Introduction to Research
This semester I plan on researching genre pedagogy in FYC to help all students gain “both control over and a critical orientation to” academic genres (Martin and Rose 2). Specifically, my focus will be on using the teaching/learning cycle to better scaffold classroom interaction while making students aware of explicit genre models for each writing assignment. I am particularly interested in Halliday, Painter, and Rothery’s take on scaffolding, “the notion of guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience” (Martin and Rose 1). I developed a concern for scaffolding classroom interaction last semester when I observed only one segment of my class regularly participated in discussions. Martin and Rose label this sort of classroom dynamic “circles of inclusion and exclusion” and offer the teaching/learning cycle as a method to enlarge this circle. Another aspect of the teaching/learning cycle I want to focus on is joint construction, in which the teacher and students construct a text together to gain experience writing a genre before producing the text independently. Although joint construction is most often used in primary and secondary grades, I think joint construction, and genre pedagogy in general, has immense potential on the college level to help students in advanced literacy. I will also be incorporating exercises in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to help foster knowledge about language. My framework for this project is participatory action research, helping students gain access to the genres of power, and I would like to maximize student input into the research process.
“Designing Literacy Pedagogy: Scaffolding Democracy in the Classroom” by Martin and Rose
In “Designing Literacy Pedagogy: Scaffolding Democracy in the Classroom,” Martin and Rose outline the Sydney school’s genre pedagogy, specifically, scaffolding classroom interaction using the teaching/learning cycle. Genre pedagogy, based in the work of Halliday and his colleagues working in systemic functional linguistics, began as action research to address growing disparities in education among Australia’s disadvantaged students, especially Australia’s aboriginal population. The progressive pedagogy imported to Australia from the U.S. was not preparing students for the literacy demands of the real world. Halliday’s colleagues, including Rothery, Painter, Martin, and Rose, began developing a visible pedagogy based on teaching genres in an explicit and systematic way. The Sydney school’s work is crystallized in the teaching/learning cycle, scaffolding classroom interaction through three stages: Deconstruction, Joint Construction, and Individual Construction. In Deconstruction, teachers prepare students for reading a particular genre by discussing the topic as well as walking students through the sequence of events. During Joint Construction, the teacher and students construct a text in the target genre together, and in Individual Construction students then create a text independently. The teaching/learning cycle provides students with explicit scaffolding and gives them experience writing a text jointly with an expert before writing independently.
For the teaching/learning cycle framework, Martin and Rose adopt Bernstein’s notion of classification and framing: “classification ‘refers to the degree of boundary maintenance between contents’ and framing ‘to the range of options available to teacher and taught in control of what is transmitted and received in the context of the pedagogical relationship'” (2). Classification and framing relate to the teaching/learning cycle, as the Deconstruction stage has strong classification and framing, while classification and framing are weakened as the teacher transfers control to students in Joint Construction and Independent Construction.
Martin and Rose look at classroom interaction in even more depth using the scaffolding interaction cycle. This sequence – Prepare, Task, Elaborate, Affirm – is meant to help students better comprehend advanced texts. Teachers prepare by translating complex terminology and metaphors into everyday language, task students to identify meanings, elaborate with detailed responses, and always affirm students’ answers positively.
I highly recommend this article to colleagues interested in developing advanced literacy with their students because it succinctly outlines the teaching/learning cycle in a way teachers can understand and begin incorporating into their teaching practices. The article is a distillation of Martin and Rose’s much longer book Learning to Write, Reading to Learn and serves as the best overview for the Sydney school’s teaching/learning cycle for those without the time or patience to read the full-length work. Although the teaching/learning cycle might seem quite basic for some and not applicable to the college level, Martin and Rose’s work contains complex theory based in systemic functional linguistics and the socio-educational theories of Bernstein, Vygotsky, and others. Genre pedagogy holds a lot of promise in tertiary education for helping all students comprehend and write advanced texts. Genre pedagogy provides explicit staging of genres and a functional metalanguage for the classroom focusing on meaning, without the pain and effort of students having to learn formal grammar.
Works Cited
Martin, J. R., and David Rose. “Designing Literacy Pedagogy: Scaffolding Democracy in the Classroom.” Continuing Discourse on Language. Ed. J. Webster, C. Matthiessen, and R. Hasan. London: Continuum, n.d. 1-26. Print.