kids when they’re playing…” (line 77), thus making a distinction between the constructs of childhood innocence and self-preservation.

70 Sasha: We were like screaming like they taught us. Like it wasn’t like a high-pitched

71 (inaudible as students being contributing)

72 T: Wait wait wait

73 I can’t hear the second part.

74 Screaming (inaudible) what?

75 Sasha: Just like screaming like right in their [the attacker’s] face.

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76 London: But not like a high pitched scream cuz like anyone could scream like that

77 ?: All little kids when they’re playing like

78 T: Oh

79 Sasha: I remember learning that at recess and (makes noise)

80 Students laugh

In this instance, the students adopt Ms. Night’s practice of using personal experiences as evidence to support the teachers’ claim that this experience is traumatic. Two female students share that they still remember what they were taught in their safety program as young children and their description encapsulates the surreal nature of practicing evading an assault while at recess.

However, as the conversation unfolds further, other students contribute very different memories and interpretations of these same events. For instance, some of the male students share remembering that they didn’t need to feel concerned, nor did they feel the need to practice self- defense, which indicates that as students are exposed to each other’s’ interpretations of events, they are able to recognize the ways in which their own experiences differed. For example, several lines later Josh makes light of the fear of assault, which serves as a stark contrast to how many of the female students are discussing their experiences in their safety program, as he pushes back against the notion of “trauma.”

100 Josh: I gotta be honest though

101 if I’m walking down the street and an army of second graders start making whale noises and running at

102 me I gotta run

140

103 Students laugh

104 T: So,

105 ok.

106 Levity,

107 levity for this serious situation

108 but that—you know you have a mob of second graders that’s not this situation

108 Yes?

110 S9: Umm I just remember being told that if they grabbed you you’re supposed to take your thumb and

111 gouge them in the eye

112 (students laugh everyone begins talking again)

Lines 100-112 subvert the female students’ accounts of the training they experienced during their safety program, which are provided as evidence to Ms. Nights claim that such experiences were traumatic. Josh begins with, “I gotta be honest though” (line 100), which indexes a cultural use of the word “honest” as an indication of bluntness that may be taken offensively. This phrase is often used in humor as an indicator that an absurd statement is an “honest observation” and not one to be received offensively. This usage is affirmed in line 101 when he contributes an absurd statement, “if I’m walking down the street and an army of second graders start making whale noises and running at me I gotta run.” This is set up in a joke format of establishing a mundane everyday activity of “walking down the street” juxtaposed against something absurd, such as “an army of second graders making whale noises.” Moreover, the use of the word “army” indexes

141 specialized training in combat techniques, subverting the burgeoning narrative of second graders as victims.

He uses this instance to adopt the perspective of a potential attacker—as this would be who the second graders were trained to fight—and claims that “an army of second graders” would be a deterrent for a potential attacker. Doing so establishes that teaching children to attack adults who mean them harm is absurd, which is affirmed when Ms. Night says, “you know you have a mob of second graders that is not this situation” to which Josh nods in agreement. He doesn’t believe that these situations of public danger would entail “an army of second graders,” who would protect themselves through an organized effort. But his statement also trivializes the experiences female students in the class have shared by extrapolating real world experiences into the absurd. He directly references the previous contributions by Sasha and another female student, when he says “whale noises,” and subverts their narrative by repositioning the attacker as the victim, stripping the attacker of their dangerous potential in the process. This minimizes the fear of danger that informs the trauma frame, and by doing so challenges the developing claim that the safety program was traumatic, because if the perceived danger is not real, then the fear is unwarranted. Thus, he is dismissing the real fear of danger that underlies why many female students remembered the safety program and its lessons.

While I can see the possibility of interpreting this event as the carnivalization of school

(Bakhtin, 1965), I think there is more to this event than subverting power structures. Josh speaks about his rejection of the notion that potential danger lurks around the corner later in the conversation, using his brother as an example. He dismisses the reality that children are abducted on a daily basis, that women are often assaulted and raped by strangers, and that violence is engrained in American society to the point that much of popular American entertainment focuses

142 on violence amongst it’s citizens either directly or indirectly, and that such entertainment also reifies narratives around victimization and violence. He’ll later say, “this probably isn’t going to happen and even then I’m probably going to be fine” (line 149) which is in opposition to those students who internalized the training because of fear of victimization. “This probably isn’t going to happen” is a dismissal of the underlying fear that drives some students who were taught that they are in danger of real violence simply by existing.

Line 109 is a return to the conversation as it was before Josh’s contribution. By not acknowledging Josh’s statements, the student rejects his response by not engaging with it (his contribution was heard because students laughed, which indicates uptake). Instead, she shifts the focus back to the conversation about trauma, sharing other responses to kidnapping that she was taught, which aligns with how other female students were participating before Josh interjected.

The mere fact that these female students internalized these lessons is evidence that they didn’t dismiss what they were taught about potential danger as something that “probably isn’t going to happen.” If they had, they would not so vividly remember the training, because they would not have seen it as being important, and certainly not important enough to practice at recess as Sasha had shared.

Once again, this demonstrates that students are sharing personal experiences that make visible different interpretations and experiences of the same events of participating in the safety program. This helps to create overlap with “Just walk on by” because, while students were not talking about experiencing stranger danger situations themselves, neither was Staples. In both instances the events are hypothetical. Staples recounts that women cross the street, or in one instance, a woman runs away, when she sees him and that her perceived fear of him in turn places him in danger. However, he was not assaulted because of this, nor can we say with on-

143 hundred percent certainty that the women crossed the street because of racist ideologies. Rather, he made assumptions based on cultural practices around race. The women may have crossed the street based on assumptions around gendered victimization, or high crime during the 1970s and

1980s in large cities in the United States. The actual danger is of no importance, all that matters is the perception of danger, because that is what incites fear and informs actions. While actual victimization is going to be more traumatic (and certainly not the same as the fear of victimization), this does not discount the trauma generated by living in perpetual fear of assault, as such fears will also change the ways in which one interacts with the world. Real actions are predicated on fear which is evidenced by the numerous policies the American government passes based on possibilities over actual events.

Staples discusses a larger cultural practice of racism tied to the perceptions of Black men particularly, and the actions that such beliefs can lead to; similarly, Ms. Night and her students are talking about the gendered nature of victimization as a cultural practice, and how that too informs students’ actions, even when race isn’t involved. It is also important to once again consider that intersubjectivity only requires a partial overlap of a temporarily shared social reality. Fear of public spaces, whether it is due to prior assaults, or because one is intensely aware of the possibility, can allow for an overlap of temporarily shared social realities upon which people can develop similar understandings. One can never completely know the experiences of another person, but it is possible to learn how to be considerate of others’ experiences by recognizing some similarities between their experiences and one’s own experiences, which is what this conversation works towards.

For example, by definition, white people cannot experience racism as the hegemonic group in the United States, but they do not need to experience racism to develop an

144 understanding of unfair persecution and unequal treatment, which is what racism also incites, even if their experiences and those of people of color could never be the same. Moreover, they don’t need to be on the receiving end of racism to understand that racism is an immoral belief system that results in immoral practices. However, to recognize the immorality of racism, there must be some overlap between the reality of white people and that of people of color as well, which requires shared understandings of how one defines “human,” how one interprets freedom, laws, social hierarchies, morality, fairness, justice, and other concepts, because without some sort of shared understanding, racial equity could be dismissed.

As students begin to share and see that their interpretations differ, more students begin to share how they experienced their safety program and thereby negotiate a shared perspective through which to look at their experiences in that safety program. Some make it clear that it was taken very seriously, while others demonstrate indifference or their dismissal of the messaging of that safety program, namely that they needed to live in fear of assault by strangers as they went about living their lives. This interaction highlights how students are juxtaposing their different interpretations of the safety program’s message that danger is lurking behind every corner and the underlying notion that people should care about the safety program for this reason and live in fear of being assaulted. The program is being examined through a modern lens that encourages students to investigate their reception of the program, including why and how they either did or did not dismiss that underlying concept. The dimension of dismissal allows for re-narrativization to develop.

However, in order for students to be able to make sense of dismissal, they have to be able to step outside of their own perspective and understand that their perspective is not truth, but simply an interpretation. By this I mean that students should not reject others’ perspectives as

145 being “untrue” but instead work to understand how that perspective may need to be synthesized with their own. This begins with awareness that different perspectives exist and are valid, even if they challenge their own. If other perspectives are valid, then they must be taken seriously, which means one will have to determine how that perspective might inform their own, which in turn changes how they will think about their own perspective moving forward. This is not the same as wholly invalidating their own perspective, but rather, fostering an evolution of perspective.

For example, one can maintain a belief that they aren’t in any real danger, but they may also recognize valid reasons for why others can live their lives believing that danger is imminent, which is different than thinking that no one believes they are in danger. Moreover, one can believe that they aren’t in any real danger for the same reasons that others may need to be vigilant, namely that American culture is one that perpetuates violence against women. One may also change their mind completely and decide they are in fact in real danger. However, before any of these beliefs can take shape, it is necessary to reshape understandings of reality from something that is singular and static, to something that is multiple and dynamic. All of this is to say that how we interpret memories is shaped by the contexts around remembering. While the facts of the event may not change in our heads, how we think about them may. When I met my ex-girlfriend, I used to say that this was the best day of my life, but after our break-up I began to think otherwise. The facts of the event that transpired did not change, but the context around my recounting of the event did. In this way, avoiding dismissal and re-narrativization are intertwined.

As the students share their own perspectives in class, they are able to explore how and why they have come to the understandings that led them to dismiss the arguments. We can see

146 evidence of this in lines 145-150, when Josh explains why he dismissed the narrative that he might be in danger in public spaces:

145 Josh: Usually whenever I had those talks I sometimes do with my parents

146 I just sort of like

147 in the back of my mind sort of dismiss it.

148 Not as like, I don’t trust what they’re saying but like I,

149 this probably isn’t going to happen and even then I’m probably going to be fine.

150 I can usually manage those kinds of situations and probably get out of that

Josh shares that from his perspective, he never really believed he was in danger. This aligns with the ongoing classroom conversation. Danger is a notion Ms. Night and some of the other students in the class tie to gender, which is indicative of the larger American cultural practice of portraying women and children as more vulnerable to violence than men, and one that Staples invokes in his essay. Men are often portrayed as self-sufficient and safe from victimization that leads to harm, while women and children are often the victims of atrocities that, if thwarted, is often done so with the help of a man (consider a multitude of movies within the “Action” genre if examples are needed).

Again, it is not that the fear of victimization is an equivalent experience to actually being victimized, but that the fear of victimization still affects ways people interact with the world. By dismissing an argument—in this case that as a male child victimization is still possible—one also dismisses legitimate experiences and fears that inform how other people reside in the world. It is that fear which drives people to ensure they won’t be victimized. For example, those self-defense moves the girls learned may be enacted to a perceived threat, whether the threat is real or not.

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When this is partnered with Staples’ argument that due to racism towards Black men, people perceive him as a threat and his very existence changes the way people interact in spaces that he shares with them, the implications are no longer trivial. When Staples says he is in danger, he believes it. This instructional conversation is happening at a time in American history when innocent Black men are being killed by the police based on perceptions instead of actions. Thus, multiple perspectives affect the world around Josh, whether he is able to see them or not.

Ryan shares that his perspective is similar to Josh’s in lines 164-195.

164 Ryan: I was just gonna say that maybe some guys they kind like pick and choose what they wanted to do and what they wanted to hear

165 Because

166 I guess there would be something that would never happen to me like my neighbor would come grab

167 me or something like that

168 Because I don’t know speaking from a guy perspective kind of

169 you wouldn’t think that would happen you would think (inaudible) or something like that

170 Like it’d be more

171 I don’t know

172 I don’t know how to say

173 it’s like a more super dangerous situation

174 maybe that’s (inaudible)

This interaction shows an uptake of the re-narrativization of personal experience and relatedly, the teacher’s argument that people’s identities—she focuses on gendered identities in this

148 conversation--are tied to their arguments. Ryan qualifies his perspective on more than one occasion as being informed by his gender. In line 165 he says, “maybe some guys they kind of pick and choose what they wanted to do and what they wanted to hear.” In this, he demonstrates an adoption and comprehension of the dimensions of dismissal and re-narrativization. He recognizes that not all people have the same experiences in any demographic, as evidenced by the word “some” in line 165; he also adopts Ms. Night’s gendered narratives, claiming that it is

“guys” who get to pick and choose what they would want to hear in relationship to narratives of victimhood. If they can pick what they want to hear, it means they can dismiss what they don’t want to hear.

He does so again in line 169 when he says “Because I don’t know speaking from a guy perspective kind of you wouldn’t think that would happen you would think (inaudible) or something like that.” While he still expresses gendered assumptions about perspectives, he demonstrates a more complex understanding of the topic by acknowledging that others may disagree based on their identities and experiences. The “I don’t know” indicates he is unsure of whether he can make his claim about a monolithic male perspective and by emphasizing a “guy perspective” he is acknowledging that there are non-guy perspectives as well. This speaks to the influence of both identities and personal experiences in the ways in which people perceive the world. He then indexes cultural portrayals of danger when he says he’d expect “a more super dangerous situation.” Considering both identity and experience are integral to understanding

Staples’ argument, and Ryan demonstrates an ability to do so by looking at his own experiences from outside of himself, which is evidenced by his recognition of both personal and gendered aspects that informed his perspective.

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More evidence of the re-narrativization of personal experience is present in Sasha’s response to Ryan, which she begins by saying “From my experience…” (line 196). By saying

“my experience” she is responding to Ryan’s “guy perspective” with a feminine one that avoids monolithic assumptions. Sasha affirms the argument of a gendered narrative around who is vulnerable to violent acts and does so by explaining how her experience aligns with this argument. She provides evidence to support Ms. Night’s claim that gender may play a role in who is taught to fear public spaces: “ Like, we’re watching a video and it’ll be a, like, girl about to be taken and even the people who came to do the scenarios were both girls…” (197-200).

Sasha engages in the argumentative discussion by embracing the dimensions of re- narrativization, dismissal, and trauma when engaging in the conversation. She uses her experiences as evidence to the claims Ms. Night proposes. As she does so, she is also brought closer to the aspect of Staples’ argument that fear informs behavior in public spaces.

Ms. Night has the students revisit Staples’ argument, an exchange discussed in other sections of this chapter, before expressing the following:

339 So we need to be aware of what about us

340 what aspects of our identity allow us to dismiss

341 Stop

342 think about it

343 and try to hold that argument in your hand for a while

344 On the moral level

345 that’s going to bring you closer together right?

346 That’s inclusive, that’s not exclusive it’s not divisive

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In this segment she encourages students to “hold” another’s argument in their hand once again, which “brings them closer” to the author. This addresses re-narrativization, as she asserts that the goal is for students to be “closer” to the author’s argument which is “inclusive’ (lines 345-

346). Thus, students are given a purpose for incorporating the dimension of re-narrativization into their intersubjective framework, which means being able to find an overlap between their experiences and those of others. This will help them to better understand the arguments of other people and to include said arguments (which includes experiences and identities) into their world view instead of dismissing them. This frame functions as a breakdown of an I-centric perspective that makes students incapable of seeing arguments with boundaries outside of their own perspective, by assisting them in recognizing an overlap between perspectives.

Finally, Ms. Night frames these practices in relation to the AP Comp exam students will take at the end of the year. She calls what the students are doing “rhetorical analysis.” However, unlike ubiquitous definitions of rhetorical analyses pertaining to ethos, pathos and logos, Ms.

Night teaches practices that are related to argumentative moves, which is why I consider her version of rhetorical analysis to be synonymous with teaching argumentation as a set of moves.

This framing can be seen in lines 389-413.

389 So I want you to imagine that they’re [two students standing at the front of the room representing “student”] the same person.

390 get closer together.

