“Even if it’s my story it can have your touch”: using dialogic processes as an entry point to a culturally responsive writing pedagogy

ABSTRACT

We argue that opening a space for dialogic, imaginative writing in the classroom can create entry points for a culturally responsive writing pedagogy (CRWP). We explore how collaborative writing for a pre-existing community digital platform (FundZa) and audience aids the implementation of CRWP in a creative writing course for South African education students.

Data from a focus group evaluation show that the course generated a number of new literacy lenses which challenged students to rethink static, monolingual views of language and narrative as well as the kinds of literacies necessary for the creation of a good story. One of the most significant findings entailed a new appreciation of the role of multiple perspectives in the collaborative writing process and moves from a monologic view of writing towards a dialogic view. Many students were encouraged to take imaginative leaps towards unfamiliar cultural contexts and audiences, through peer collaboration, discussion and drafting.

KEYWORDS:

• Dialogic
• collaboration
• culturally responsive writing pedagogy
• imaginative leap

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Belinda Mendelowitz

Belinda Mendelowitz is a Senior Lecturer in the Literacies, Languages and Literatures Division at the Wits School of Education. Her research is located in the area of literacy/language education with a specific focus on imaginative writing pedagogy, the critical imagination, narratives in education, and multilingualism and identity.  She is particularly interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning and how the implementation of powerful pedagogies can generate new forms of knowledge. Her work challenges the binaries between teaching and research.  She teaches English courses in the Bachelor of Education and the PGCE programmes, mostly in the areas of creative writing, grammar, writing pedagogy, Sociolinguistics and language methodology. Belinda also teaches postgraduate course in English Education on Creative Writing and Literacy and language theories and practices.

Karen Lazar

Karen Lazar is a poet, writing coach and sessional English lecturer at the Maharishi Institute in Johannesburg. She was educated at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where she also teaches part time. Her MA and PhD are in South African gender and literary studies. Her scholarship is mainly focused on feminist readings of Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer, as well as on pedagogy and narrative medicine. Karen is an active advocate for gender and disability rights. She is the author of Hemispheres: Inside a Stroke (Cape Town: Mojadji Press 2011), which offers a first person account of the stroke from which she has partially recovered. She lives in Johannesburg, and has a new book of creative writing forthcoming.