Distributing agency by developing classroom activity

Abstract

This article offers two transcripts of classroom activity from a secondary comprehensive school in London. The transcripts capture passages of the same lesson, at first taught by the mainclass teacher and then by the author. Data gathered through video recording are presented as storied episodes of the activity field. By exploring the significance of visual activity as well as that of spoken discourse, comparison is made between two styles of teacher–learner interaction. Learners' acts of resistance and avoidance and the opportunities that give rise to them are considered as counteractions and as potentially productive tensions within the activity system. Bakhtin's (1981) concept of the chronotope is employed to represent activity and events in space and time. Finally, the value of teachers purposefully activating learners' agencies as a managed objective of collective action is discussed as a strategy for improving learning.

Keywords:

• classroom activity
• teacher–learner interaction
• improving learning

Notes

1. Translated from French: “…en tant que forme sociale, l'usage de l'objet est infiltré de part en part des conventions humaines qui en règlent sa définition. L'usage présente ainsi une double face, matérielle et sémiotique. Les premiers usages impliqués dans la construction de la connaissance de l'objet chez l'enfant sont les usages canoniques. Ils permettent à l'enfant d'utiliser l'objet selon son fonction et sont à l'origine de l'accomplissement de la pratique matérielle spécifique pour laquelle l'objet a été conçu. Les usages canoniques des objets sont en lien avec la construction d'un … premier monde stable au sein duquel vont s'établir un ensemble de repères importants pour l'agir enfantin dans la continuité des formes sociales existantes et des significations qu'elles recèlent (ou canons).”