ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a model of Dialogic Literary Argumentation. Dialogic Literary Argumentation is more than a shift in instructional methods for teaching literature and argument: it is a shift in the underlying conception and philosophy of teaching, learning, and reading literature. One place to begin examining the nature of the social construction of intertextuality and indexicality that contributes to crafting Dialogic Literary Argumentation is by listing the texts Ms. Field and her students have been using in their discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird. The social construction of intertextuality and indexicality are part of how people, teachers and students, construct classroom events characterizable as Dialogic Literary Argumentation. The teaching of literature has been dominated by four literary ideological frameworks: New Criticism, reader response, interpretive communities, and critical theory. Many literary theorists and scholars have argued for approaching literature as an exploration of the human condition, even if they differ in how they define “the human condition”.