391 They’re the same person, ok?

392 They are the student singular

393 If you’re the student analyzing a writer’s argument

394 rhetorically,

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395 you need to simultaneously be in 2 places at once.

396 Go

397 where you need to be?

398 Simultaneously if you’re gonna analyze that argument I need you to stand in 2 places at once, so one of you be in one place

399 I bet you can figure it out,

400 there you go.

401 Right?

402 Ok, so the same person,

403 you the writer,

404 has to stand in the shoes,

405 or you the student has to stand in the shoes of the writer right?

406 And know what that writer is trying to argue,

407 and you have to stand in the shoes of the audience and experience what that might feel like.

408 Ok so look

409 here are the effects on the audience,

410 she’s making the moves (referencing student with the writer)

411 She’s making the rhetorical moves (points to audience)

412 audiences experiencing them.

413 You have to be in both places.

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In lines 389-413, Ms. Night’s facilitation of the dimension of re-narrativization of personal experiences culminates in a dialogic approach to argumentation that requires students to entertain and make sense of multiple perspectives in relationship to their own when constructing an understanding. She tells them, “…you the student has to stand in the shoes of the writer right?

And know what the writer is trying to argue, and you have to stand in the shoes of the audience and experience what that might feel like” (lines 405-407). The phrase “what that might feel like” is particularly important, because when Ms. Night asks her students to get closer to the perspective of another person, she is asking them to be empathetic.

While argumentation is about claim, evidence, and warranting, we cannot deny that in order to understand the perspectives of others, we have to also understand how feelings are tied to the perspective they hold. Moreover, Ms. Night does not ask students to agree with the other perspective, but simply to know it, which is integral to engaging in dialogic argumentation. As such, the last lines in the interaction work to generalize these practices beyond Staples’ essay and to tie them to academic practices that are the product of structural and institutional demands, such as the AP test. This contributes to the overall epistemological approach Ms. Night is conveying to her students throughout the event.

As students layer experiences—by this I mean juxtaposing multiple experiences against their own--the understanding that their perspectives are filtered through a personal lens becomes more apparent. Thus, the re-narrativization of personal experience becomes shared between students throughout the conversation. This is integral to their eventual understanding of Staples’ text, as it created new lenses through which they could understand themselves and the texts, which allowed them to find commonality and understanding. As Rommetveit (1976) argues, understanding comes from overlapping lenses, which is why the re-narrativization of personal

153 experience was so integral to helping students’ construction of an understanding of an experience with which they have very little in common on the surface.

Summary.

In this section I introduced the dimension re-narrativization of personal experience, which entails students using reflection, intertextuality, and intercontextuality to re-examine their experiences considering others’ perspectives in a new context. This dimension is intertwined with avoiding dismissal and trauma because both played in integral role in constructing a new way of understanding students’ own experiences and perspectives by drawing upon others’ interpretations of those same events. This dimension plays in integral role in the development of meta-knowledge that assists in the recognition of other perspectives as valid, and in turn allows for those perspectives to inform how students interpret their own experiences, themselves in relation to other people, and “Just walk on by.”

To explore this dimension, I examined substantial portions of the transcript of the classroom conversation that occurred on November, 2, 2017. I examined students’ utterances throughout the discussion and analyzed the functions those utterances served, the ways in which ideologies were indexed, how students language positioned them in relation to their classmates and the world at large, and how this served the purpose of creating overlap between their perspectives and Staples’.

Argumentation as social awareness.

Over the course of my analysis of the last three dimensions—dismissal, trauma, and re- narrativization of personal experiences I demonstrated how these frames were established, mutually influential, and appropriated. These frames had the effect of facilitating new ways of seeing an argument, one that, on the surface, appeared removed from the experiences of students.

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By fostering empathy towards the author, Ms. Night was able to create a logical and emotional overlap that recontextualized the article in a manner that made it accessible and familiar.

In this section, I explore the dimension argumentation as social awareness, which functions as an epistemological stance towards argumentation that informs the intersubjective framework. To do so, I analyze a small portion of the transcript of the classroom conversation that occurred on November 2, 2017. I illustrate how this epistemological stance is established, and why this frames argumentation as a set of practices with real-world ramifications.

Analysis.

The next dimension that Ms. Night establishes is that of argumentation as social awareness. This dimension, unlike the others, related to the construction of an epistemological stance towards argumentation. While the other dimensions were useful in making students aware of their dismissal of an argument and creating access points for the purposes of understanding the argument, this dimension is a meta-stance that addresses why one should care about the dismissal of an argument outside of the classroom walls. Ms. Night frames argumentation retroactively as being a significant tool through which people construct their world. She establishes that argumentation is tied to the ways in which people occupy space, experience the world, and are validated.

250 If your aspect of your identity allows you to dismiss someone else’s experience

251 you’re in danger of 2 things,

252 1.

253 Erasing it.

254 Right like it doesn’t exist

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255 erasing that person’s experience and oh my goodness what if it’s a whole groups experience.

256 So again,

257 if you can dismiss someone’s experience because it’s not yours, something allows you to dismiss it,

258 you’re in danger of erasing that person’s experience

259 or

260 you’re in danger of rejecting it and saying it’s not true.

In lines 250-260, Ms. Night frames the previous conversation in a new manner. She does so by tying it back to the dimension of avoiding dismissal and emphasizing that there are real-world repercussions resulting from the dismissal of an argument, which include the erasure of others’ experiences and the rejection of other experiences in the world. Ms. Night builds upon erasure and rejection in lines 268-275, claiming that such practices uphold prejudiced belief systems engrained within and perpetuated by social hierarchies.

Consequently, the “isms” (line 274)—meaning sexism, racism, classism, etc. —are partially a result of people dismissing experiences that are different from their own; her white upper middle-class students would fall into the hegemonic group privileged enough to be able to reject others’ experiences. In this way, she frames argumentation as social awareness with real- world implications. She uses the word “danger” when describing the ramifications of dismissing experiences, which signals that accurately understanding an author’s argument is both worthwhile and integral to a functioning society.

By this, I mean that students must attempt to understand the message an author is conveying when making an argument before exploring textual interpretations. If they are

156 ignoring clear claims, evidence, and warranting that contradict their world view, they are not so much reading a text as they are simply acknowledging that a text exists. An a priori interpretation of a text is antithetical the goals of argumentation, which is recognizing the legitimacy of others’ arguments and synthesizing those with your own world view to construct an informed understanding of the world. Thus, understanding an author’s argument—by author I mean one who constructed an argument in a text (not necessarily a written text)—is not the same as indoctrination. To explore another’s perspective is not the same as agreeing with it, it’s simply a step in understanding your own perspective in relationship to it.

In line 261, Ms. Night asks students to consider the emotional aspect of dismissal. Then, in lines 262-269, she discusses the way it feels to be dismissed. She says “it doesn’t feel like you’re being heard perhaps sometimes” (268-269). This again works to frame argumentation as having tangible results in the world, and the validation or dismissal of an argument can affect how one perceives themselves in relation to others. This notion of “not being heard” is one that speaks to the availability and exploration of multiple perspectives, to recognizing that one’s experiences can be different from their own and be valid. Again, looking at the discussion about trauma, there were female students supporting the claim that there were traumatic elements of their safety program, but they did not argue that the boys in the class had to feel traumatized also.

261 So think about first of all what that feels like on an individual level.

262 Have you ever been in a situation where the group is saying

263 “this happens, this happens” and you’re going,

264 “that’s not my experience

265 I’m just telling you that’s not my experience” and everyone’s going “c’mon you know that happens”

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266 and you’re like “well actually

267 I don’t have that experience”

268 You know what that feels like, it doesn’t feel

269 like you’re being heard perhaps sometimes

In lines 261-269, Ms. Night establishes that on an individual level, argumentation affects people’s emotions and perceptions of self. This means that argumentation, even on a local level, has social implications. In Ms. Night’s classroom, argumentation is social awareness. However, she further builds on this idea by extrapolating the effects of argumentation onto society at large:

270 but if it’s a whole groups experience and someone’s dismissing or claiming it doesn’t

happen,

271 now we have

272 erased and rejected a piece of society

273 and that’s how you keep the hierarchy right?

274 That’s how you get the isms,

275 the sexism, the racism,

Ms. Night establishes that on a societal level, whole groups of people are dismissed, erased, and rejected. She ties argumentation to how one challenges or maintains a status quo, she says,

“that’s how you keep the hierarchy right? That’s how you get the isms, the sexism, the racism”

(lines 273-275). Ms. Night claims that societal hierarchies and inequity are perpetuated by dismissal. Thus, whether one argues for the status quo or against it, one must address the legitimate arguments being made by people discussing their experiences. This frames

158 argumentation as social awareness, because there are tangible effects that transpire based on how one engages in argumentation, and to what degree they are capable of doing so. It is important to note that she equates dismissal to erasure, which are not necessarily the same thing. Erasure as I understand it, is a concerted effort to eliminate the evidence of something’s or someone’s existence. However, she seems to be stating that dismissal— “not seeing” someone’s perspective—can erase that perspective from society-at-large. I am not inclined to argue for or against her statement, but I would simply like to acknowledge that she makes a leap from dismissal to erasure, which may or may not be warranted, but is not adequately warranted within this particular event.

The dimension establishes argumentation as social awareness, rather than as something one does for the purposes of school. Lines 270-275 also establish why students should strive to adopt both the perspective of author and audience. On one level, it is about knowing how to persuade, but on another, it is about engaging in healthy societal discourse. If one is unable to recognize the arguments of others, there exists a risk of dismissing an argument and endangering others. Argumentation as social awareness establishes argumentation in Ms. Night’s classroom as a means of understanding, empathizing with, and humanizing people whose lived experience differs from one’s own.

Summary.

In this section I establish argumentation as social awareness as a dimension of the intersubjective framework constructed over the course of the classroom conversation by analyzing a small portion of the transcript. I argue that throughout this conversation Ms. Night is not telling students that they must agree with Staples, but rather that they should not ignore his point in favor of twisting his words to meet their own understandings of the world. This is

159 similar to what we see with the dimension trauma: it is not that every student was traumatized by their safety program, but they also should be aware that some were, and understand how that may affect others’ realities. In lines 260 and 262 she uses the phrase “you’re in danger” when referring to dismissal. “You’re in danger” implies that the person dismissing the argument is in some way being negatively affected, not just the person being dismissed. The students are affected because, as she’ll establish in lines 270-275, they are perpetuating inequitable social hierarchies that negatively affect everyone, even those with hegemonic power, in some manner-- this may be that society is deprived of talent or genius of those who will never have access to the resources to better society, or it may be direct oppression. Moreover, students are depriving themselves of the opportunity to construct a nuanced and rich understanding of the world derived through exploration of multiple perspectives. Throughout this section I illustrate how Ms. Night establishes that some people’s ways of being are threatened by erasure and rejection, which makes the engagement of an argument a moral and serious endeavor that has consequences beyond the classroom walls.

Third Space as a Dimension of the Intersubjective Framework.

In this section I discuss the dimension third space which establishes the interactional participatory structure of the conversation. To do so, I examine portions of the transcript of the

November 2, 2017 classroom conversation. This dimension differs from the others because it establishes how students go about participating in the classroom discussion, which affects how students participate in, and take up contributions to, the conversation. I argue that third space

(Guitierrez, Rymes & Larson, 1995) plays an integral role in the intersubjective framework constructed throughout the conversation, because it is the construction of a space in which students can draw upon personal experiences and juxtapose those against academic topics to

160 foster new understandings through an overlap of perspectives and experiences made visible to them. This overlap allows for a partially temporarily shared social reality, because it makes possible the dimensions of avoiding dismissal, trauma, and re-narrativization of personal experiences, all of which are necessary to making Staples’ unfamiliar perspective relatable.

Analysis.

In my analysis, I found that the notion of third space (Gutierrez, 2008) is useful for understanding the ways in which the students and teacher constructed their intersubjective framework. Gutierrez, Rymes and Larson (1995) discuss the notion of scripts and counter-scripts in classrooms. Scripts are the teacher’s background or academic norms that are privileged in pedagogy and in research, while counter-scripts are the students’ cultural backgrounds and ways of speaking authentically. Thus, they found rich educational interaction in students’ enactment of authentic literacies, and that when students enacted their authentic literacies in classrooms, lines of inquiry changed, which coincided with a shift in grammar and language use on part of the students. This authentic literacy use in classrooms and shifts in inquiry are what Guitierrez,

Rhyes, and Larson (1995) refers to as the third space, a space to which the teacher and students bring their literacy practices and cultures and negotiate them to create an amalgamation of the various perspectives, experiences, practices, and cultures present in the classroom. For example, a student may ask a question that speaks to their own interest that is tangentially related to part of the curriculum. In her 1995 article, Gutierrez describes a biracial student asking about biracial children during a conversation about segregated schools as an example of third space.

Ms. Night and her students construct a third space during their exploration of argumentation through the analysis of Brent Staples’ essay. This third space was an important dimension of the intersubjective frame the teacher and students constructed over the course of

161 the discussion, as the discussion merged the academic with the personal in a manner that made the academic personal and the personal academic. By this I mean that the classroom became a place for students to examine their own experiences and ways of being in the world in a manner that validated and utilized personal experiences and ways of thinking to better understand an author’s argument and the author’s process of constructing the argument. This space is not fully dominated by the teacher’s perspective, the students’ perspective, or the authors’.

I will now turn back to my transcript to examine instances in which this third space was constructed. It begins early in the conversation when Ms. Night says:

18 I was asking you what experiences did you have early on and I hoped you thought about that and

19 had those conversations outside of class

20 What experiences did you have early on

21 that would place you

22 on the sidewalk next to him

23 you know wherever you were the reading

Here, Ms. Night invites students to draw on their personal experiences [counterscripts] (line 18), when she asks “what experiences did you have.” These experiences could be anything, which allows students to draw upon non-academic aspects of their lives and creates space within the classroom for their personal experiences to partially influence the trajectory of the classroom conversation and inform how they think about Staples’ essay and argumentation. The “him” in line 22 is Staples and “the reading” is his essay. This conversation is built upon the premise of third space in which her conversation about rhetorical analysis and argumentation, the author’s conversation about intersectional racism and gender, and the students’ experiences and

162 perspectives amalgamate in the pursuit of an understanding of each. Ms. Night models the third space in lines 30-36 by sharing a similar conversation she had with her second period class:

30 Whoa and then my second period class they were told me they were telling me

31 and you tell me if this was true for you too,

32 they said in universitytown,

33 we weren’t sure of the grade they thought maybe like second grade, earlier than 5th grade, early elementary school

34 that you have a program, I can’t remember the name

35 and they come in and teach you not just stranger danger

By invoking the personal experiences from a previous class, Ms. Night is modeling the creation of third space in which students insert their personal experiences into academic conversations.

She thereby signals that students’ contributions can inform how they discuss and think about this topic, validating the notion that student contributions are important and worthwhile to the academic conversation about rhetorical analysis and argumentation [the script].

Then, Ms. Night shares her own out-of-school experience, which she juxtaposes against the stories of her second period class and the Staples’ essay, she says:

50 Like this is what I taught my girls

51 I said if you’re in,

52 they would only be in our neighborhood, but right?

53 Little kids

54 and I know I’ve been in every single person’s house in my neighborhood

55 ok I know them all

56 we’ve actually been inside the houses so then you go into anyone’s house you can get to

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57 you run you go in anybody’s house

Here, she brings her own experiences to the classroom space and uses them to contextualize her own perspective, one that is already clearly different than the students in her second period. She continues:

58 So the kids in 2nd period were telling me

59 no we learned it that you stomp on their feet (loud claps) and you’re that close.

60 You know to the poten-- So that you don’t get kidnapped and I’m like really?

Lines 58-60 serve as a contrast to her own experiences, complicating the notion of stranger danger. Her own perspective challenges what the students were taught in their safety program.

