Material Texts as Objects in Interaction – Constraints and Possibilities in Relation to Dialogic Reading Instruction

Abstract

In this article we focus on the role of texts as material objects in the interaction between a teacher and her students in Swedish grade nine, working with critical reading of argumentative texts. With a Conversation Analysis approach, we investigate how texts are used as material objects in the organization of interaction between students and their teacher, as well as between students during group work. We also discuss what pedagogical implications the role of texts as material objects have for dialogicity in critical reading instruction. The result shows that texts as material objects are vital for the organization of interaction as they are used as resources in negotiating responsibility and primacy as well as for the distribution of turns between participants and to accomplish a representation of the answer to a reading task. A conclusion is that an intention to support dialogicity in reading instruction requires awareness of how dialogic and critical aspects of reading easily become subordinated to the aim of problem solving in classrooms as task work is organized around texts that are also material objects.

Keywords

• Classroom interaction
• conversation analysis
• dialogicity
• reading instruction