Litteratursamtalens danningspotensial

Abstract

In this article, I use the literary conversation as example while I investigate how the relationship between teacher, student and text can be significant and thus have a potential for the formation of students. Both Gert Biesta and Wolfgang Klafki clarifies the teacher’s responsibility and role in facilitating students’ opportunities to bring out this potential. The article shows in particular how Biestas concepts of ‘trust’, ‘violence’ and ‘responsibility’ can describe the dynamic relation between teacher and pupils in a learning situation. It also shows how the teacher must identify the substance in a content in order to present this in a way that gives meaning for the learner. The literary conversation that serves as example in the article, is a conversation among a teacher and four pupils about the fictional children’s book Brune (2013). The pupils are all 10 years old, and live in Bergen, Norway. My research shows that the literary text and the conversation following it strengthen the pupils’ ability to reflect ethically and esthetically because the book challenges their established ideas, while the actual conversation invites them to respond with their own voices and thus allows them to act as independent participants in the group.

Keywords

• Education
• literature conversation
• formation
• learning situation