Both her perspective and her students’ experiences are situated within a larger classroom conversation about Staples’ essay. However, lines 58-60 adhere to her invitation in lines 20-22, in which she had asked “what experiences did you have that would place you on the sidewalk next to [Staples].” And so, the analysis of the essay is supplanted, at least momentarily, with student experiences. These experiences are brought to the forefront at the expense of traditional rhetorical analysis practices: the inquiry is not, “what is Staples’ argument and how did he make it effectively?” Instead, it is: “What experiences have you had that could make his experience relevant to you and how did that make you feel?” This process constructs a third space. Ms.

Night suggests that such experiences might be traumatic (lines 61-68) and some students agree with this assessment.

In line 70-80 students share bits and pieces of their experiences. Sasha says, “We were like screaming like they taught us. Like it wasn’t like a high-pitched (inaudible) (lines 70-71). In line 75 Sasha says, “Just like screaming like right in their face.” Linda elaborates on this saying,

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“but not like a high-pitched scream cuz like anyone could scream like that,” based on which another student elaborates that high-pitched screams sound like, “all little kids when they’re playing.” Finally, Sasha says in line 79: “I remember learning that at recess and (makes low whale-like noise),” to which the students respond with laughter.

The students share ways in which the safety program was traumatic, but they also speak to a line of inquiry that aids them in sharing and understanding their own experiences in non- academic language. The students are even laughing at the contributions at one point. In this instance, the space has become one in which students’ personal experiences [counterscripts] are holding equal footing to Staples’ essay and rhetorical analysis and argumentation [scripts].

Students talk with Ms. Night to make sense of their experiences, which eventually contributes to developing an academic understanding of Staples’ essay and his argumentative practices

(students eventually re-visit his essay and examine his argumentative moves in a later class session).

Josh’s humorous--though rebuffed--contribution in lines 100-102 is further evidence of a shift in interactional style (Gutierrez [2008] argues that this is an important aspect of third space). Josh makes a joke, saying “I gotta be honest though, if I’m walking down the street and an army of second graders start making whale noises and running at me I gotta run.” I view this as a playful rejection of trauma, a counterscript that Josh elaborates upon later in the conversation when talking about his brother; Though his contribution in 100-102 is counterscript negotiating a third space, his later attempt in lines 145-156 is an example of third space, because he uses his personal experience in a manner that contributes to an academic conversation.

Despite his initial response serving as a counterscript to the ongoing conversation, this shift in interactional style indicates a comfort and familiarity on Josh’s part, one that seems closer to

165 conversing casually than having a rigorous academic discussion, which is indicative that a third space is being created.

Ms. Night works to negotiate this space, saying “levity for this serious situation, but that—you know you have a mob of second graders, that’s not this situation” (lines 106-108). She indicates that his contribution is a counterscript and she challenges it in a manner that she does not extend to contributions by other students, even though other students’ contributions are also not explicit discussions of the interpretation of Staples’ essay or his argumentative moves.

Moreover, while other students’ contributions are related to Ms. Night’s invitation to discuss their safety program, they are highly personal which moves the contributions outside of the script focusing on the analysis of Staples essay and rhetorical moves and argumentation. One such contribution can be seen in lines 110-111 when a student contributes one of their experiences,

“ummm, I just remember being told that if they grabbed you, you’re supposed to take your thumb and gouge them in the eye.” The students laugh at this as well, but the teacher does not address this behavior as it falls within the third space they have constructed. Another example can be seen in lines 119-125:

119 S10: Well I was just gonna say that they told us to come up with like a safe word

120 or like a code word

121 so they were like “Oh my mom told me to pick you up” and you’re like “what’s the word?”

122 T: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

123 S10: Which I think is actually smart

124 T: sure sure sure

125 ?: Mine was pickles

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In this interaction, students continue to share their experiences in their safety program, which remain prioritized over a discussion of Staples’ essay or argumentation, but the conversation never strays so far from these topics that Ms. Night is unable to bring them back into focus organically.

Despite the serious content, there is a playfulness present in the discussion that is unlike academic discussions or lectures that have taken place throughout the year. In lines 119 -121, a student shares that they were taught to have a safe word to use with people that would signal whether the person picking them up was doing so legitimately. This contribution is not part of the script, in that it is not speaking to argumentation or directly speaking about Staples essay, but is also not counterscript because it is tangentially related. The same student shares that she believes this to be a good idea, but another student chimes in that their safe word was “pickles” and adds no further commentary. This playful contribution--as indicated by a sing-song delivery using tonal shifts of rising inflection on the word “mine”, falling inflection on the word “was,” and a rising inflection for “pic-“ and falling inflection on “-kles”--again indicates something that is not wholly academic.

As the conversation continues to unfold, Ms. Night takes up the students’ contributions and continues to center them in the discussion, at various times merging them with the script, such as in lines 127-143. She revisits her initial notion of dismissal, one which she applies to

Staples’ argument, but instead does so through the students’ contributions. Once again, she uses her second period class as evidence to support her claim, but this is couched in the ongoing discussion about danger in public spaces these students are also having. These lines also speak to the hybrid nature of the third space, in which more overtly academic practices are brought back into the fold, as can be seen below:

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127 T:So let me,

128 let me share this with you

129 I don’t know that it’s true

130 I don’t wanna make assumptions

131 we’ve already had the conversation here but I’ll just tell you what happened in my second period.

132 Before we had that conversation

133 specifically like we just did now

134 I asked “raise your hand if you remember that program just before we even talk about it”

135 The girls raised their hands

136 and I think 2 boys out of maybe 9 riased their hands

137 It was mostly girls who raised their hands

138 and I don’t know about that Like

139 is that because you were reinforced

140 that story was reinforced as you got older

141 and you had other conversations with your parents

142 I don’t know

143 What else do you want to add before I’m going to draw a conclusion about this?

In this instance, Ms. Night is modeling argumentative practices, drawing upon evidence to inform claims, and does so by merging the script and counterscripts in the classroom. As Staples discusses racism and gendered practices around masculinity, Ms. Night encourages her students to investigate his argument, while having a discussion about gendered practices around femininity and victimization. In line 143 when she asks, “What else do you want to add before

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I’m going to draw a conclusion about this?” In this segment, we can see her invoking students’ experiences, suggesting that students may again need to draw upon their own backgrounds and experiences to inform their positions on whether narratives on danger in public spaces is gendered.

As alluded to earlier, in lines 145-157, Josh contributes to the conversation again, this time successfully merging script with counterscript. He draws upon non-academic experiences with his family, and even talks casually about his brother’s desire to learn karate to protect the family. First, he contributes his own experiences with dismissal:

145 Josh: Usually whenever I had those talks I sometimes do with my parents

146 I just sort of like

147 in the back of my mind sort of dismiss it.

148 Not as like, I don’t trust what they’re saying but like I,

149 this probably isn’t going to happen and even then I’m probably going to be fine I can usually manage

150 those kinds of situations and probably get out of that

He mentions talks with his family, “Usually whenever I had those talks I sometimes do with my parents,” which indicates certain familial practices that occur within his household. He reflects on those experiences to come to an understanding about his own dismissal of this specific argument. In such an instance, his personal experiences become academic, as they serve the role of speaking to dismissal, understanding how he came about dismissing an argument, and in turn, how he may have dismissed Staples’ argument. Josh continues:

151 Josh: Like even now

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152 my brother’s taking karate because for some reason he feels that he’s the defender of the family like if we ever got attacked he needs to know self defense.

153 T: there was no underlying judgement there at all was there (laughing)

154 For some reason he feels he needs to be (laughs) Ok.

155 Josh: he keeps trying to teach me some of it too.

156 It’s actually (inaudible)

Josh’s contribution in lines 151-156 indicates a more intimate or conversational way of engaging with Ms. Night. He shares personal information and feelings that are not necessarily academic, but instead simply something relevant to his experience at home. He says, “Like even now my brothers’ taking karate because for some reason he feels that he’s the defender of the family like if we ever got attacked he needs to know self-defense” (lines 151-152). While these speak to the notion of danger, Josh says “for some reason” trivializing his brother’s decision— as evidenced by Ms. Nights response, “there was no underlying judgment there at all was there [laughs]” (line

154). This response is not an attempt to move the contribution to a more academic place, nor does it work to bring students back to the topic at hand, instead Ms. Night follows Josh’s lead and responds conversationally.

Such contributions are sandwiched between more academic concepts that Ms. Night wants her students to consider. She and her students balance the academic with the personal, interweaving the two over the course of the conversation. The third space constructed has both the teacher and students drawing upon their personal lives, as well as academic concepts and materials in order to construct an understanding of Staples’ essay and argumentative practices.

To do so, the language use also ebbs and flows, negotiating the balance between personal practices and those of doing school. By doing so, the students and Ms. Night step into a space

170 that is not wholly their own, creating a conversational floor that is built upon student experiences as much as it is Staples’ essay or rhetorical analysis and argumentation; in fact, the students’ personal experiences are integral to the construction of understanding of Staples’ essay and rhetorical analytic and argumentative practices.

Summary.

In this section I established the dimension third space by analyzing portions of the

November 2, 2017 transcript. In my analysis I establish the construction of third space and the utility of that space. Given that the function of the intersubjective framework is to provide a new way of looking at a text that fosters understanding, it is necessary for students to find ways in which their own experiences may partially overlap with Staples’. By drawing upon personal experiences and juxtaposing those against notions of argumentation and rhetorical analysis, as well as “Just walk on by” students are able to make their experiences academic. This amalgamation of perspectives (scripts and counterscripts) allowed for moments of overlap that made visible similarity between Staples’ experiences and the students, grounding academic content within students real lives.

Complexity.

Before exploring complexity as a dimension of the intersubjective framework, it is necessary to define how I understand complexity for the purposes of this study. Complexity refers to the consideration and (attempted) reconciliation of multiple perspectives on a given topic that contribute to a multidimensional understanding of the topic; one that entails the construction of an understanding that extends beyond a text and into the real world, or helps students to understand themselves better.

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Another aspect of this is in line with the goals of the Argumentative Writing Project

(Newell, Bloome, & Hirvela, 2015), as students are encouraged to move away from a Black and white understanding of an issue, and instead toward recognizing that binary understandings of topics are superficial and dismissive of valid perspectives tied to the realities of others. As such, when I discuss this dimension of intersubjective framework, I am referring to the convergence of the other dimensions presented in this paper for the purposes of constructing a new framework through which students will examine the literature.

Thus, students are not simply adopting an interpretive frame, but instead co-constructing a brand-new framework through which they can explore topics to construct an understanding.

Moreover, when considering complexity, one must examine the multiple layers of the conversation that are occurring, as well as the purposes they serve. Ms. Night and her students are not simply trying to discern an authors’ argument, they are doing so to learn more about

“rhetorical analysis,” which Ms. Night defines as the argumentative moves an author uses to construct an effective argument that brings the author closer to their audience. It is for this reason that Ms. Night is so concerned about students’ abilities to discern a specific argument from

Staples’ essay, as that is the first step in deconstructing how that argument was made. To explore this dimension, I will provide analysis of segments of the November 2, 2017 transcript.

Analysis.

I’ll begin at the end of the instructional conversation to illuminate how and why complexity is a dimension of this intersubjective framework. In lines 338-351 Ms. Night says:

338 So that’s where his argument lies

339 So we need to be aware of what about us

340 what aspects of our identity allow us to dismiss

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341 Stop

342 think about it

343 and try to hold that argument in your hand for a while

344 On the moral level

345 that’s going to bring you closer together right?

346 That’s inclusive, that’s not exclusive it’s not divisive

347 On the classroom testing level um

348 this is what you’re doing in a rhetorical analysis.

349 You’re not evaluating, you’re just analyzing what’s happening.

350 And if you evaluate and say “Oh no no I don’t agree”

351 you’re not doing an analysis right?

Ms. Night tells her students, “…try to hold that argument in your hand for a while. On a moral level that’s going to bring you closer together right? That’s inclusive, that’s not exclusive, it’s not divisive. On the classroom testing level, umm, this is what you’re doing in a rhetorical analysis” (lines 343-348). Ms. Night clarifies that the discussion is about understanding each other, but also about understanding the way one goes about successfully constructing an argument, which entails recognizing rhetorical moves, which she calls rhetorical analysis. This aspect of their discussion is an equally essential component of their conversation as the others.

She says, “You’re not evaluating, you’re just analyzing what’s happening. And if you evaluate and say, “Oh no no I don’t agree” you’re not doing an analysis right?” In these lines, she makes it clear that rejecting an argument inhibits the students’ ability to analyze the argument, which is part of the necessity of students to see the argument that Staples’ is making.

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Ms. Night then moves on to an activity that further encourages complex thinking, one that requires students to make measured considerations of multiple perspectives, which will help them to determine the argumentative moves they will make to construct an effective argument. I have previously touched on this event, one in which she has students walk up to the front of the room to create a visual representation of the dual roles the construction of an argument requires.

She says:

363 T: Ok, I’m gonna try to show you a visual of this.

364 So Irene is the writer.

365 She’s the speaker she’s the rhetor, right?

366 She’s the writer.

367 She’s making the argument.

368 To whom is she making the argument?

369 S?: Lisa

370 T: Yeah Lisa, so Lisa is the?

371 Students: audience

372 T: Audience

373 Lisa is the audience. Alright?

374 (T hands paper to Irene) this is the argument

375 You wanna tailor it to your audience

Ms. Night has one student take on the role as the rhetor, and another student the role of the audience. She tells them that an author tailors their argument to their audience. To do so, she claims, successful rhetors make argumentative moves that bring them closer to their audience, creating more of an overlap of perspectives—in a later class, her students move through Staples’

174 essay looking for the argumentative moves he made to bring his audience closer to his argument.

In lines 376-381, Ms. Night communicates the types of considerations one has to make in the process of constructing an argument:

376 so you have to imagine what do you know,

377 what do you think Lisa knows about the subject matter right?

378 What does Lisa know about you,

379 what do you know about the subject matter?

380 And how are you going to tailor that all to persuade her?

381 So you’re going to make this argument to your audience

These considerations are tied to the contexts of the writing, such as for whom you are writing, for what purpose, how intimately your audience knows you, etc. And so, one must tailor an argument to suit a given audience. In this example Ms. Night discusses persuasion; however, earlier on, she discusses social awareness (lines 250-275 discussed above), and throughout the discussion, she engages her students in argument to explore concepts and construct an understanding of themselves, their argumentative practices, and eventually Staples’ essay, so purposes of argumentation can be versatile. In any case, considering one’s audience will be important.

Ms. Night argues that for students to be able to rhetorically analyze an author’s argument, one must simultaneously adopt the role of author and audience:

403 you the writer,

404 has to stand in the shoes,

405 or you the student has to stand in the shoes of the writer right?

406 And know what that writer is trying to argue,

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407 and you have to stand in the shoes of the audience and experience what that might feel like.

408 Ok so look, here are the effects on the audience,

409 she’s making the moves (referencing student with the writer)

410 She’s making the rhetorical moves (points to audience)

411 audiences experiencing them you have to be in both places. There are multiple perspectives that must be considered if one is to glean what argumentative moves are being made and why. This hearkens back to the discussion Ms. Night and her students just had, one in which both Staples and his audience feel fear in public spaces, and Staples draws upon that fear to try to bring his audience closer to his claim.

Similarly, the students drew upon their own experiences with fear in public spaces and avoiding dismissal, which allows them to hold the perspective of both the author and the audience. They have a new way of reading the text, one aided by recognizing Staples’ argument, which serves to make visible his own fear of public spaces due to his Black male body changing those spaces. He does so to raise awareness of the dangers he faces due to racial prejudices, such as violence against him as a result of preconceived notions that conflate his race with criminality and violence. This is yet another layer of the already complex discussion. Ms. Night draws upon this again in future classes as she discusses rhetorical analysis, which she segues into students constructing their own arguments.

