ABSTRACT
This chapter describes ways of fostering dialogic discussions about literary texts through the use of “relational responding” based on interactions between students engaged in sharing their responses. Fostering dialogic discussions goes beyond teachers’ use of initiate–respond–evaluation control of discussions to employ open-ended questions that invite multiple, alternative responses between students, use flexible seating, recognize cultural differences in language use, support tentative thinking, think-alouds, and informal writing to prepare students for discussion. They can also invite students to create their own questions as well as encourage connections between texts and students’ own life experiences, go beyond “story-driven” responses to “point-driven” responses, and identify emotions associated with responding to texts. Teachers benefit from reflection on their discussion facilitation by recording discussions and noting the extent to which students engage in dialogic interactions. Teachers can also employ informal writing activities through freewriting, annotations/note-taking, rewriting texts, and blog writing to foster student’s responses. For more formal writing, teachers have students engage in argumentative writing to generate and support claims about texts, leading to providing reader-based, descriptive feedback to encourage further revision of writing.
