ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the aforementioned questions with specific regard to Mr. Watson’s 12th-grade classroom as a way to explore intertextuality and indexicality as part of a model of Dialogic Literary Argumentation—Constructing Intertextuality and Indexicality in the Teaching, Learning, and Reading of Literature. Mr. Watson developed the theme of “learning about ourselves and the world” to guide his curriculum and instruction across the school year. He considered that despite the varied motivation level, interests, and needs of his students, Dialogic Literary Argumentation could be the “vehicle” to help students make sense of and communicate their own life experiences and make “connect[ions] between different types of texts.” Over time, as Mr. Watson and his 12th-grade students shifted from “learning to argue” to “arguing to learn,” their reading, discussion, and writing practices shifted to critiquing diverse perspectives and to making intertextual connections among literary texts.