In lines 414-425 we can see that the notion of dismissal has now taken on new implications, which draws upon the third space constructed earlier in the discussion, because it layers doing school on top of social responsibility.

414 Now here’s what I want to show you.

415 If you as the

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416 so go ahead, why don’t you hold the argument? Right?

417 Cuz the student needs to actually hold that argument in your hands

418 as the writer and as the audience.

419 Yeah, ok,

420 if you as the student approach a text

421 and you reject the writer’s argument,

422 you dismiss it,

423 you don’t see it,

424 there is no way that you can analyze this.

425 That’s done.

Previously, Ms. Night claimed students shouldn’t dismiss arguments because this results in the dismissal of experiences and ways of being in the world. She tied that to the experiences of her students and their classmates. Then, she asked students to reflect on their positionality in society and how it influences their perspectives. Rejection was a disservice to their fellow human—but now rejection means being a bad student, one who will not do well on the AP exam. And so, there are multiple goals and outcomes that cover various facets of students’ lives that are being integrated into the conversation, with the multiple layers converging to create a complex understanding of the conversation and the argumentative practices in which they have engaged.

Finally, Ms. Night ends with the following:

431 So I don’t care if you walk away from class and you say,

432 “I have my own ideas about affirmative action Ms. Night and in fact I don’t think race is even a problem

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433 in our society”

434 You go and deal with that

435 I don’t care

436 but if you’re trying to use this skill of analysis

437 of rhetorical analysis you must hold it in your hand for a moment

438 ok?

439 So they’re gonna stand there for just another 2 minutes

440 and you’re going to write down in your own

441 words what we just illustrated,

442 cuz that’s so important for the rest of the year.

443 What did we just illustrate?

444 A lot of things.

445 You have to simultaneously stand in 2 places.

446 And you have to do something in order to do something

447 else.

In lines 431-447, the teacher clarifies that she is not interested in every reader reaching consensus regarding the argument, or even adopting her understanding of the text; instead, she wants students to be careful not to only populate the role of audience when reading arguments, because at that point, the argument may be lost on them. This can in turn inhibit their ability to analyze the argument and to develop effective argumentative practices as they move forward in the year, which is supported by assignments later in the year. In one such instance, students were tasked with writing argumentative essays that traced a theme across a novel, and they were tasked with making the argument for their interpretation of that novel.

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Finally, she says, “You have to simultaneously stand in 2 places and you have to do something in order to do something else” (lines 445-447). In this, she is telling students that they must adopt multiple roles, to develop multiple understandings based upon the perspectives that are likely to converge, and that effective argumentation only becomes possible through this process. It isn’t just about your singular perspective, but how that perspective relates to others.

This notion requires a complex understanding of what argumentation is, the spaces that one occupies, the ways in which one is situated in relation to others, and the purposes one engages in argumentation. These multiple layers converge to construct a very complex web of thought, one that she walks her students through over the course of the discussion.

Summary.

In this section I analyzed segments of the November 2, 2017 transcript to establish and explore the dimension complexity. This dimension serves as one of the epistemological frames through which students are examining their conversation, which includes a meta-discussion on argumentative practices and the purpose for engaging in argumentation. This sections teases out the various purposes proposed for engaging in argumentation, and how those are reconciled. This section illustrates how multiple aspects of their conversation, being held for multiple purposes, converge to create a complex, multi-faceted, and layered understanding of argumentation, and to a lesser degree, “Just walk on by.”

Teaching Moves

Having explored the various dimensions of the intersubjective framework used to construct understandings of unfamiliar perspectives through argumentation, I will now examine

Ms. Night’s process of facilitating the construction of said intersubjective framework. In her

2017 paper, VanDerHeide proposes that if one views argumentation as a process that spans gene-

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-with genres being forms of social action--then teachers must teach argumentation as a collection of moves people make, instead of teaching argumentation as a genre with a specific structural approach. In this section, I build upon that understanding, examining the moves Ms. Night enacted to construct a temporarily shared social reality for the purposes of argumentation. In the previous section, I examined at length the intersubjective framework Ms. Night co-constructed with her students, which were integral to constructing a temporarily shared social reality. In this section I will explain the moves she made in order to do so. These moves are also argumentative moves that students began to appropriate in order to engage in argumentation. The moves I found through my analysis of the data are reflexivity, reflection, reframing memories/experiences, and intercontextuality, which I will discuss in this section [see figure 4.1]. I will begin by defining each move:

1.) Reflexivity is reflection on practices. In this case it refers to reflecting on argumentative practices, including the epistemological stances towards argumentation, how one goes about engaging in practices, and the shortcomings of those practices.

2.) Reflection is thinking about one’s own thinking, feelings, and experiences. This is part of the process of “reframing” memories.

3.) Reframing Memories/Experiences is the use of reflection to reconstruct an understanding of how one perceives a memory or event using a new interpretive lens or multiple lenses. This can change how one understands the memory or experience, as well as the significance of that event or experience.

180 the classroom, and how those relationships between events work to recontextualize those events to construct complex understandings.

These moves played a significant role in the argumentative conversation held by Ms.

Night and her students on November 2nd, 2017. Towards the end of the event, Ms. Night has her students physically act out some of the concepts which was a technique she used that helped to contribute to the some of the moves. I will now trace these moves throughout the conversation to make apparent how these moves were utilized, and to what result.

Tracing the Moves Throughout the Conversation.

Ms. Night begins the conversation with reflexivity by modeling reflexive thinking. She discusses the dismissal of argument and emphasizes a need to investigate how and why this happens:

7 One of the reasons that it’s difficult

8 to identify the argument in this particular piece

9 is because whether you realize it or not

10 many of you

11 are dismissing the argument

12 You’re dismissing it

She draws attention to the fact that students had not been successful in discerning the author’s argument. Then, she examines their practices to determine why this is the case. She says, “One of the reasons that it’s difficult to identify the argument in this particular piece is because whether you realize it or not, many of you are dismissing the argument” (lines 7-11). This statement first draws attention to less than satisfactory results, making students aware of the problem, before modeling reflexive thinking by examining the practices that led to the incorrect

181 interpretations. By doing so, she makes visible to students how one can come to understand why they are or are not successful at engaging in argumentation.

Moments later, she encourages intercontextuality, saying, “…and you tell me if this was true for you too, they [second period] said in University Circle, we weren’t sure of the grade they thought, maybe like second grade, earlier than fifth grade, that you have a program, I can’t remember the name and they come in and teach you not just stranger danger—” (lines 28-32). In this statement, she encourages students to draw upon personal memories and experiences around

“safety” in public spaces and to juxtapose those against the experiences of both her second period class and Staples. This move invites intercontextual connections through which students can make sense of their experiences in relation to others, laying some of the groundwork for a dialogic, complex understanding based upon multiple perspectives. The students take up the connection which is indicated in their attempts to speculate about which program she is referring

(lines 31-42) --These lines were omitted because they reveal information specific to the field site.

Simply stating they speculated about the program should illustrate an attempted connection between contexts.

Once Ms. Night and her students establish about which program she is talking, She says,

48 T: So let me tell you this is the way they described it

49 It’s not stranger danger

50 Like this is what I taught my girls

In lines 48-50 the teacher again uses intercontextuality by juxtaposing what they, second period, shared about their safety program against the ubiquitous notion of “stranger danger” and what she taught her daughters. In lines 48-50, she not only reports what she was told, but signals that it must be considered in relation to what she taught her own daughters and societal notions of

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“stranger danger.” Thus, the juxtaposition changes the meaning, which becomes more apparent as she moves through the conversation.

In lines 51-59, Ms. Night juxtaposes the advice she gave her daughter against that which her second period students received in the safety program:

51 T: I said if you’re in

52 they would only be in our neighborhood, but right?

53 Little kids

54 and I know I’ve been in every single person’s house in my neighborhood

55 ok I know them all

56 we’ve actually been inside the houses so then you go into anyone’s house you can get to

57 you run you go in anybody’s house

58 So the kids in 2nd period were telling me

59 no we learned it that you stomp on their [the attacker’s] feet (loud claps) and you’re that close.

She is making visible the difference between her advice to her daughters, “you run you go in anybody’s house” (line 57) and 2nd period’s advice to fight their attackers by “stomp[ing] on their feet” (line 59) which brings them even closer to their possible abductors. She does so to recontextualize the advice that second graders should fight their attackers, which provides a foundation for her to employ the move of reframing memories/experiences:

60 T: You know to the poten-- So that you don’t get kidnapped and I’m liked really?

61 And the way that they were describing it sounded

62 traumatic to me

63 if you’re a second grader being told how to physically assault

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64 S?: Stomp on their feet

65 T: and you’re a second grader right?

66 Inaudible

67 T: Yeah right?

68 You’re seven.

In lines 60-61, Ms. Night uses the juxtaposition of the two perspectives in order to problematize the notion of young children engaging in physical altercations with their attackers. She signals such advice is abnormal when she uses reflection, saying “…and I’m like really?” (line 60). This is further enforced with reflection in lines 61-62 when she says, “and the way that they were describing it sounded traumatic to me.” She uses reflection and intercontextuality to establish the dimension of trauma, and uses the reframing memory to shift the classroom perspective from that of “normal” to one of trauma. This recontextualization is further emphasized when she says

“you’re seven,” which suggests that someone who is seven years old is too young to be taught how to physically assault an attacker.

Also, it is important to remember that this interaction is being juxtaposed against Staples’ article, as she had said early on that she wanted students to consider “What experiences did you have early on that would place you on the sidewalk next to him” (lines 20-21). Ms. Night refers to this safety program because the common experience makes students consider the narratives they’ve encountered about danger in public spaces, and she hopes for them to draw upon what they know from their own lives to better understand Staples.

The students adopt the dimension trauma, as discussed in the section Trauma, and in so doing appropriate the move reframing memories/events. Sasha, a female student, shares some of the traumatic aspects of her safety program. In line 70 she says, “We were like screaming like

184 they taught us. Like it wasn’t like a high-pitched (inaudible),” which inspires the following exchange,

74 T: Screaming (inaudible) what?

75 Sasha: Just like screaming like right in their face.

76 London: But not like a high pitched scream cuz like anyone could scream like that

77 ?: All little kids when they’re playing like

78 T: Oh

79 Sasha: I remember learning that at recess and (makes noise)

80 Students laugh

In lines 74-80, multiple students share examples of traumatic aspects of their safety program, making intercontextual connections by juxtaposing their experiences against one another’s while simultaneously working with Ms. Night to reframe the narrative of the program.

81 T: Because the—in your minds, the probability probably of that happening

82 seems so wild um,

83 but I bet for some people you know

84 you’re taught not to do that at home

85 you know if your friends are over and you’re making a lot of noise your parents are probably like inside

86 voices or whatever.

87 So to be told yes this is what you do that would I think make you

88 Sasha: I remember so like terrified and hyper aware

89 T: Hyper aware

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In lines 81-87, Ms. Night uses reflection by explicitly asking students to reflect on their own experiences, and intercontextuality as she has them compare what they learned is acceptable behavior at home to what they had learned in their safety program. Sasha adopts reflection in line

88 when she says, “I remember so like terrified and hyper aware.” This reflection helped in the process of reframing, as she considers the heavy aspects of her safety program and how it affected her emotionally and mentally. This works to uphold the intersubjective dimension trauma, as the student uses this move to further explore the traumatic elements of her past experiences.

In line 91, Ms. Night invites more personal experiences, asking “what do you remember?” to which a female student, London, responds: “Umm they had these skits that they would do, it’s like the stomping was part of it. Also like going to tell your parents and stuff like a neighbor was trying to like (inaudible)” (lines 92-94). Sasha adds, “(inaudible) watch the situation” (line 95). Ms. Night validates the students’ contributions and revoices them, saying

“and that’s who they can take advantage of you, how scary” (lines 97-99). Her response “how scary” is another example of reframing memories/experiences as she again applies an interpretative frame of trauma through which she is signaling students to adopt for the purposes of establishing a temporarily shared social reality.

Ms. Night again uses reflection to reinforce the dimension trauma in lines 115 and 116, when she responds to a student’s statement by saying, “I know and I’m imagining a second grader trying to stomp and I’m like don’t get so close that you’re stomping on someone’s feet you know?” In this line, she is being metacognitive about how she interpreted the stories about second graders being trained to fight their attackers. As the conversation progresses, the students appropriate Ms. Night’s moves, employing several dimension at the same time to interpret the

186 conversation through the proposed intersubjective framework discussed in the last section. As these moves are appropriated, the students are able to participate in the temporarily shared social reality. An example of this can be seen in lines 163-196:

163 Were you gonna say something?

164 Ryan: I was just gonna say that maybe some guys they kind like pick and chose what

they wanted to do

165 and what they wanted to hear

166 Because

167 I guess there would be something that would never happen to me like my neighbor would come grab

168 me or something like that

169 Because I don’t know speaking from a guy perspective kind of

170 you wouldn’t think that would happen you would think (inaudible) or something like that

171 Like it’d be more

172 I don’t know

173 I don’t know how to say

174 it’s like a more super dangerous situation

175 maybe that’s (inaudible)

In lines 164-168, Ryan reframes his memories in the context of the conversation, acknowledging avoiding dismissal and isolating his own perspective as one of several, which can be seen in lines

165-166. Here, he provides a claim that supports Ms. Night’s notion of the gendered nature of narratives of danger in public spaces. He then appropriates the reflection to think about his own experiences and how he came to understand danger in his own life. He considers his own

187 understanding of danger in public spaces and why he thinks that way, which can be seen in lines

164-174, where he begins by first adopting the dimension trauma, which is tied to the gendered narrative proposed by Ms. Night (lines 164-166).

Ryan makes the claim that men may dismiss the narrative of danger in public spaces and then uses reflection to support his answer as follows: “Because I guess there would be something that would never happen to me like my neighbor would come grab me or something like that”

(lines 166-168). He elaborates further, generalizing his findings to fit the gendered argument, again using reflection, which is indicated when he says, “Because, I don’t know, speaking from a guy perspective” (line 169). Through reflection, he situates himself within the dimensions trauma and re-narrativization of personal experience by acknowledging that he has a perspective that might fall into an ideological camp, without dismissing differing perspectives. He also contributes to the ongoing discussion of gendered narratives around safety, further elaborating:

“you wouldn’t think that would happen, you would think (inaudible) or something like that, like it’d be more, I don’t know, I don’t know how to say, it’s like a more dangerous situation” (lines

170-174).

By reflecting on his own thinking, Ryan is able to understand why he holds his views, which then leads him to investigate why he dismissed other arguments. This move helps him to construct a warrant to support his own claim that “some guys” are able to choose what they want to hear. He builds on this using reflexivity in lines 181-182, to again establish that dismissal of the “danger” narrative is linked to gender and how danger is tied to gender.

176 T: Cuz it wasn’t dangerous enough

177 because you weren’t talking about weapons

178 is that what you’re saying?

188

179 Ryan: I don’t know cuz like I guess, cuz like uhh

180 T: what is happening (laughs)

181 Ryan: I don’t know like it gets sometimes

182 Some people pick and chose maybe that’s why they don’t remember it

183 T: Ok the scenarios you mean

184 you don’t choose the scenarios.

185 Ryan: Like I remember some but I don’t remember like the

186 screaming in a low voice and stuff like that

In this interaction, reflection and reflexivity are intertwined, oscillating and mutually influencing thoughts as the moves are simultaneously adopted. For the student to understand his practice, he had to understand his thinking on the given topic. And to understand his thinking, he has to observe the practices that have shaped his thinking. Ms. Night plays a role in this process, revoicing Ryan’s contributions to clarify his thinking as he speaks, which encourages elaboration.

In lines 187-195, Ms. Night summarizes his statements, bringing together his reflective and reflexive moves to clarify his point and make his thinking visible and digestible to both Ryan and his fellow classmates. As she revoices his contributions, he builds upon his previous statements:

187 T: Ok because it may not have

188 A piece of you didn’t you just part of what you said say,

189 you wouldn’t imagine that scenario ever happening?

