Critical, reflective engagement with ‘literary’ text in senior cycle Irish schools: multimodal, social semiotic analyses

Author(s):

Anthony Malone(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

03. Curriculum Innovation

Format:

Paper

Session Information

03 SES 09 B, Underpinnings of Curriculum Change

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-04

11:00-12:30

Room:

B111 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Wilmad Kuiper

Contribution

This paper sets out to explore how the teaching of literary text (poetry, drama and fiction) is experienced and critically realized inside Irish senior cycle classrooms of English. These classrooms have been subject to significant curricular, policy, cultural and social change up to and since 1999 when the Revised Senior Cycle English syllabus (the ‘Leaving Certificate’) was initiated in second level schools. It espoused a new, more defined emphasis on critical literacy and its stated aim to develop in students ‘a mature and critical literacy’ and ‘higher-order thinking skills of analysis, inference, synthesis and evaluation’ (DES1999: 2). At its core the syllabus encourages students to resist text; to challenge its meanings and to stand outside its immediacy. There are however significant questions regarding the extent to which these curricular aims have been achieved and the extent to which students are able, enabled and perhaps more importantly, willing to critically and reflectively engage with text.

This paper will focus on how lessons are framed, interpretation anchored and what critical, reflective engagement(s) with literary text come to look like. It questions, so as to understand, the extent to which the pedagogic culture inside these classrooms offers individuals opportunities to critically, reflectively engage with literary text and the extent to which teachers and students work collaboratively and democratically in critically raising questions about the world of the text; its power relations, its discourses and its eclectic identities. Those instances where teachers and students critically engage with literary text are examined alongside the organizational culture within these mediated spaces. The paper interrogates whether the pedagogic approach is characterized more by ‘reproduction’ (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1970) than by co-constructionist, democratic ‘liberation’ (Freire, 1970). It questions whose world is afforded primacy and how do individuals, particularly students, engage as a result of trying to operate within different discourse spaces which engagement with varying literary texts demands?

Viewed through the lens of multimodality and activity theory critical, reflective engagement with literary text is herein conceptualized as a motivated, inherently social activity mediated by interaction with cultural artefacts (Säljö 1999) such as physical tools (texts, pens, highlighters, etc…) mental tools (pedagogic strategies, interpretative frameworks, etc…) virtual tools (websites, alternate technologies) and conceptual tools (philosophical rationales, theories, etc..). The paper will specifically focus on the classroom as mediated space within which interpersonal, critical interactions are socially constructed.

The focus of this paper is not just specifically an Irish concern and there has been, and continues to be, a significant international emphasis towards connecting critical literacy with an active, responsible citizenship that supports personal empowerment and an enriched life through lifelong learning (OECD 2003).

In summary this work is deeply concerned with matters such the organizational culture inside senior cycle classrooms and how interaction and democracy are framed and realized. Are there students who live out lives of silence within the classroom space and whose existence rests somewhere between words and worlds? This work is about rekindling a passion for the critically reflective and democratic ideals of education. The rationale and aims of this work therefore saliently echoes those of Dewey (1938) who saw the goals of education as advancing students’ abilities to understand, articulate, and more significantly to act democratically within their social milieu. Democratic principles are essential to all forms of critical engagement in class.

Given that this is a relatively large scale project the intention at EERC is not to present an exhaustive account but rather to focus on specific details such the methodological approach and key findings.

