Writing in the Dialogical Classroom: Students and Teachers Responding to the Texts of Their Lives

by Bob Fecho

In the dialogical classroom, students use writing to explore who they are becoming and how they relate to the larger culture around them. Dialogical writing combines academic and personal writing; allows writers to bring multiple voices to the work; Involves thought, reflection, and engagement across time and space; and creates opportunities for substantive and ongoing meaning making. How can we, as teachers, carve out space in our literacy classrooms for a more dialogical approach to writing? Focusing on adolescent learners, Bob Fecho argues that teachers need to develop writing experiences that are reflective across time in order to foster even deeper explorations of subject matter, and he creates an ongoing conversation between classroom practice, theory, and research to show how each informs the others. Drawing on NCTE Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing, this book illustrates the empowerment that can result from dialogical writing even as it examines the complications of implementing this approach in the classroom. In this book, you will discover how to fashion a dialogical writing program that meets your and your students’ needs. Fecho helps you get there by providing a window into the classrooms of middle and high school teachers who are engaged in a dialogue with their practices. You’ll see how these teachers enact practice in different contexts, and you’ll hear them explain the essentials of their teaching as they demonstrate how dialogical classrooms depend on context and are forever in a state of becoming. The dialogical often messy, complex, thoughtful, and inspired, but most of all, full of potential.

119 pages, Paperback

First published March 28, 2011

About the author

Bob Fecho is Professor of English Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Near the commencement of the book, there was a chapter heading titled, "What is a dialogical classroom?" to which Fecho wrote, "my first response is to suggest that you should just be patient and read the book. It will eventually become clear" (p. 5). Of course, he provides a working definition shortly after, but one that needs a lot of unpacking (like, say, the the rest of the book).

After completing the book I don't think a dialogical classroom is something that's hard to be summed up in just a sentence or two, but I'll give it a shot: a dialogical is one in which instructors connect students to their lives--their families, their cultures, and their interests in ways that naturally lead to student autonomy, choice, and engagement. That's only a small clip of some of the notes I took in reflecting on what is meant by a dialogical classroom, but I'll extend the same invitation Fecho did and invite you to read the book.