190 Ryan: yeah

191 T: ok so sort of rejecting this proposed argument

189

192 Ryan: yeah

193 T: a little bit,

194 like “Ok you’re saying I could be in this situation but I’m probably not”

195 yeah alright.

The teacher is sure to revoice Ryan’s statements to clarify that she understood him correctly in lines 187-189, which Ryan affirms is an accurate interpretation of his contributions. She then ties that thinking to practice, saying: “Ok, so sort of rejecting this proposed argument.” In this way, she makes it clear that Ryan’s dismissal of an argument is derived from his identity as a man and validates his thinking with “yeah alright.”

She then calls upon Sasha who shares:

196 Sasha: From my experience (inaudible)

197 Like we’re watching a video and it’ll be a like a girl about to be taken

198 and even the people who came to come do the scenarios

199 they were both girls and like

200 I think that (inaudible)

Sasha juxtaposes her memory against that of Ryan, reframing his memory with her own, providing further evidence of a gendered narrative. By doing so, she also employs intercontextuality, as the intertextual relationship between their stories are being juxtaposed against societal narratives associated with binary gender and Staples’ text that still serves as the backdrop to the entire conversation.

Ms. Night capitalizes on the students’ experiences to layer claims in the pursuit of establishing argumentation as social awareness, using the moves intercontextuality and

190 reframing memories. She begins by first using the students’ contributions as evidence for a claim about gendered narratives of danger:

201 T: The messages.

202 Yeah and I do think that’s reinforced for girls in so many ways as you continue to grow up

203 and I don’t know if it’s rea-

204 I don’t know if reinforced in the same number of ways for

205 boys

Ms. Night validates Sasha’s contribution by saying “the messages” (line 201). She then makes a claim about the reinforcement of gendered narratives in lines 202-205, working to reframe student memories one more time for the purposes of reifying the dimensions avoiding dismissal and re-narrativization of personal experience. Finally, she juxtaposes her claim (lines 202-205) against her initial claim from the beginning of the discussion (lines 209-212):

209 there is an aspect of your identity

210 that is either

211 keeping those situations in the forefront of your mind

212 or there is an aspect of your identity that is allowing you to not think about it

While this claim was originally made at the beginning of the class, it has been reframed by the classroom conversation between Ms. Night and her students. The students are now juxtaposing this claim against the various examples of dismissal that were tied to their own identities and memories. Thus, her intercontextual move assists in reframing the claim in a manner that makes a previously abstract comment more concrete through examples tied to personal experience. She

191 references some of the aspects of identity on which she wanted students to focus, and to continue to focus, as she builds her argument using intercontextuality:

213 I don’t know what those aspects of identity are

214 they might be your sex whether male or female

215 um it might be your race in certain situations

Line 215 references the discussion the students just had, and pertains to Staples’ article, as he is writing to a predominantly middle-class female audience, whose prospective students are also encouraged to “hold in their hands.” Line 214 references race, which is another integral aspect of Staples’ argument, as he speaking about his presence in public spaces as a Black man.

In lines 221-223, Ms. Night ties avoiding dismissal and argumentation back to the re- narrativization of personal experien6ces.

221 There is some aspect of your identity that has allowed you

222 to either hang on to “oh my gosh I’m going to be in that situation”

223 or let it slide

In this process, she reiterates that each person’s perspective is an interpretive lens, which emphasizes the importance of reflection and reflexivity, as the employment of those moves assisted in fleshing out how personal biases affect interpretations of an argument. Moreover, this links argumentation to identity through an intercontextual connection between ways of being in the world and the arguments people make, accept, and reject.

In line 238 Ms. Night says, “Now let’s talk about the danger of that,” reframing argumentation with the word “danger.” She argues that argumentation is social awareness, and

192 as such, she is reframing argumentation from something one does in school to something one does as a means of changing reality in a tangible way.

In lines 239-249, Ms. Night juxtaposes argumentation against various social narratives associated with danger, including attire, time of day, race, gender, and class:

239 If we dismiss,

240 if we are able to

241 because of whatever aspect of our identity allows us.

242 If we are able to dismiss an experience that someone has

243 because that wouldn’t happen to me or

244 “no it’s not race Ms. Night it’s class.

245 Ima be paying attention to what they’re wearing.

246 If it’s a business suit I’m fine but if it’s some like

247 big baggy clothing and its 2 o clock in the morning

248 it’s gonna be class for me everytime.

249 No Ms. Night it’s gonna be sex. I’m a woman and if it’s a man coming toward me in the middle of the night, that’s what it is”.

She makes an intercontextual connection between argumentative perspectives associated with one’s ways of being in the world, and the performative aspects of people’s identities that are cited in narratives of danger. By doing so, she is using the conversation to establish an epistemological frame towards argumentation that is tied to ways of being in the world.

Argumentation makes the unfamiliar more familiar through the convergence of perspectives. She reframes these judgments, trivializing preconceived notions of people by associating such judgements with dismissal:

193

257 if you can dismiss someone’s experience because it’s not yours, something allows you to dismiss it,

258 you’re in danger of erasing that person’s experience

259 or

260 you’re in danger of rejecting it and saying it’s not true

The teacher argues that arguments themselves are tied to experiences, and that there are tangible consequences tied to one’s practices of argumentation. This again works to reframe argumentation, aligning with the dimension argumentation as social awareness. Ms. Night also uses reflexivity, as she explains the consequences of dismissal: “you’re in danger of erasing that person’s experiences or you’re in danger of rejecting it and saying it’s not true.”

She elaborates further in lines 273-275, when she says, “…and that’s how you keep the hierarchy right? That’s how you get the ism, the sexism, the racism.” In doing so, she is establishing the significance of fostering empathy for others that may not share in your experiences, or the necessity of establishing a temporarily shared social reality when attempting to interpret the world. The implications of not doing so are reifying inequitable hierarchies based on class, sex, gender, race, etc.

She then uses intercontextuality to have the students revisit Staples’ essay, layering their classroom discussion, personal experiences, and intersubjective lenses as they attempt to interpret his argument:

284 So let’s go back to Staples.

285 I had people write down that the argument was

286 people shouldn’t treat Black people, people shouldn’t judge Black people unfairly.

287 That’s not his argument.

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288 What is his argument?

289 We’ve already, in part we’ve already rejected it and that’s a problem.

In lines 284-289, she brings students back to Staples’ argument, reframing his essay by drawing upon the dimension avoiding dismissal as a condition of engagement. She says, “We’ve already, in part, we’ve already rejected it and that’s the problem.” To accomplish her reframing, she invites students to make intercontextual connections between his essay, their personal experiences that they shared in their discussion, and the dimensions avoiding dismissal, the re- narrativization of personal experience, and argumentation as social awareness. Based on this, the rejection of his argument now has the possible result of upholding racism. Moreover, students are now positioned to read Staples’ essay with an understanding that their perspectives may be very different from his, and that they may need to work to find the argument he is actually attempting to make. Students also know that their previous interpretations were incorrect, as Ms. Night expressed early on in the conversation, and they have to recognize how and why they came to those understandings through reflexivity.

In lines 315-348, Ms. Night uses Staples’ essay as an example of why argumentation is social awareness. Also, in lines 292-312, the students demonstrate that they appropriated the intersubjective framework discussed earlier in this chapter, which was facilitated through the moves I’ve discussed, in order to come to a new understanding of Staples’ argument (which I discuss in section titled Tracing Intersubjective Dimensions Throughout the Conversation). But once they do so, Ms. Night then uses their newfound reading of Staples’ to further establish argumentation as social awareness:

315 T: So the Black male body,

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316 his argument is,

317 changes public space

318 and therefore it is the Black male

319 who will change and adapt.

In line 315, she reiterates what students recently shared, and summarizes Staples’ point in order to establish that his argument is simply his presence in public spaces changes those spaces and forces him to adapt. This is an intercontextual move, as his argument is being juxtaposed against the students’ anecdotes, in which they discuss all the violent ways in which they were taught to react to those who are perceived threats. This affirms Staples’ argument that he is in danger simply by existing in public spaces.

Ms. Night then partners the intercontextuality with reflexivity, using Staples’ as a prop to explore argumentative practices:

320 This is not to say that he doesn’t share his reactions to that treatment, he does,

321 but by the end of the piece, he’s not making a, he’s not standing on a soapbox going “this shouldn’t happen”

322 he’s simply saying it does.

323 Why do you think he needs to simply say it does?

324 That the Black male body alters public space.

325 Why does he need to say that?

326 S?: People don’t believe it

In lines 320-322, Ms. Night reiterates that Staples uses argumentation to make visible a problem that many in American society face. He is not making a call to action, but simply using argumentation to raise awareness. She then asks why he would need to do so. This is a reflexive

196 move, even if it doesn’t ask student to consider their own practices directly and that is because of the layered contexts in which the conversation is occurring. The students spoke at length about their own practices and had to explore when, how, and why they dismiss arguments. As such, asking why Staples would need to simply bring to light an argument is to draw upon students’ rejection of his argument.

Moreover, because of the students’ rejection of his argument, they now know that they too did not see what he was trying to make visible about society. This becomes obvious in line

326, when a student is able to correctly recognize that Staples’ argument is important because people don’t believe it. This further reifies the notion that argumentation is a means of social awareness, since he was able to use argumentation to successfully raise awareness. The conversation continues as follows:

327 T: Yeah because people don’t believe it.

328 Because people don’t believe it and typically

329 when a writer sits down to write an essay and feels that this argument needs to be put out there,

330 it’s in response to an opposing societal argument

331 right?

In line 327, Ms. Night affirms the students’ contribution before elaborating further on argumentation as social awareness, continuing to use intercontextual connections and reflexivity to further her argument, though these are implicit, as this conversation is built upon the foundations of what was discussed that day. In lines 328-331 she tells her students that authors write arguments in response to opposing society views. This contributes to an understanding of argumentation as social awareness, as argumentation is used to raise awareness of ones’

197 perspectives, and in this case, the perspective of someone who is oppressed. Moreover, this passage makes clear that argumentation is dialogic, it is done as a response to someone else’s words, and thus, in conversation with others. This suggests a Bakhtinian, dialogic understanding of argumentation in which multiple perspectives are converging. Thus, not only is argumentation social awareness, but it is social awareness because it contributes to societal discourses.

Ms. Night uses lines 332-334 to reiterate that students were dismissing arguments, which again encourages reflexivity.

332 So that’s probably not something that we’ve thought about At least it didn’t show up in your quizzes yesterday.

333 You wanted to make his argument immediately lead to “ooh something should be done about this”

334 But if he’s just back in

335 “you have to acknowledge the argument, you have to believe me that this exists

336 because if you don’t believe me that this exists

337 then nothing’s gonna change”

Then in lines 334-337, she elaborates on the importance of recognizing his argument. Lines 336-

337 are particularly significant, as she again talks about the tangible consequences of argumentation, “because if you don’t believe me that this exists, then nothing’s gonna change.”

In this context, awareness is only the first step to making meaningful change.

Her statement once again illustrates how dismissal can reify oppressive hierarchies. By engaging in argumentation, one can actively work against the “isms,” but dismissing arguments means being in “danger” of upholding oppressive hierarchies. Ms. Night’s words encourage reflexive thinking, since she speaks to the outcomes of one’s practices. This notion is

198 intercontextual as well, as these understandings draw upon the layered contexts established earlier in the conversation. It also speaks to the epistemological stance Ms. Night would like for her students to hold towards argumentation.

Finally, in lines 338 to 346, the teacher further establishes the epistemological stance she wants her students to hold towards social action.

338 So that’s where his argument lies

339 So we need to be aware of what about us

340 what aspects of our identity allow us to dismiss

341 Stop

342 think about it

343 and try to hold that argument in your hand for a while

344 On the moral level

345 that’s going to bring you closer together right?

346 That’s inclusive, that’s not exclusive it’s not divisive

She says, “on a moral level,” making argumentation a moral endeavor, and one that is supposed to be “inclusive” by moving “closer” to the author or audience. She later argues that one should always occupy dual roles, which aligns with her claim that argumentation is about inclusiveness.

This is not to say that argumentation is about agreement, but about hearing others and trying to truly understand their perspective in relation to your own, which entails recognizing that your perspective is not the only one (this notion is discussed further in section (Complexity).

Embodiment.

Towards the end of the November 2nd, 2017 event, Ms. Night has her students stand up and create a physical representation of how an author brings an audience “closer” to their

199 argument. I view this as a differentiated teaching technique that incorporates kinesthetic and visual elements to a mostly discussion-based lesson. It is unlike the moves discussed in this chapter, in that it is used for the purposes of summarizing concepts already conveyed and is not integral to the construction of the intersubjective framework. Some of the ideas within the exercise were useful to further concretize argumentation, but it is not repeated multiple times throughout the entirety of the discussion to help shape an understanding.

Summary.

In this section, I discussed the teaching moves Ms. Night used to co-construct an intersubjective framework with her students, which are:

2.) Reflection is thinking about one’s own thinking, feelings, and experiences. This is part of the process of “reframing” memories.

4.) Intercontextuality is defined by Bloome, Beirle, Grigorenko, and Goldman (2009) as “The social construction of relationships among events and contexts.” Intercontextuality is the relationship between experiences and events that occur across time (and space) both in and out of the classroom, and how those relationships between events work to recontextualize those events to construct complex understandings.

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These moves played a significant role in helping students recognize the ways in which unfamiliar perspectives may overlap with their own. The moves sometimes were standalone, and at other times intertwined with one another, with one move informing another. Through the investigation of personal experiences, juxtaposed against “Just walk on by,” students were able to use the moves to make their biases visible, as well as the implications for those biases by reflecting on their experiences and practices, and using new information and different perspectives to construct the 6 dimensions of the intersubjective frame that helped them to challenge their notions of “truth” about their own experiences. Thus, while the intersubjective framework functioned as a means for seeing unfamiliar perspectives in a familiar way, these moves facilitated the construction of that framework; the framework constructed over the course of the

November 2, 2017 event could not exist without these moves being enacted.

Conclusion

In this chapter I presented a discourse analysis of the transcript of a classroom conversation that occurred on November 2, 2017 between Ms. Night and her students. To do so,

I analyzed multiple portions of the transcript several times, each time with a different focus, to tease apart the various intertwined dimensions of the intersubjective framework that was constructed during that conversation, along with the teaching moves that facilitated its construction. Through my analysis, I produced three significant findings: 1.) The purposeful construction of intersubjectivity facilitated a shared understanding between the students and the author that had not been apparent to students before the intersubjective framework was constructed; 2.) Ms. Night used teaching moves to construct an intersubjective framework— comprised of 6 dimensions--through engagement in verbal argumentation. Those moves are reflexivity, reflection, reframing memories/experiences, and intercontextuality; 3.) Through the

201 facilitation of an argumentative discussion, Ms. Night was able to establish an epistemological stance towards argumentation as social awareness and a process through which students can construct understandings of the world.

These findings provide an example of how a teacher was able to co-construct with her students an understanding of a perspective that was unfamiliar to them. This entailed the construction of a multi-layered, interactionally constructed intersubjective frame, which drew upon aspects of people’s identities, experiences, relationships, and spaces they occupy across time. This framework functioned as a new way to understand perspectives, particularly perspectives that were unfamiliar, or unseen, by students, whether it was their fellow classmates’ or Staples’ as conveyed in “Just walk on by.” These findings answered my research questions:

1. What role does intersubjectivity play in the argumentative classroom discussion observed

on November 2, 2017 and how does understanding the relationship between

intersubjectivity and the aforementioned argumentative discussion in turn inform how we

understand the construct of intersubjectivity itself?

2. How does the English language arts teacher use a series of teaching moves to

interactionally construct an intersubjective framework with her students?

