Dialogue and defamiliarization: The conceptual framing of an intervention for challenging readers and improving the quality of literature discussions

Abstract

To lead discussions about complex literary texts in a classroom of teenagers is no doubt a challenging task for many teachers. It is therefore meaningful to explore how teachers’ management of literature discussions can be supported and improved. Prior research indicates a positive relationship between certain modes of discussion and increased literary awareness. Yet observational studies underscore that open-ended, probing discussions about literature are scarce in today’s classrooms.

This article elaborates the theoretical framing of an intervention designed to improve the quality of teacher-led discussions about complex literary texts. We argue that dialogic theory, appropriate for highlighting the processes of classroom interaction, needs to be supplemented by theory that offers an explanation for the role of the literary text and its impact on both readers and their interaction processes. For this purpose, we examine the conceptual matching between theory of dialogic teaching, drawing on Bakhtin’s idea of meaning making as inherently dialogic, and theories of literary reception, specifically Shklovsky’s concept defamiliarization and recent didactical analysis of Derrida’s concept undecidability. The intention of the paper is to suggest a theoretical framing of the intervention, one that allows for both analysis of the aesthetic processes of reading and talking about literature, and specific guidance of teachers’ management of those discussions.