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TALKING BEYOND THE TEXT: IDENTIFYING AND FOSTERING CRITICAL TALK IN A MIDDLE SCHOOL CLASSROOM _____________________________________________ A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School University of Missouri-Columbia _____________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy _____________________________________________ by JENNIFER L. WILSON Dr. Carol Gilles, Dissertation Supervisor DECEMBER 2004 © copyright by Jennifer L. Wilson 2004 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is a result of the support from many individuals. First, Dr. Carol Gilles, my advisor, my mentor, my slave driver, my surrogate mother, thank you for pushing me to achieve more than I thought I could. Your thoughtful questions challenged me. Your linguistic knowledge expanded my repertoire (especially with prepositions). Your “professional nudgings” helped me to imagine new possibilities. Your endless patience enabled me to grow. I cannot thank you enough for your support throughout my entire doctoral program. I also want to thank my committee members. Each of you have been flexible, thoughtful, and insightful. Dr. Fox, I have valued your intelligence, confidence, and down-to earth personality throughout my whole graduate experience. Dr. Placier, you have given me a wonderful example of a competent, strong female academic. Dr. Robinson, you have kept my spirits up at all times with your jokes, advice, and overall happiness. Dr. Hobbs, your larger world view and your sociological ideas gave us all a fresh perspective on critical talk. I also want to thank Kathryn Mitchell Pierce, the classroom teacher in this dissertation. Kathryn allowed me to sit in and observe her first year of teaching middle school. She frequently took time to talk with me during the data collection, discussed the emerging themes during data analysis, provided feedback on the written dissertation, and presented with me at two conferences. She is truly a master teacher and a valued colleague. I thank also my friends and colleagues who listened to me complain and shared in my victories. Thank you, Martille, for reading numerous drafts, listening to me talk out my entire dissertation, and participating in the Tuesday Night Dinner Club. Meredith, ii thank you for the beer-and-chicken wing support group. I never knew that two people could eat that many chicken wings while maintaining a somewhat intellectual conversation. Thank you, Tiffany, for the endless long distance phone calls and the artistic advice on my models. Last, I want to thank all my colleagues and peers in the ABCD group. Those who were ahead of me provided inspiration. Those who are finishing after me have provided encouragement and laughter to help me through the process. I want a special thank you for Matt. If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have even started my Ph.D. You encouraged me to follow my dreams and supported me during even the roughest times. You listened, read, and discussed more educational issues than most teachers have even considered. And I can’t say enough about your amazing editing skills. Thank you for being a wonderful friend throughout my entire graduate career. I could never forget my family, who admittedly received the brunt of my stress. Though they were often confounded as to why this was so important to me, they never wavered on their support. They provided me with emotional sustenance, financial security, and wonderful home-cooking. From them, I learned the value of hard work, a positive attitude, and a loving family. iii TALKING BEYOND THE TEXT: IDENTIFYING AND FOSTERING CRITICAL TALK IN A MIDDLE SCHOOL CLASSROOM Jennifer L. Wilson Dr. Carol Gilles, Dissertation Supervisor ABSTRACT Purpose: This study serves two purposes: 1) to observe a master teacher/researcher in order to determine how to enact, nurture, and sustain critical talk and 2) to provide another layer to the critical literacy discussion by illustrating the critical talk that occurred in a middle school classroom. Procedures: This naturalistic, qualitative inquiry examined eighty-one transcribed student and teacher discussions, teacher and student interviews and artifacts, and field notes to determine the type of talk that occurred as the teacher invited small groups of students to take part in dialogue prompted by literature. The analysis occurred in two phases. First, data was coded to determine how a teacher facilitates critical talk. The second phase occurred as ten transcripts were selected by the classroom teacher and researcher for in- depth analysis. Using techniques borrowed from grounded theory and three different lenses (content analysis, discourse analysis, and general semantics), the ten transcripts were analyzed to provide deeper insight into the nature of