I will address these questions further in Chapter 5.

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Figure 4.1 Teaching Moves Teaching Move Definition Example Reflexivity Reflection on practices. In lines 7-12 Ms. Night In this dissertation it is draws attention to used to refer to students’ failed reflecting on attempts at identifying argumentative practices, an argument, positing including the that they are epistemological stances “dismissing” the towards argumentation, argument. The practice how one goes about of reflecting on one’s engaging in practices, own practices is an and the shortcomings of example of reflexivity: those practices. “One of the reasons that it’s difficult to identify the argument in this particular piece is because whether you realize it or not, many of you are dismissing the argument” Reflection Thinking about one’s In lines 81-89 Ms. own thinking Night asks here (metacognition), students to recall their feelings, and safety program, and to experiences. This is an think about what they integral part of the thought and felt: process of “reframing” memories. T: Because the—in your minds, the probability probably of that happening seems so wild um, but I bet for some people you know you’re taught not to do that at home you know if your friends are over and you’re making a lot of noise your parents are probably like inside voices or whatever. So to be told yes this is

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what you do that would I think make you Sasha: I remember so like terrified and hyper aware T: Hyper aware

In line 91 Ms. Night asks:

What do you remember?

Reframing The use of reflection to In lines 59-67 Ms. Memories/Experiences reconstruct an Night juxtaposes the understanding of how safety program’s one perceives a memory advice to her students or event using a new in second period (and interpretive lens or her current class) multiple lenses. This against that of her own can change how one advice to her understands the memory daughters, in the or experience, as well as process introducing a the significance of that new frame through event or experience. which to understand the safety program’s advice:

T: You know to the poten-- So that you don’t get kidnapped and I’m liked really? And the way that they were describing it sounded traumatic to me if you’re a second grader being told how to physically assault S?: Stomp on their feet T: and you’re a second grader right? (Inaudible) T: Yeah right?

Intercontextuality Defined by Bloome, In Lines 28-32 Ms. Beirle, Grigorenko, and Night encourages

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Goldman (2009) as intercontextual “The social construction connections about fear of relationships among in public spaces by events and contexts,” asking students to intercontextuality is the make connections relationship between between their experiences and events experiences in a that occur across time childhood safety (and space) both in and program which is out of the classroom, juxtaposed against the and how those experiences her second relationships between period class shared events work to with her, and Staples’ recontextualize those text “Just walk on by.” events to construct This is indexed by the complex notion of “Stranger understandings. danger.” She says,

“…and you tell me if this was true for you too, they [second period] said in University Circle, we weren’t sure of the grade they thought, maybe like second grade, earlier than fifth grade, that you have a program, I can’t remember the name and they come in and teach you not just stranger danger—”

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Chapter 5: Conclusions and Implications

Summary of Findings in Relation to Research Questions

In this dissertation, I conducted an in-depth discourse analysis of a conversation that occurred in a 11th grade AP Composition classroom using microethnographic discourse analytic methods. The interaction was situated within a larger year-long ethnographic study, which served to inform and contextualize the interaction on which I focus. I discussed the data through a theoretical framework built upon Bakhtinian notions of language, which informed my definition and functional understanding of intersubjectivity as a partially overlapping temporarily shared social reality (Rommetveit, 1974; Linell 2014). This temporarily shared social reality allows for interlocutors to make sense of and develop a functional understanding of one another through languaging.

Using this theoretical frame, I analyzed the classroom conversation to make sense of the various dimensions that comprised the intersubjective framework, which was co-constructed by the teacher and students through conversation, as well as the moves the teacher employed and the students appropriated. These moves were integral to the successful co-construction and application of said framework. Finally, I discuss the ways in which their co-constructed framework aided in the development of argumentative practices. My research questions were developed to address contemporary issues in English language arts education. Although there has been much work done around classroom talk and argumentative writing, there is very little research that helps us to understand how argumentative discussions are used to construct argumentative writing practices, particularly those that extend to the exploration of unfamiliar perspectives in a manner that draws upon students’ experiences. I discuss some relevant bodies of research in Chapter 2.

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I set out to answer two questions, which are listed below along with a summary of my findings that responds to each question.

Question 1: What role does intersubjectivity play in the argumentative classroom discussion observed on November 2, 2017 and how does understanding the relationship between intersubjectivity and the aforementioned argumentative discussion in turn inform how we understand the construct of intersubjectivity itself?

After analyzing the instructional conversation that occurred on November 2nd, 2017, I found that intersubjectivity was an important aspect of establishing a conversational floor, which served as a foundation upon which ideas were constructed. By this, I mean that a temporarily shared social reality, which, as described by Rommetveit (1974), requires at least a partial overlap of interpretive lenses, allowed for the social construction of ideas and argumentative practices through languaging.

This conceptualization diverges from other understandings of intersubjectivity in educational research, such as that derived from George Herbert Mead’s philosophical works, because it neither aims for, nor assumes a total overlap of perspectives or understandings. In fact, the strength of defining intersubjectivity in this Rommetveit-ian sense is that students do not have to come to consensus, and instead are able to render the unfamiliar more familiar through argumentative instructional conversations. This rendering, however, occurs without claiming to

“know” someone’s experiences in a way that one simply cannot (i.e. white female students will never know what it is like to be a Black man in America); but instead, students are able to recognize overlap between their experiences and others as entry points to construct meaningful understandings of other perspectives that can in turn inform their own.

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A promising aspect of my findings is that while Rommetveit (1974) describes intersubjectivity as various lenses through which people look to establish meaning, these lenses are better thought of collectively instead of individually. In everyday life, the various lenses may converge in a manner that appears almost random, informed by personal experiences, belief systems, personhood, and contexts. However, in a classroom they may need to be meaningfully co-constructed and layered to create a new way of seeing that helps students to develop understandings that go beyond their own perspectives, in order to engage in exploratory argumentative conversations that contribute to meaningful learning. By doing so, students are able to “hold in their hands” multiple perspectives at once, as they construct individual and personally meaningful understandings of disciplinary content, practices, and the world.

Moreover, these “lenses” are not simply interpretive frames such as Critical Race Theory, but can be conditions for engaging, interactional practices, and epistemological stances.

Question 2: How does the English language arts teacher use a series of teaching moves to interactionally construct an intersubjective framework with her students?

I found that Ms. Night and her students co-constructed an intersubjective framework comprised of various dimensions that, when brought together, helped students to find overlap between their own perspectives, Brent Staples’ in “Just walk on by,” Ms. Night’s, and their classmates’. The dimensions of the framework served different purposes: avoiding dismissal was a condition of engagement; trauma, and re-narrativization of personal experiences, on the other hand, worked as lenses through which students could interpret verbal and written texts; argumentation as social awareness and complexity both contributed to establishing an epistemological stance towards argumentation; and third space informed the interactional

208 structure of the exploratory conversation by establishing that both the teacher and the students were able to contribute their personal experiences during the discussion.

This intersubjective framework was co-constructed as a new way of engaging with texts, which is different than the adoption of disjointed frames. This framework functions similarly to chemical compounds, where multiple chemicals are bound together to formulate something new.

These dimensions were intertwined and mutually influential, each tacitly serving a role in the definition and construction of the others. Each dimension played an integral role in the overall effectiveness of the framework.

Moreover, I found that teachers and students interactionally construct intersubjective frameworks through languaging, particularly through exploratory argumentation. To do so, the teacher introduced argumentative moves, which she enacted to facilitate the construction of the intersubjective framework. Those moves were reflexivity, reflection, reframing memories/experiences, and intercontextuality. At the beginning of the interaction, Ms. Night modeled these moves, although she never explicitly named hem, which then led to students appropriating the moves over the course of the interaction. These moves helped students to be reflexive in regard to argumentative practices, to reflect on their lives, to draw upon personal experiences, to reframe those experiences, and to then juxtapose those experiences against multiple other texts for the purposes of complicating said experiences. By doing so, they were able to establish the six dimensions of the intersubjective frame discussed in this dissertation study, which resulted in a shared framework through which they could interpret texts, construct argumentative practices and epistemologies, and explore unfamiliar perspectives.

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Theoretical Implications

Newell, Bloome, and Hirvela (2015) define the teaching and learning or argumentative writing as

diverse sets of situated ways of using spoken and written language (and related

semiotic systems) for articulating a warranted perspective that may also involve

exploration of a topic, learning and advancement of knowledge, dialogue with

others articulating other positions, and the construction of social relationships

both among those co-present and between authors and readers as competitive,

collaborative, and other. 1 More plainly stated, an idea is put forth, a dispute

ensues, a new hypothesis is offered, and then scholars, students, and others

consider an old problem from a new perspective(s) (p. 16-17).

Their exploration of the teaching and learning of argumentative writing draws upon a plethora of theorists in fields spanning from literature and linguistics to rationality. These theories have converged to construct new ways of thinking about languaging in classrooms and the potential that argumentative practices and argumentative writing has for teaching students about the human experience through the exploration of literature. Prevalent writings include those of

Bakhtin (2010a, 2010b) and Vološinov (1986), who theorized language as action steeped in history, and as inherently dialogic, reflective and reflexive of society, ever-evolving in meaning, and situated by overlapping contexts. These authors informed the notion that multiple perspectives converge in the process of co-constructing understandings. As such, the various perspectives in the classroom may be a focus of a study, which are often discussed in an essentialized, and often monolithic manner. For example, the use of Critical Race Theory may be invoked to explain the perspective one holds. However, the mechanisms behind how people

210 come to understand each other’s perspectives, and how understandings and perspectives shift, are still relatively unexplored.

Theorizing intersubjectivity (Rommetveit, 1974; Linell, 2014) as a temporarily shared social reality, which is contingent upon a partial overlap of perspectives, provides a new means of exploring the ways in which people can come to explore multiple perspectives. This dissertation study provides insight into how students in heterogeneous classrooms can construct meaningful understandings of unfamiliar perspectives without needing to share those same experiences. It takes a step into the direction of answering how we can help students develop complex understandings of the world that draw upon diverse cultural perspectives drastically different from their own, which is becoming a pressing concern as classrooms, and our nation, grow more diverse.

Unlike the work around third space and cultural modeling, which has largely focused on homogeneous classrooms, this study examines the ways in which a heterogeneous classroom can effectively draw upon personal experiences to construct a symmetrical learning space in which meaningful knowledge is constructed. An important aspect of this study rested in the redefinition of intersubjectivity from “shared vision” and “shared practice” in which there is an assumed totally shared, or pure, understanding, to partially overlapping, and temporarily shared.

Moreover, intersubjectivity has before not been discussed as the purposeful construction of a framework of lenses. Instead, it is often discussed as the layering of lenses, but those discussions imply a disjointed collection of lenses that happen to overlap, rather than something that can be purposefully constructed. This provides a new way of thinking about intersubjectivity and how we might want to investigate argumentative discussions.

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This research generates new applications of intersubjectivity in research. The first is to examine more conversations intensively over time, looking for the ways in which the intersubjective framework evolves and influences argumentative discussions and the construction of knowledge. I believe examining writing in relation to these conversations could help researchers to understand the relationship between classroom talk and argumentative writing.

The second is the examination of how educators can teach about diverse perspectives when students in the class do not share those perspectives. Humans share overlapping aspects of their identities between them and others, even when this is not immediately apparent. The notion of a partial overlap can help researchers to better conceptualize the teaching of diversity and social equity in classrooms.

Methodological Implications

As research on argumentative writing progresses, researchers continue to be interested in the relationship between classroom talk and argumentative writing. However, many previous studies either examine superficial elements of these relationships (Poole, 2003; Dixon, Greene,

& Brandts. 2005) or heavily focus on the written texts (Olsen, VanDerHeide, Goff, & Dunn,

2018) at the cost of examining the rich talk occurring around the production of written texts. In contrast, my methodological approach provides a means of examining the content of the classroom interaction in-depth, examining the ways in which ideas were co-constructed not just with superficial elements, but with layered dimensions that represented the complex, nuanced, multi-layered, and rich understandings being constructed through talk. This approach examines aspects of personhood, contexts, cultural belief systems, analysis of texts, and the processes through which understanding is constructed with talk. Such an analysis conceptualizes talk

212 intersubjectively, looking not just at surface level discourse, but about how talk is inter-related in the classroom, and the underlying shared, or rejected, frames that make certain concepts accessible or inaccessible. This provides a new way of understanding argumentation because it shifts a focus from not just is what is being said, but to that which remains unsaid. Exploring the frames that underlay the co-construction of knowledge in a classroom is a necessary aspect of studying argumentation and argumentative writing if the goal is to know how talk is related to the written products students produce. In argumentative research the assumption is not that students regurgitate what they hear in class, and so we must look for ways in which frames and frameworks are constructed and shared, and how those ways of interpretation transfer from classroom conversation to individual endeavors, including written arguments.

This study argues for the use of multi-layered, in-depth discourse analysis of full transcripts. Through my analytic process, I was able to recognize nuanced ways in which meaning was co-constructed as the conversation unfolded, and the ways in which the various utterances were intertwined throughout. It was only through multiple in-depth analyses of the full transcript that I was able to recognize intersubjective relations that led to my findings of an intersubjective framework. I believe that to study intersubjectivity would always require such an approach, as these frameworks can only become apparent when traced throughout an instructional conversation. The choice to examine the transcript multiple times, examining each frame independently is something I have not seen done in research on argumentation, and so I believe this contributes a new possibility to the repertoire of approaches.

Moreover, I think that this can help us to better understand the relationships between talk and writing, as a much deeper understanding of the talk can be developed. This sort of analysis would partner well with the intertextual work of Olsen, VanDerHeide, Goff, and Dunn (2018), as

213 it can help researchers develop understandings of intersubjective frameworks and intercontextual relationships that could be layered on top of the intertextual dimensions explored in their study.

This would help to construct a deeper understanding of the relationship between classroom talk and argumentative writing.

Pedagogical Implications

This study has two implications for pedagogy. The first is the use of partially overlapping perspectives as a means of exploring unfamiliar perspectives in the classroom. The second is the identification of argumentative moves that can assist in the construction of an intersubjective framework in instruction. As previously stated in this chapter, this study defines intersubjectivity as a partially overlapping temporarily shared social reality, rather than a pure shared understanding. By doing so, it has opened up new possibilities for approaching perspectives that are unfamiliar to students by looking for ways in which student’s experiences can be re- narrativized and re-contextualized to help bring them closer to other perspectives for the purposes of meaningful learning. I think this will be particularly helpful in heterogenous classrooms, or in classrooms in which diverse perspectives are explored. Translating personal experiences into something more purposefully shared can assist in constructing meaningful cross-cultural understandings. This is something teachers can construct with students once they have identified ways to invite student experiences that might in some way be able to overlap with an unfamiliar perspective. Since this serves as a means of constructing overlap across heterogeneous perspectives and ways of being, intersubjective lenses could be constructed intentionally to help students come to new understandings about themselves and other.

This study suggests that empathy might be one of the products of an intersubjective framework, though the notion is somewhat intangible. The temporarily shared social reality that

214 is constructed through the intersubjective framework allows for a shared means of interpreting texts, which at times at least, appears as if it could be empathy. I would like to investigate the notion of empathy further in relation to intersubjective frameworks.

Moreover, these frames establish conversational parameters by establishing shared definitions and understandings, which allow for authentic participation. The notion of morality, which is often ambiguous, took on the meaning of being anti-sexism and anti-racism. This notion of moral, while by no means particularly revolutionary, also is not always shared in our current society. Moreover, the intersubjective frame helps to establish the meaning of that morality in that specific classroom context, which narrows what it means to be anti-sexist or anti-racist. This helped to establish argumentation as an endeavor that can be moral, especially when confronted claims supported by credible evidence and appropriate warrants.