Method

Theoretical Underpinning A consistent theme in sociocultural theory is that development of both community and participating members, whether undertaken as part of communities of practice or activity systems, occurs through mode-mediated productive activity. For Halliday (1978) a ‘social reality (or a culture) is itself an edifice of meanings – a semiotic construct’ (Halliday 1978: 2). Social semiotics and multimodality, as theoretical frameworks, seek to analyse and interpret the complexity of social interaction through analysis of varying historical, social and culturally shaped resources referred to as modes or semiotic resources. In multimodal discourse, varied modes such as spatial arrangement, gesture, head movement, spoken language and so on undertake specialized tasks in order to meet the communicational demands of the context in which they are used. These modes never occur by themselves (Kress et al. 2005) and multimodal interactional analysis seeks to understand how these modes combine with one another to produce more complex, modulated meanings. The multimodal approach that’s intended here draws on the project works of Kress et al. (2001, 2005) and Bezemer and Kress (2008). Their work explicated the array of factors that shape school English, describing how it is fashioned and realised inside classrooms and for these reasons is an entirely appropriate methodological framework for the conduct of this study. Methodology This study comprised a series of ethnographic, social semiotic case method studies conducted across three case sites. Given the research questions and the social semiotic approach to multimodal research the more appropriate methodological approach was qualitative. Data was gathered using five distinctive, but complementary methods over the course of two academic years (2011-2013) through varied techniques including direct observation of the relevant lessons and digital audio-visual recording of these lessons. The research also involved a series of one to one in-depth interviews with participant teachers and focus group interviews with students. These focused principally on matters identified in the research questions so as to better understand the various forms of critical, reflective engagement(s) with literary text in the classroom; what these come to look like; how they are construed; the conditions under which they take place and the pedagogic variations of these critical engagements.

Expected Outcomes

There is a perceptible dearth of research into the teaching of literary texts and promotion of critical literacy practices in senior cycle Irish classrooms. To date two key analyses (Mullins 2002; Lyons 2003) have been undertaken; neither of which adequately aligned to the tenets set out in this research. The work is ongoing but it is hoped that completion of the study will make a significant contribution to the curricular and pedagogic discourse on the teaching of literary texts at post-primary level in Ireland and further a field. The research will be of interest to educational practitioners, policy makers (Inspectorate and various curricular agencies); researchers engaged in classroom based research and teachers of English. An overview of the physical arrangement and use of space along with an analysis of teacher movement, proxemics and the nature and interactions in these classes reveals a spectrum of discourse positions and perspectives taken up by teachers ranging from liberal (students reflectively ‘reading their world.’) to conservative (‘emphasizing the richness of meanings and recreational pleasure to be encountered in literature’). Other representative yet less dominant discourse positions include reference to Personal Growth models and Aesthetic models. Other findings highlight despite best intentions, the critically reflective, critical-creative dimension in teaching English literary text will all too often get neglected in the sometimes frantic pursuit of achievement in terminal examinations. Although by international standards post-primary education in Ireland has largely been more praised than criticized the system continues to remain significantly in the grip of exam-centered attitudes and practices. Counteracting these realities demands public, collective reflection and acknowledgement of how consciously and/or unconsciously power and status are used to exert influence and suppress critique and dissent. Initiating and supporting a culture of democratic reflection can assist in understanding how knowledge has been created and managed.

References

Behrman, E. H. (2006) ‘Teaching about Language, Power and Text: A Review of Classroom Practices that Support Critical Literacy’ in Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 49 (6). Comber, B. and Simpson, A. (2001) Negotiating Critical Literacies in Classrooms (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates). Culler, J. (1981) The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). Department of Education and Science (1999) The Leaving Certificate English Syllabus (Dublin: Government Publications Office). Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education (New York: The Free Press). Engeström, Y. (1996) Perspectives on Activity Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Freire, P. (1973) Education for Critical Consciousness (New York: Seabury). Halliday, M.A.K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning (Baltimore: University Park Press). Jewitt, C. (2007) ‘A Multimodal Perspective on Textuality and Contexts’ in Pedagogy and Culture 15 (3): 275- 290. Kress, G. (2011) ‘Discourse Analysis and Education: A Multimodal Social Semiotic Approach’ in Rogers, R. (2nd Edition) Critical Discourse Analysis in Education (New York and London: Routledge) 205-226.

Author Information

Anthony Malone (presenting / submitting)

National University of Ireland

Kildare

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