In the Tigers’ discussion the learners made an effort to include each other and participate to some extent in the discussion. That learners listened to each other was evident in their taking up of each other’s comments and echoing what was said in order to dialogically construct meaning. In contrast, the following transcript from the Contagious Kids (Jackie, Jude and Tessa) on The Boy who was Afraid, has different
group dynamics. In an earlier book discussion, Jackie had dominated the conversation enthusiastically but in so doing excluded the other members, so I asked Jackie on this occasion to ensure that everyone had a chance to speak.
Jackie: Ok. Ok. Jude, how was the book for you? How was the book like for you?
Jude: Boring. Jackie: Sorry? Jude: Boring.
Jackie: How was the book like for you? (to Tessa)
Tessa: Lekker13. Adventurous
Jackie: The book was for me very exciting and interesting, espec… (changes her mind) What, what was your favourite part of the book though it was boring
(to Jude)?
Jackie had recently re-discovered her interest in reading books and here goes through the motions of asking her group questions so as to elicit their viewpoints. She employs the question and answer format modelled at school and avoids engaging in the answers offered. She does not entertain the ‘discourse of the boring
book’ on the Five Conceited Kids draw as will be seen later, but instead exercises
her agency to ask about ‘favourite parts’. This dialogic turn, reflects a reader- response disposition, and allows her group members to connect differently with the
13 Lekker is Afrikaans for ‘sweet’ or in this case good or great. It is often used colloquially in English to
book and as a group, though their answers seem summative rather than exploratory. The responses about ‘favouriteparts’ follows a similar pattern to ‘How do you like the
book?’
Jude: The part when he travelled over the ocean with the dog. Jackie: And yours? Tess?
Tess: What?
Jackie: What was your favourite part of the book?
Tess: Was the part, ja when he was on the other side of that ocean and he killed different kinds of stuff for food.
Jackie: Ja mine was where he made that cone thing, that boat thingie and where he killed the boar for the teeth, ja, and where he went home.
Jackie: So do you think, umm (whispering) What’s his name?
Tess: Mafatu…
Jackie: Mafatu was brave or was he still afraid at the end? Jude: He was brave
Jackie: Why do you say he was brave? Jude: Because he overcome his fear
Jackie: And you? Do you think he was brave? Tess: Brave
Jackie: So ja I also think he think he was brave he overcomed his fear. He was the brave boy not the fear boy so that’s what we think about the book and how we feel about the book so bye
Tess: Bye.
Jackie’s understanding of discussing books seems to be based on providing succinct
answers to the prescribed questions. She is probably drawing on her experiences of school practices where one-word or one-sentence responses are required on worksheets without any real development of thought or justification for a response being required. That her group members go along with this supports the possibility that for them too, this concise answering of questions was the practice they were all familiar with. So they were drawing on familiar discourses and structures at the level of the Real to effect the emergence of these practices. Opening up other spaces and possibilities, as in the reading club, does not mean that learners will take up agency
to engage differently to probe or extend their initial responses. Patterns of engagement that are preferred in school contexts have been established and learners discipline themselves in following the school practices, even without the teacher present (Dixon, 2011) to monitor talk, or the structured worksheet to guide answers. As Dixon found with grade 1 learners, schooling discipline patterns established by teachers are taken up and perpetuated by learners themselves, so by grade 8 as in this study, discourse patterns are established as part of some learners’
habitus. In terms of their use of talk, this group’s lack of any real engagement or any attempt to understand each other’s perspective results in little evidence of the dialogic spark noted in the Tiger’s discussion above. While their talk does not devolve into what Wegerif and Mercer (1997) term disruptive talk, they also cannot
be seen to be building on knowledge cumulatively. Their only point of concord is that Mafatu is “the brave boy not the fear boy” which as the ‘correct’ answer, in school- based Discourse terms, means ‘their work is finished’. Thus socio-cultural conditioning means they continue to draw on established school-based positions prevents them from exercising agency to draw on alternative ideological positions constructing appropriate ways of behaving in the space of the reading club.
What does emerge through Jackie’s choice of questions is the ‘personal response’
discourse rather than the official ‘discourse of the book’, which was the framework given to guide group discussions. Jackie has drawn on a practice of ‘booktalk’ based on a personal enjoyment, which her group responds to though, ironically, it does not result in engaged talk. It would seem as if there is a disjuncture between a ‘personal
response’ discourse, and school dispositions towards short answers and ‘completing
the work’.
In the next vignette the Cool Cats’ discuss Seedfolks14, a new addition to the reading
clubs.
14 Through gradual participation in an informal reclaiming of a neighbourhood plot in Cleveland,
strangers engage in a communal activity of developing a garden. This process is told by the 16 different characters from a variety of different backgrounds.