critical talk. Findings: The context of the study and four additional themes emerged from this data to answer the question: how does one teacher enact, nurture, and sustain critical talk? The four themes included teacher’s knowledge, processing time, various forms of scaffolding, and oral rubrics. During the in-depth analysis of the ten selected transcripts, additional themes of the nature of critical talk emerged. First, students explored critical concepts such as recognizing a need for action; becoming aware of injustices; and challenging the iv status quo. Also, student talk scaled the ladder of abstraction, offering concrete examples that made the discussions more applicable to their lives, while at the same time traveling up the ladder, abstracting the issues to begin to explore larger more systemic causes of particular injustices. Second, some students believed that they were changed by the interactions while others felt as if they had gained new understandings of particular concepts, issues, or beliefs. Conclusions: A continuum of the type of talk that emerged from the classroom data can be superimposed upon a larger understanding of the role of critical conversations in a classroom. The continuum shows how students’ talk moves among social talk, fundamental text talk, socio-interpretive text talk, critical talk, and critical conversations. As students travel along the continuum, various needs can be met. As teachers recognize where students’ talk is on the continuum, they can lead students to deeper literature study discussions. In order to help students take a more critical approach when discussing texts, teachers must scaffold the talk and provide the time for students to grapple with critical concepts. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………....ii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...iv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………..1 Significance of the Study………………………………………………………….2 Theoretical Underpinnings………………………………………………………...3 Purpose of the Study……………………………………………………………..10 The Research Questions………………………………………………………….11 Procedures………………………………………………………………………..11 Limitations……………………………………………………………………….12 Organization of the Study………………………………………………………..13 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………14 I. Adolescents and Middle Schools……………………………………………....14 Adolescents………………………………………………………………14 Middle School Philosophy……………………………………………….16 Middle Level Integration………………………………………………...18 Summary…………………………………………………………………23 II. Classroom Talk……………………………………………………………….24 Theory……………………………………………………………………25 Recent Research on Talk………………………………………………...29 Summary…………………………………………………………………38 III. Literature Study……………………………………………………………...39 vi Theory That Informs Literature Study…………………………………...39 History of Literature Study………………………………………………40 Logistics………………………………………………………………….43 Recent Research………………………………………………………….44 Summary…………………………………………………………………55 IV. Critical Literacy……………………………………………………………...55 Theory……………………………………………………………………56 Classroom Talk…………………………………………………………..59 Critical Conversations……………………………………………………61 Summary…………………………………………………………………66 V. Summary……………………………………………………………………...66 CHAPTER THREE: METHODS………………………………………………………..69 Rationale…………………………………………………………………………69 Approach…………………………………………………………………………69 Questions…………………………………………………………………………71 Context…………………………………………………………………………...71 Data Collection…………………………………………………………………..73 Initial Data Analysis……………………………………………………………..77 In-Depth Analysis of Critical Talk………………………………………………80 Ethical Considerations in Naturalistic Research…………………………………85 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS………………………………………………………….88 Questions One……………………………………………………………………88 Context…………………………………………………………………...88 vii Pierce’s Philosophy………………………………………………89 Middle School Environment……………………………………..92 Language Arts-Social Studies Curriculum………………………97 Pedagogy………………………………………………………..107 Additional Themes……………………………………………………...112 Teacher Knowledge…………………………………………….112 Processing Time………………………………………………...120 Various Forms of Scaffolding…………………………………..126 Oral Rubric……………………………………………………...137 Summary………………………………………………………………..145 Question Two…………………………………………………………………...145 Context of Selected Transcripts………………………………………...146 Defining Critical Talk…………………………………………………..153 Fundamental Book Talk………………………………………...154 Socio-interpretive Text Talk……………………………………155 Critical Talk…………………………………………………….158 Identifying Critical Talk………………………………………………..164 Critical Literacy Concepts……………………………………...165 Types of Talk…………………………………………………...177 Participation…………………………………………………….187 Overlapping the Features of Critical Talk……………………...201 Characteristics of Critical Talk…………………………………………204 Transformation………………………………………………….205 viii

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