‘Doing’ Persuading: Actively Constructing Knowledge, Voice and Self

ABSTRACT

I explore a series of incidents in my English classroom, which occurred while I was preparing my students for their high-stakes GCSE English Language exam (‘Paper 2: Writers’ viewpoints and perspectives’). I thereby attempt to confront some of my own failings and biases with regard to non-fiction and the teaching of persuasive writing in particular, as well as to unleash the huge potential I now believe it offers, when combined with the multi-voiced space of a classroom, for creative play and the productive skills of English. In doing so I argue, drawing on Vygotskian notions of the internalisation of concepts and the developmental benefits of play, that in order for truly ‘productive’ learning to occur, students need agency and a sense of empowerment to construct knowledge together, and to experiment with and develop their understanding of and flexibility with their own ‘voice’.

KEYWORDS:

• Examinations
• persuasive writing
• voice
• viewpoints
• drama
• play
• development
• identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. All names have been changed to culturally appropriate pseudonyms.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Molly Davies

Molly Davies trained as an actor after completing her degree in English Language and Literature. Having left acting for the field of education, she worked as a Teaching Assistant and literacy co-ordinator in a mixed school in North London for two years, before undertaking her PGCE (pre-service teacher education) at the UCL Institute of Education. She has been teaching in a girls’ school in East London for two years and is currently enrolled on the Institute of Education’s English Education MA course. She is particularly interested in how drama, talk and play affect the creation of identity and texts in the classroom.