“Yeah, yeah, keep going!”: What is revealed about students’ reading competence, identity and agency when critical sociocultural analysis is used to understand classroom picturebook conversations

ABSTRACT

When researching reading events, the depth to which we understand the student experience is all-important. Much insight has come from exploring sociocultural understandings, yet by focusing upon how the critical sociocultural dynamics of identity, agency and power relationships are mediated, we can understand differently the moment-to-moment negotiations undertaken. This article reports on a study that investigated how small groups of diverse students aged ten and eleven from two Melbourne schools experienced talk around two picturebooks that prompt thinking around important social issues. Some often surprising insights were revealed around shifts in student identity portrayals, degrees of agency and individual students’ abilities to take some control in this, as well as how these negotiations can be beneficial yet somewhat unsettling at times. The article also shows that these shifts and negotiations can be both challenging and potentially rewarding for students as well as the teacher.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity work
• agency
• picturebooks
• classroom Discourse
• book talk

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sue Wilson

Dr Sue Wilson was a primary teacher and ICT coordinator before teaching and researching literacy education at Monash University. She is interested in the experience of teachers and learners being involved in literacy events, and the development of literate identities. She looks very closely at how pedagogical considerations can support identity work, negotiations of agency and understandings of one’s place in the world.