Speaker: Stefania Gargioni
Affiliation: Trinity College Dublin
Title: Re-thinking Practice about the Teaching of YA Literature: Using Exploratory Practice to Craft and Re-craft Narrative in English L2 Instruction.
Abstract (long version below): The poster will present an empirical study in didactics of literature, looking at how the aesthetic encounter with literary texts in a target language may shape the learning experience of multilingual secondary students.
Long abstract
My project looks at the role of YA adults’ literature in the development of English L2 children’s identities. The research drew on the importance of literature in L2 instruction, despite for a long-time literature has been solely used in the L1 classroom (Paran, 2008). The research project will investigate the way in which the aesthetic experience of encountering literature (Greene, 1995) may help in developing L2 students’ writing skills in the target language and may shape their identities.
The project will be based on Exploratory Practice () and will take the space of a 12-week intervention carried out in an IB MYP 2/3 English Language and Literature class (children aged 13-14) adopting Lucy Calkins’ (1994) Units of Study and located in an international school in Belgium. By looking at units about characterisation and time for independent writing and using the reading and writing workshops embedded in Units of Study (Roberts, 2018), students will look at the specific features of characterisation. Since the children participating in the project are L2 English users with different language competences, the units of study will be adapted by using process drama strategies, like role-plays and object creation (Piazzoli, 2017).
The final objective of the unit will be the writing of a new chapter of the story, letting children use their imagination to create and recreate different scenarios for the story. The novel “A Girl of Ink and Stars” by Kiran Millwood Hargrave will be at the centre of the project. The book has been chosen for its attention to characterisation, helping children to get to know the characters and to imagine new stories and new scenarios for them.
Therefore, the children will be asked to make and remake elements of the book, imagining the emotional and physical words of the characters. As mentioned above, this study will look at the impact that the aesthetic encounter with literature may have in developing L2 students’ writing skills and in shaping their identities, letting children to play with the text and to use imagination to promote a literary knowledge of the text (Vygotsky, 11962) and encouraging at the same time the development of socio-emotional learning (Duncan, 2009).
The study will be carried out in spring 2024. The first results coming from the analysis of the data will be presented at the conference.
References
Calkins, L. (1994). The art of teaching writing. Heinemann.
Duncan, D. (2009). Teaching children’s literature. Making stories work in the classroom. Routledge.
Eaglestone, R. (2021). Powerful knowledge, cultural literacy, and the study of literature in schools. Impact, Philosophical Perspectives on Education Policy, 26, 2-41.
Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination. Wiley.
Paran, A. (2008). The role of literature in instructed foreign language learning and teaching: An evidence-based survey. Language Teaching, 27 (1) 2-82.
Piazzoli, E. (2018). Embodying Language in Action. Springer.
Roberts, K. (2018). A Novel approach. Whole-class novel, students centered teaching and choice. Heinemann.
Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. MIT Press.