Secondly, this study builds upon that of VanDerHeide (2017) in which she discussed the teaching of argumentation through revoicing and questioning. This approach argued for multi- genre argumentative practices that were not bound to particular structures and genres, provided teachers with a way of becoming untethered from structural notions of argumentation, and offered some ways in which teachers could facilitate teaching argumentation as moves. My study has developed a way of exploring unfamiliar perspectives through an intersubjective framework established through moves that can help students move closer to others’ perspectives. I found that reflexivity of practice, reflection, reframing memories/experiences, and intercontextuality were all moves that assisted in the teachers’ construction of an intersubjective frame. This has implications for teachers, as they can appropriate these moves in their own classrooms to assist in the purposeful construction of partially overlapping perspectives to construct an

215 intersubjective framework through which the class can engage in argumentative conversations or analyze texts.

216

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Appendix A: Instructional Chain

9.5.2017 9.6.2017 9.11.2017 9.7.2017 Permission forms for participation in

study handed out.

9.12.2017 9.13.2017 9.14.2017 9.20.2017

Permission forms collected Work on context mapping of words, Students research the words they picked. Students discuss audience, single out associations, partner work. Students come author’s argument. Loaded language assignment aims to up with connotations and denotations. Mentions early usage of words. “What is Mair’s’ argument? What answer, How does language challenge Who is allowed to say word? might Mair’s’ purpose be for writing and reinforce power, privilege, and Talks about source use/what counts as this essay? Can you support your identity? reliable. response with evidence?

Students research Go over assignment. 3 references, one is Entire class T tells students to provide evidence as dictionary, one for etymology, 8 other well. sources for paper. Entire Class Argument vs. purpose. Students pick words and begin thinking about how to categorize it and specific Audience (primary/secondary(, usage. argument, purpose

20 Mins Entire Class

226

9.22.2017 9.25.2017 9.26.2017 10.2.2017

Briefly talk about rough draft and T covers formatting T shows students a video and asks Students work on essays and meet with citations. teacher individually. them to identify the argument. Mentions papers need a hook, draws a -Multiple sources per body paragraph. funnel intro, thesis at bottom of the Who is audience and who else needs to funnel. hear the argument? Covers format of citation Entire class Organization matters, let audience know Discussion to answer these questions Students work on project where you’re going, and use topic sentences. kick 5 paragraph essay to the T hands out rhetorical moves 25 mins curb. Useful for familiarity of how to organize, but it’s not how we organize Who is the audience? anymore. You need a logical coherency to sequencing. Need transitions T introduces rhetorical moves (purposeful, strategic, choices the Next is conclusion (reverse funnel)—“so writer moves to convey an argument. what” of paper at end Examine transcript w rhetorical moves Goes over block quotes, citations more and mentions dropping articles in for Entire class. students.

Entire class

10.4.2017 10.5.2017 10.6.2017 10.10.2017

Single story rhetorical moves and Goes over “Your own education essay” Colloquy Ways of seeing unit, Plato, Adichie, literary theories/ways of seeing. argument: Did you make a claim about Students act out allegory of cave again power, privilege, and language? If not The allegory of the cave. Begins ways of seeing as related to new unit question. Lenses help us to interpret textual find where you can make an argument or Use evidence from Plato/ models evidence meaning. claim. Discuss Plato, allegory of the cave, Plato use to support claims about meaning Reader response, historical makes an argument, can you follow it? We have to analyze other people’s biographical lens, natural way of arguments and making your own. Illustrate, summarize. seeing, moral and philosophical lens, Entire Class formalist/new critical, psychological They write a brief argument using Deconstructs Plato’s allegory, act out theory, cultural theory (our class) scene. Adichie. socio-marxist, feminist, then race.

Students go back into groups to discuss 35 mins Discusses class by location in their words, make claims about power. Columbus Ohio and looks at map.

35 mins Oppressive ideology Entire Class

227

10.12.2017 10.13.2017 10.17.2017 10.23.2017

Students review charts on various ways -Look at article, role of Gadfly, -Continue looking at VW ad in small Goes over comments on papers. of seeing then move to do a silent -Ways of seeing through the lens of class group. activity where students ask questions -Read and annotate the excerpt from - -Classism and consumerism Students reflect on writing and respond to different statements. Berger, Highlight ideas that intersect with -Audience Tyson’s oppressive ideologies -Attempted thesis Prepares students for test -Work in small groups and talk about -How does ideology keep people article. oppressed? Entire Class 35 Mins -Mentions advertising. Puts ad on board. -Incorporate Berger’s ideas Students unpack in small groups. -Trade papers -Look at intended audience, subtext, -They ask each other questions repressive ideology, how ideologies work -Find quotes to support what was said.

Entire Class Classism and consumerism.

Entire class.

10.24.2017 10.25.2017 10.27.2017 10.30.2017

Students focusing on class and then As a large group talk about yesterday’s Discuss racism podcast and framing racial Colloquy takeaways writing ideas down about race. podcast. –Big takeaways about race and discussions around systematic issues. culture. Race constructed out of the power system Get into groups to share the 2 “What do we gain when we look through of class. conversations the students had. the lens of race?” Brings in class. Colloquy about race. Podcast is mentioned. Listen to podcast about race Podcast begins again. Podcast and other media used as evidence Small groups share their conversations. Discuss race and class, reference ways Looks at map of anti-mysogynation laws. PowerPoint on racism and redlining of seeing. Entire Class Group discussion. map, ties it to how students understand Patriotism relation to these ideas. areas even now 35 Minutes Entire Class. Entire class

228

10.31.2017 11.2.2017 11.3.2017 11.6.2017

T talks about why students spend time Walk on by, author’s argument. Students do a creative writing assignment Ethical, Logical, and Emotional reading through cultural lenses. -Learn Appeals. how to approach arguments from Missing argument b/c you’re dismissing it different perspectives in order to . Small group review of the three. understand an argument. Class discusses personal gendered 35 mins. experiences. Appeals are not a rhetorical move. - You have to know how to move beyond X Provides example or going beyond just rejecting an argument. T says Aspects of identity that influence what X these three appeals. they’re learning how to see different experiences stick with you ways and how to read rhetorically. Revisit just walk on by with Danger of dismissal of another’s highlighters: red to underline how Look at historical examples related to experiences. other’s perceive him, Green for who he race, discusses gov’t policy. Look at Staple’s work. really is. Blue for effects of others’ Ties in gender perceptions of him. Look at rhetorical moves and audience Look over White Privilege list. and how people are brought closer. Partnered with “Ms.” Magazine. - Looks at his audience (writing for They discuss their reactions to this Analyze argument using rhetorical moves. women). document. look at organization look at evidence as they do this. Entire Class Goes over moves. Entire Class Entire Class

11.8.2017 11.10.2017 11.13.2017 11.14.2017

Class splits into 2, one side is the Small group work, students revisit T has students take notes on how to Students have an appeals chart and audience, the other the author (Just Walk rhetorical moves in Just Walk on By. improve their rhetorical analysis skills for read “Ain’t I a woman” again. on By). They roleplay these and the next time. Volunteers act out parts. construct arguments/counter arguments. T discusses moves in JWOB with students. Warranting as an argumentative move. They talk about structural argument. They practice qualifying and examine T hands out Sojourner Truth Small groups get together and analyze warrants. T points to evidence reading/speech. Students analyze the speech and look for an argument. Students then get on google classroom Students have to find an article about a rhetorical moves. Mention religion, audience. and contribute rhetorical moves to the political or social event. Write 2 paragraphs analyzing. Identify argument. doc (in small groups) Entire Class Entire Class T says they’re moving into argumentation They have paper with instructions on how to write an introductory paragraph Entire Class for a rhetorical analysis. (Pracey).

Entire Class

229

11.17.2017 11.20.2017 11.21.2017 12.4.2017

Reading odes to class. Has students line up based on sex one side Write around the phrase act like a lady. T has students turn in papers.

of the room or the other. T then has students break into groups Gender Stereotypes Class discusses tone and mood. with at least one boy in each. Has Read four lines of your papers. female students read passages from Gender boxes continued. Talk about Big Boy and try to read the Jamaica Kincaide’s “Girl” Afterwards T asks what was similar. story with lenses of race, class, gender. Write about the present and future of What messaging do you hear? Lectures/Talks about Gender being in gender stereotypes. Repressive ideologies boxes that constrain behavior and They discuss gender roles. What 3 big performance of identity. Entire Class 30 mins takeaways did mother have for her daughter? Entire Class Go back to tone and mood.—Not related to argumentation Edit text to make it your own experience. Use same sex parents.

Entire class

12.5.2017 12.6.2017 12.7.2017 12.8.2017

More tone and mood.—not related to Look through story looking for evidence They are doing a summative reading a Students begin writing “summatives” argumentation upon which you can make an argument. story doing the same thing as the day before, reading through 2 different lenses, Entire Class 2 highlighters, 1 for race and 1 for gender highlighting evidence and deriving claims as lenses of readings. from this.

Discuss ladders again (class) but also Making an argument and use rhetorical social status for this. organize the moves. characters into a hierarchy X Q2 summative requirements Entire class Claim evidence, warrant.

Entire Class

230

1.11.2018 1.22.2018 1.23.2018 1.25.2018

Elements of voice in a visual text. Students bring in advertisements. Discuss madmen clip and moves Group work unpacking slogans and using social lenses they’ve studied to make Peggy uses to make her product about Go over terms to know, text, subtext, Partner work, examining fears and sense of ads. human connection. context anxieties ads prey upon. Investigate whose ideologies are present Break into small groups to analyze an Students examine visual elements that Write subtext or argument and say what in the ad. ad. They discuss a print ad for Nike. contribute to tone and subtext, They do argument is being sold/ message they are so with famous images. selling you to remove fears and anxieties. They look at ads, scene from mad men. Gender and sexuality are discussed by group I work with. Entire Class They work together as a group to go over Discuss Kilbourn and Berger. some examples. Entire Class 25 mins Entire Class

1.30.2018 1.31.2018 2.1.2018 2.2.2018

Group formative Students share their analysis. Student complete a formative analysis of a Students go over subtext of ad (from Think of rhetorically reading a visual Levi’s commercial. day before?) in which race and class text like you would print. Teacher gives students an ad to write are focused on by my group Apply rhetorical moves to the visual about analytically. They look at race, gender, sex, and class text. Students and teacher analyze Harley ad They examine a levis ad. “make meaning out of what you see and Looking for context, subtext, repressive that draws upon Nazi persecution of Use lenses as well. arrive ultimately at an argument. I’ll give ideology, fears Jewish people. Audience, subtext, context all relevant. you a little porter slip. IDC about the Look at color, lettering, lighting, models, order or structure. You can write it Entire Class Students pick groups for RAFT project. music. exploratory, reflecting what you think. Identify anxiety and fears. IDC I just want to see how you tie what Entire Class you’re looking at to an argument. “

Individual assessment, structure not Entire class important., just ideas.

Entire Class

231

2.6.2018 2.13.2018 2.14.2018 2.20.2018

Working in RAFT groups (I work with T briefly covers expectations of Students work on RAFT project Students present their RAFT projects.

God Made a Farmer) presentations I don’t film due to non-participants presenting. Students look at gender, race, class, also Students work on RAFT religion Entire Class Entire Class 30 minutes They analyze both audio and visuals

35 minutes

2.21.2018 2.22.2018 2.27.2018 3.1.2018

Students present RAFT projects Students present RAFT projects Students present RAFT projects Students organize a protest in response to Parkland shooting. Short discussion about ad presented after

Teacher and students discuss gun Synthesis essay is introduced. 30 minutes 20 minutes violence and arguments that either “Where do you stand on the ethics of marketing to oppose or support gun control. children?” Students provide a stance and 2 reasons. Discussion about this.

Entire class (time spent in actual Qualified Thesis introduced: classroom approximately 12 minutes due 1.Refine you thesis. Make it qualified to walk out protest) 2.After you do that, set a timer for 20 mins read these sources for that exact prompt 3.You’re going to annotate them for supporting your argument, helping you refute the other side, and you need to evaluate the relevance of these sources. Let’s say that I say but look what it says right here. But then you say look at the source. It isn’t relevant.

Entire Class

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3.20.2018 3.22.2018 3.28.2018 3.23.2018 Audio clip of “All the Light we don’t see” T and students discuss synthesis papers Warrants are discussed Students hold small group discussions They discuss philosophical questions they recently wrote, use them to engage related to human actions in the novel and about ALWDS in collaborative argumentation. Students present their collaborative in YouTube video arguments 40 mins Students work in small groups to Transition into 2 types of reasoning: Entire Class construct collaborative argumentations categorical and consequentialist. that they construct on google docs and will read aloud to the class—based Discussion about the youtube videos and around the ethics of storytellers writing morality. about historical events (this draws upon Entire Class multiple sources including Dunkirk)

30 minutes

3.30.2018 4.4.2018 4.5.2018 4.27.2018

Small group discussion about poems T teaches students how to craft a thesis Go through the book and find evidence. Students are provided with an AP related to ALWDS. and the process of going about doing so. References unfinished words. Working argumentative prompt, students are in 6 on a table the teacher provided to help groups. They are tasked with Go into book and find 6 topics you can This will be used for their papers about with essay constructing “oral essays” (these are write about that could be threaded the novel argumentative) throughout the story (they will have to 15 minutes make an argument about the theme and 20 minutes Entire Class motif)

Entire Class

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5.1.2018 5.2.2018

T discusses common app for colleges Students work on college essays.

Entire class Entire Class

*NOTE: *NOTE: When times are listed at the bottom, that There are not arrows at the beginning means during that time frame, the events and ends of each row because I simply listed occurred. When “Entire Class” is couldn’t fit them. They are assumed to seen, it means that the events listed took be there unless there is gray up the entirety of the class period. highlighted text to indicate the events are not connected to the ongoing When an X is seen accompanied by gray interrelated lessons around highlighted text it means it was not directly related to argumentative writing argumentation and argumentative instruction and thus is not directly a part writing. of the chain, but I observed that days events.

