Activity genre: a new approach to successful inclusive teaching

Abstract

Over the last few decades, inclusive educational practice has developed into a guiding political vision in Norway, as it has in several other western countries. This article, and the larger study it is part of, takes a narrative approach to the study of how one particular Norwegian primary school teacher deals with realizing the ideology of inclusive teaching in her ordinary classroom activities. Inclusive practice is a complex field interwoven with a great variety of activities. This article, however, focuses on one aspect of the teacher’s inclusive practice: how she facilitates her teaching so that everyone may participate in the various school‐day activities. The topic is examined by highlighting one recurring typical setting that occurs in the class. The teacher’s reflections on the setting are presented, along with a story from the classroom. The story serves as an illustration of how she deals with the setting in question. It is analysed in the light of Bakhtin’s (1986) notion of ‘speech genre’ and Tharp and Gallimore’s (1988) notion of ‘activity setting’. While Bakhtin’s concept takes typical situations and their corresponding, appropriate way of speech communication into account, Tharp and Gallimore’s theory focuses on appropriate behavior connected to various settings. In this article I propose a new concept, a term that includes both speech communication and behavior. I call it ‘activity genre’.

Keywords:

• Education
• Mastery
• Membership
• Participation
• Togetherness

Notes

* Faculty of Teacher Education and Deaf Studies, Sør Trøndelag University College, Trondheim, Norway. Email: [email protected]

The study is the doctoral thesis ‘Kids need to be seen. A narrative study of a teacher’s inclusive education’ (2004).

Among these are the school’s local plan, the class’s plan for the year, weekly plans for the observation period, some letters that Ann sent to the pupils’ parents.

A dilemma may occur if the researcher and the research subject interpret specific events in different ways, or if a research subject questions the interpretive authority of the researcher (Gudmundsdottir, 2001). Closely connected to this dilemma is the question of whether the research subjects always have a better appreciation of the ways they are acting than the outside observer (Phillips, 1997). The dilemmas outlined here could be solved by including both the researcher’s and the research subject’s points of view in the research report (Hoel & Gudmundsdottir, 1999).

When the pupils in Ann’s class sit with her in a semi‐circle facing her and the board, it is called the class circle. The class circle is located in the middle of the classroom and in front of the board.

Finding appropriate concepts to describe various activities is challenging. Perhaps the teaching and assisted learning period could have been called the teaching and instruction period. However, when using the term instruction one might come to think of the teacher as the active part, transmitting some kind of knowledge or experience to her pupils, and the pupils as the passive receptive part. As will be seen later in this article Ann does not want her pupils to be passive recipients. To the contrary, she wants them to be active and committed participants, and she assists them so that this may happen. Therefore, rather than using teaching and instruction period, I choose the term teaching and assisted learning period.

The pupils are familiar with the term. On excursions in the woods they have seen and talked about what happens when insects and flies walk on the water.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Torill Moen *

* Faculty of Teacher Education and Deaf Studies, Sør Trøndelag University College, Trondheim, Norway. Email: [email protected]