Significance to Future Practice

 Affordances

• “It’s amazing to be able to develop an idea and see others' perspectives.”

• “I was afraid to share my idea and now I somewhat comfortable.”

• “So far it’s been fun. It’s different from me trying to prove a point.”

• “I feel I am becoming a better speaker.”

• “I get to see others' ideas which helps me think of better ideas and I get to know others' points of view.”

• “My experience developing skills is getting somewhat better because dialogic learning forces me to think and participate.”

• “I am being more comfortable with expressing my ideas and talking to people I normally wouldn't talk to.”

• “I start to consider others' perspectives and ideas other than just developing my own ideas. This is a really hard thing to do but it makes me be more reasonable.”

• “It is helping me understand more as we claim our thoughts and ideas. It is also helping me to develop my speaking and sharing what I really want to say.”

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Challenges

• “I feel really awkward being in the middle of the conversation.”

• “It was tense and nerve-wracking because I don’t feel like talking to others I don’t know.”

• “I feel kind of uncomfortable because sometimes what I want to say doesn't fit in with what others are saying.”

• “My experience is average: I feel okay about talking to others but not crazy about it.”

• “Honestly, it was really hard for me to do it. I was struggling really bad. I would be at home and just stressing out thinking about how I'm going to be or what I'm going to say in the dialogue. However, I think it's really important for us students to learn these skills because we need them in the future especially us who have plans to go to college.”

 

Effects on Following Artifacts

Because the survey was administered soon before the Socratic seminar, I applied their responses heavily to the construction of said seminar. With seeming sincerity, students expressed value in seeing "others' perspectives" and "points of view" as opposed to just "[proving] a point" or "developing [their] own ideas." Consequently, I designed the Socratic seminar scoring rubric validate students' "speaking out" as equally as possible to their capacity for/evidence of "taking in." In short, for AP's Socratic seminar (as opposed to English 2) speaking was not mandatory. ​

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Contributions to Inquiry

Ostensibly, the most elucidating piece of data to emerge from the survey was that 96.6% of the 29 students reported that "being a more comfortable dialogic learner is a worthwhile skill" (statement 1). Students find the effort worth the struggle––despite the peculiarity of the teaching and learning model, despite possible social anxiety, despite being English learners, etc. The "worth" students find in dialogism potentially comes from their application of dialogism to out-of-class situations (which 75.9% of students reported doing) and from dialogism's relevance to collegiate education, in which AP students would naturally be interested (statement 2). Dr. Mary J. Schleppegrell (2001) from the University of California, Davis, in her analysis of "the linguistic features of the language of schooling," notes that "grammar and lexical choices" made by students and in-class texts lead to "highly structured" and "more densely structured" productions (p. 441).  The grammar, lexical choices, and even social circumstances demanded by in-class dialogism are likely more attractive to AP students because their sights are more intimately locked on collegiate futures. 

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My students were honest about their struggles and concerns with dialogism––and they were also honest about how relatively high they valued dialogism. The survey reveals that dialogism was "real" enough for my students for them to lean in to dialogism's academic adversity.

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