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Appendix B: Transcript of the November 2, 2017 Classroom Event

1 [Class begins Students are asked to re-examine the title of Staples’ essay and to try to 2 discern Staples’ argument. Interaction begins approximately 7.5 minutes into class]

3 T: Ok so now I’m going to interrupt you 4 and I want you to so tune into this 5 and I’m gonna pause in a minute and have you take notes on what I’m saying 6 That’s how important it is for the rest of our year 7 One of the reasons that it’s difficult 8 to identify the argument in this particular piece 9 is because whether you realize it or not 10 many of you 11 are dismissing the argument 12 You’re dismissing it 13 You’re not seeing it 14 And when we talk about with seeing whiteness or you know seeing anything 15 um it’s easy 16 to reject something if you don’t see it 17 So yesterday 18 I was asking you what experiences did you have early on 19 and I hoped you thought about that and had those conversations outside of class 20 What experiences did you have early on 21 that would place you 22 on the sidewalk next to him 23 you know wherever you were the reading 24 and some of you were sharing well you know my parents always told me 25 you know don’t, 26 like a student said

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27 my parents taught me early on don’t you know 28 check under the car because someone could be hiding under the car and slice your ankles. 29 Oh my gosh that’s so dramatic (laughing) to teach you that. 30 Whoa and then my second period class they were told me they were telling me 31 and you tell me if this was true for you too, 32 they said in universitytown, 33 we weren’t sure of the grade they thought maybe like second grade, earlier than 5th grade, 34 early elementary school 35 that you have a program, I can’t remember the name 36 and they come in and teach you not just stranger danger 37 S1: safety 38 S2: We had safety town 39 T: No not safety town 40 S1: It was (inaudible) 41 T: It wasn’t d.a.r.e. it was like 42 S3: [omitted name] 43 T: [omitted name] 44 ?: [omitted name] 45 T: [omitted name ] YES! 46 Ok but they said it was earlier than 5th grade 47 S4: (inaudible) 48 T: So let me tell you this is the way they described it 49 It’s not stranger danger 50 Like this is what I taught my girls 51 I said if you’re in, 52 they would only be in our neighborhood, but right? 53 Little kids 54 and I know I’ve been in every single person’s house in my neighborhood

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55 ok I know them all 56 we’ve actually been inside the houses so then you go into anyone’s house you can get to 57 You run you go in anybody’s house 58 So the kids in 2nd period were telling me 59 no we learned it that you stomp on their feet (loud claps) and you’re that close. 60 You know to the poten-- So that you don’t get kidnapped and I’m liked really? 61 And the way that they were describing it sounded 62 traumatic to me 63 if you’re a second grader being told how to physically assault 64 S?: Stomp on their feet 65 T: and you’re a second grader right? 66 Inaudible 67 T: Yeah right? 68 You’re seven. 69 Ok wait, listen listen listen 70 Sasha: We were like screaming like they taught us. Like it wasn’t like a high-pitched 71 (inaudible as students being contributing) 72 T: Wait wait wait 73 I can’t hear the second part. 74 Screaming (inaudible) what? 75 Sasha: Just like screaming like right in their face. 76 London: But not like a high pitched scream cuz like anyone could scream like that 77 ?: All little kids when they’re playing like 78 T: Oh 79 Sasha: I remember learning that at recess and (makes noise) 80 Students laugh 81 T: Because the—in your minds, the probability probably of that happening 82 seems so wild um,

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83 but I bet for some people you know 84 you’re taught not to do that at home 85 you know if your friends are over and you’re making a lot of noise your parents are probably like inside 86 voices or whatever. 87 So to be told yes this is what you do that would I think make you 88 Sasha: I remember so like terrified and hyper aware 89 T: Hyper aware 90 Sasha: (inaudible) 91 T: What do you remember? 92 London: Umm They had these skits that they would do its 93 like the stomping was a part of it. Also like going like to tell your parents and stuff 94 like a neighbor was trying to like—(inaudible multiple people speak) 95 Sasha: (inaudible) watch the situation 96 (multiple people talking over each other 97 T: and that’s how they 98 can take advantage of you 99 How scary 100 Josh: I gotta be honest though 101 if I’m walking down the street and an army of second graders start making whale noises and running at 102 me I gotta run 103 Students laugh 104 T: So, 105 ok. 106 Levity, 107 levity for this serious situation 108 but that—you know you have a mob of second graders that’s not this situation 109 Yes?

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110 S9: Umm I just remember being told that if they grabbed you you’re supposed to take your thumb and 111 gouge them in the eye 112 (students laugh everyone begins talking again) 113 T: Non-participant, non-participant 114 NP: [STUDENT CONTRIBUTION NOT INCLUDED] 115 T: I know and I’m imagining a second grader trying to stomp and I’m like don’t get so 116 close that you’re stomping on someone’s feet 117 you know? 118 And then what were you gonna say? 119 S10: Well I was just gonna say that they told us to come up with like a safe word 120 or like a code word 121 so they were like “Oh my mom told me to pick you up” and you’re like “what’s the word?” 122 T: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah 123 S10: Which I think is actually smart 124 T: sure sure sure 125 ?: Mine was pickles 126 Inaudible 127 T:So let me, 128 let me share this with you 129 I don’t know that it’s true 130 I don’t wanna make assumptions 131 we’ve already had the conversation here but I’ll just tell you what happened in my second period. 132 Before we had that conversation 133 specifically like we just did now 134 I asked “raise your hand if you remember that program [a local safety-town type program] just before we even talk about it” 135 The girls raised their hands

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136 and I think 2 boys out of maybe 9 riased their hands 137 It was mostly girls who raised their hands 138 and I don’t know about that Like 139 is that because you were reinforced 140 that story was reinforced as you got older 141 and you had other conversations with your parents 142 I don’t know 143 What else do you want to add before I’m going to draw a conclusion about this? 144 Yeah? 145 Josh: Usually whenever I had those talks I sometimes do with my parents 146 I just sort of like 147 in the back of my mind sort of dismiss it. 148 Not as like, I don’t trust what they’re saying but like I, 149 this probably isn’t going to happen and even then I’m probably going to be fine. 150 I can usually manage those kinds of situations and probably get out of that 151 Like even now 152 my brother’s taking karate because for some reason he feels that he’s the defender of the family like if we ever got attacked he needs to know self defense. 153 T: there was no underlying judgement there at all was there. (laughing) 154 For some reason he feels he needs to be (laughs) Ok. 155 Josh: he keeps trying to teach me some of it too. 156 It’s actually (inaudible) 157 T: I picked up on that. 158 Ok so for some reason you felt like that 159 wasn’t something 160 those scenarios didn’t need to be kept in the forefront of your mind. 161 You were ok. 162 Ok. 163 Were you gonna say something?

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164 Ryan: I was just gonna say that maybe some guys they kind like pick and chose what they wanted to do 165 and what they wanted to hear 166 Because 167 I guess there would be something that would never happen to me like my neighbor would come grab 168 me or something like that 169 Because I don’t know speaking from a guy perspective kind of 170 you wouldn’t think that would happen you would think (inaudible) or something like that 171 Like it’d be more 172 I don’t know 173 I don’t know how to say 174 it’s like a more super dangerous situation 175 maybe that’s (inaudible) 176 T: Cuz it wasn’t dangerous enough 177 because you weren’t talking about weapons 178 is that what you’re saying? 179 RYAN: I don’t know cuz like I guess, cuz like uhh 180 T: what is happening (laughs) 181 RYAN: I don’t know like it gets sometimes 182 Some people pick and chose maybe that’s why they don’t remember it 183 T: Ok the scenarios you mean 184 you don’t choose the scenarios. 185 S11: Like I remember some but I don’t remember like the 186 screaming in a low voice and stuff like that 187 T: Ok because it may not have 188 A piece of you didn’t you just part of what you said say, 189 you wouldn’t imagine that scenario ever happening? 190 RYAN: yeah

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191 T: ok so sort of rejecting this proposed argument 192 RYAN: yeah 193 T: a little bit, 194 like “Ok you’re saying I could be in this situation but I’m probably not” 195 yeah alright. 196 SASHA: From my experience (inaudible) 197 Like we’re watching a video and it’ll be a like a girl about to be taken 198 and even the people who came to come do the scenarios 199 they were both girls and like 200 I think that (inaudible) 201 T: The messages. 202 Yeah and I do think that’s reinforced for girls in so many ways as you continue to grow up 203 and I don’t know if it’s rea- 204 I don’t know if reinforced in the same number of ways for 205 boys 206 Ok so this is what I’m gonna say 207 I want you to listen to it first and then I’ll say it again and I want you to write it down in some way 208 For some reason 209 there is an aspect of your identity 210 that is either 211 keeping those situations in the forefront of your mind 212 or there is an aspect of your identity that is allowing you to not think about it 213 I don’t know what those aspects of identity are 214 they might be your sex whether male or female 215 um it might be your race in certain situations 216 It might be your class 217 it might be your stature.

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218 Right? 219 How tall you are 220 how much space you take up 221 There is some aspect of your identity that has allowed you 222 to either hang on to “oh my gosh I’m going to be in that situation” 223 or let it slide 224 That’s what I need you to write down 225 There is some aspect of your identity that is allowing you to 226 pay attention 227 to the situation 228 or I’m gonna use this word, 229 dismiss it. 230 And I say dismiss it, that’s gonna show up in 2 ways. 231 1. “Yeah I don’t think that’s gonna happen to me” 232 2. “I don’t even remember it” 233 right? 234 Both of those, so it’s consciously dismissing 235 or unconsciously dismissing. 236 So do you have that down? 237 Ok. 238 Now let’s talk about the danger of that. 239 If we dismiss, 240 if we are able to 241 because of whatever aspect of our identity allows us. 242 If we are able to dismiss an experience that someone has 243 because that wouldn’t happen to me or 244 “no it’s not race Ms. Night it’s class. 245 Ima be paying attention to what they’re wearing.

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246 If it’s a business suit I’m fine but if it’s some like 247 big baggy clothing and its 2 o clock in the morning 248 it’s gonna be class for me everytime. 249 No Ms. Night it’s gonna be sex. I’m a woman and if it’s a man coming toward me in the middle of the night, that’s what it is”. 250 If your aspect of your identity allows you to dismiss someone else’s experience 251 you’re in danger of 2 things, 252 1. 253 Erasing it. 254 Right like it doesn’t exist 255 erasing that person’s experience and oh my goodness what if it’s a whole groups experience. 256 So again, 257 if you can dismiss someone’s experience because it’s not yours, something allows you to dismiss it, 258 you’re in danger of erasing that person’s experience 259 or 260 you’re in danger of rejecting it and saying it’s not true. 261 So think about first of all what that feels like on an individual level. 262 Have you ever been in a situation where the group is saying 263 “this happens, this happens” and you’re going, 264 “that’s not my experience 265 I’m just telling you that’s not my experience” and everyone’s going “c’mon you know that happens” 266 and you’re like “well actually 267 I don’t have that experience” 268 You know what that feels like, it doesn’t feel 269 like you’re being heard perhaps sometimes, 270 but if it’s a whole groups experience and someone’s dismissing or claiming it doesn’t happen,

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271 now we have 272 erased and rejected a piece of society 273 and that’s how you keep the hierarchy right? 274 That’s how you get the isms, 275 the sexism, the racism, 276 ok, so , 277 my goal 278 this year 279 is to get you to try out, 280 hold for a moment a different argument. 281 Hold for a moment someone elses argument 282 and recognize that you might be 283 dismissing it too easily or dismissing it at all. 284 So let’s go back to Staples. 285 I had people write down that the argument was 286 people shouldn’t treat Black people, people shouldn’t judge Black people unfairly. 287 That’s not his argument. 288 What is his argument? 289 We’ve already, in part we’ve already rejected it and that’s a problem. 290 What is his argument 291 You have it written down, Lauren what’s his argument? 292 Lauren: Inaudible 293 T: Ok you have it (inaudible gestures to other side of the room and her ear) 294 Lauren: Other pedestrians view Black people as threatening and dangerous therefore changing their body language and actions in a 295 concerning way 296 T: Ok who’s changing the actions, who’s changing their actions? 297 Lauren: The pedestrians 298 ?: Black people

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299 T: Ok so so both Right? 300 So this is what happens 301 when you look at that second part of the title, 302 he’s arguing that the Black male body 303 changes public space. 304 When the Black male body enters the public space 305 things change 306 Right? People react to it. 307 And that what happens in order to 308 in part 309 make things less dangerous for him, 310 what’s the result of that? 311 What’s the next action. 312 ?: He adapts to the circumstances 313 T: He adapts to the circumstances, 314 he makes the change. 315 So the Black male body, 316 his argument is, 317 changes public space 318 and therefore it is the Black male 319 who will change and adapt. 320 This is not to say that he doesn’t share his reactions to that treatment, he does, 321 but by the end of the piece, he’s not making a, he’s not standing on a soapbox going “this shouldn’t happen” 322 he’s simply saying it does. 323 Why do you think he needs to simply say it does? 324 That the Black male body alters public space. 325 Why does he need to say that? 326 ?: People don’t believe it

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327 T: Yeah because people don’t believe it. 328 Because people don’t believe it and typically 329 when a writer sits down to write an essay and feels that this argument needs to be put out there, 330 it’s in response to an opposing societal argument 331 right? 332 So that’s probably not something that we’ve thought about At least it didn’t show up in your quizzes yesterday. 333 You wanted to make his argument immediately lead to “ooh something should be done about this” 334 But if he’s just back in 335 “you have to acknowledge the argument, you have to believe me that this exists 336 because if you don’t believe me that this exists 337 then nothing’s gonna change” 338 So that’s where his argument lies 339 So we need to be aware of what about us 340 what aspects of our identity allow us to dismiss 341 Stop 342 think about it 343 and try to hold that argument in your hand for a while 344 On the moral level 345 that’s going to bring you closer together right? 346 That’s inclusive, that’s not exclusive it’s not divisive 347 On the classroom testing level um 348 this is what you’re doing in a rhetorical analysis. 349 You’re not evaluating, you’re just analyzing what’s happening. 350 And if you evaluate and say “Oh no no I don’t agree” 351 you’re not doing an analysis right? 352 You’re making your own argument.

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353 So I want to show you for the classroom idea, 354 we’re gonna visually play this out. So I need 4 volunteers. 355 Ok, just walk up. 356 S?: She said just walk up 357 T: You get just walked on by,right? Cuz he has to do that, and other people do that to him. So let’s see. (moves podium) 358 Ok I need somebody behind that podium, 359 OH you know what turn it so it’s facing them. 360 Try it this way. 361 Ok I need somebody on the stool. 362 Ok then I need you 2, you’re going to stand behind this table and face the front of the room. 363 Ok, I’m gonna try to show you a visual of this. 364 So Irene is the writer. 365 She’s the speaker she’s the rhetor, right? 366 She’s the writer. 367 She’s making the argument. 368 To whom is she making the argument? 369 S?: Lisa 370 T: Yeah Lisa, so Lisa is the? 371 Students: audience 372 Audience 373 Lisa is the audience. Alright? 374 (T hands paper to Irene) this is the argument 375 You wanna tailor it to your audience, 376 so you have to imagine what do you know, 377 what do you think Lisa knows about the subject matter right? 378 What does Lisa know about you, 379 what do you know about the subject matter?

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380 And how are you going to tailor that all to persuade her? 381 So you’re going to make this argument to your audience. 382 Ok, back there, 383 they are, 384 you. The student. 385 Like wait a minute, am I the audience? 386 Yes. But when you’re going to take this ap lang comp exam and you are 387 analyzing this white argument right there, 388 you’re the student. 389 So I want you to imagine that they’re the same person. 390 get closer together. 391 They’re the same person, ok? 392 They are the student singular 393 If you’re the student analyzing a writers argument 394 rhetorically, 395 you need to simultaneously be in 2 place at once. 396 Go 397 where you need to be? 398 Simultaneously. If you’re gonna analyze that argument I need you to stand in 2 places at once, so one of you be in one place. 399 I bet you can figure it out, 400 there you go. 401 Right? 402 Ok, so the same person, 403 you the writer, 404 has to stand in the shoes, 405 or you the student has to stand in the shoes of the writer right? 406 And know what that writer is trying to argue,

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407 and you have to stand in the shoes of the audience and experience what that might feel like. 408 Ok so look 409 here are the effects on the audience, 410 she’s making the moves (referencing student with the writer) 411 She’s making the rhetorical moves (points to audience) 412 audiences experiencing them. 413 You have to be in both places. 414 Now here’s what I want to show you. 415 If you as the 416 so go ahead, why don’t you hold the argument? Right? 417 Cuz the student needs to actually hold that argument in your hands 418 as the writer and as the audience. 419 Yeah, ok, 420 if you as the student approach a text 421 and you reject the writer’s argument, 422 you dismiss it, 423 you don’t see it, 424 there is no way that you can analyze this. 425 That’s done. 426 If you immediately approach this essay and go “it’s class, it’s not race” 427 you can’t analyze how that transfer happens, right? 428 Do you see that? 429 That’s the thing. 430 That is it. 431 So I don’t care if you walk away from class and you say, 432 “I have my own ideas about affirmative action Ms. Night and in fact I don’t think race is even a problem 433 in our society”

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434 You go and deal with that 435 I don’t care 436 but if you’re trying to use this skill of analysis 437 of rhetorical analysis you must hold it in your hand for a moment 438 ok? 439 So they’re gonna stand there for just another 2 minutes 440 and you’re going to write down in your own 441 words what we just illustrated, 442 cuz that’s so important for the rest of the year 443 What did we just illustrate? 444 A lot of things. 445 You have to simultaneously stand in 2 places. 446 And you have to do something in order to do something 447 else. 448 (Approximately 1 minute later) This is so important this is the whole year.

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