First and Second Conversations: Remote Learning and Interpretive Boundaries

Abstract

This article examines the nature of student‐to‐student text discussion in a dialogically organized remote classroom. Conducted as teacher research, I investigated student talk in a PreK‐1st grade biblical literature class. In the fall of 2020, I taught a biblical literature class to a fully remote PreK‐1st grade cohort in a Jewish independent school on the East Coast. Four undergraduate research assistants from the SCRoLL education lab helped with ongoing data analysis. Through self‐study of my teaching and classroom, I discovered the ways that the remote setting shaped intensive text discussion, facilitating students' comfort stepping into their own interpretive authority and moving past the classroom fixture of teacher as interpretive authority. In the remote classroom, the students comfortably moved between the first conversation, the meaning of the text, and the second conversation, competing conventions for determining the meaning of the text. I conclude with suggestions for how teachers interested in dialogically organized classrooms can carry the assets of the remote classroom forward.

Understanding K‐3 Teachers' Literacy Instructional Practices During the Pandemic‐Impacted 2020–2021 School Year

“…Other studies examine adaptations of traditional in-person literacy instructional practices in remote settings. For instance, Hassenfeld et al (2022) described the challenges and affordances of implementing dialogic, text-based discussions in a fully remote PreK-first-grade biblical literature class. Similarly, Beach et al (2021) explored the feasibility and effects of transforming a traditional in-person summer reading intervention aimed at fluency development to a virtual format in response to COVID-19 school closures.…”

“…Most of the research on early literacy instruction during the COVID‐19 pandemic has been conducted outside of traditional public school classrooms in specialized instructional programs such as small group tutoring and/or summer school settings (e.g., Beach et al., 2021; Chamberlain et al., 2020) or religious‐based programs (e.g., Hassenfeld et al., 2022). These studies are primarily descriptive or exploratory and focus on the shift from in‐person to virtual literacy instruction, including how teachers maintained a sense of community in an online environment and the use of technology tools, such as SeeSaw, to document and support students' literacy development.…”

“…For instance, Hassenfeld et al. (2022) described the challenges and affordances of implementing dialogic, text‐based discussions in a fully remote PreK‐first‐grade biblical literature class. Similarly, Beach et al.…”