Student Engagement Within Peer-led Literature Circles: Exploring the Thought Styles of Adolescents

This dissertation is a teacher research study of student engagement within peer-led literature circles. Collaborating with 10 seventh grade students in my writing and literature classroom who asked to read 1984 in literature circles, I explored how students engage with each and with literature within peer-led discussion circles of a relatively difficult text. Participants were taped during peer-led literature circles and interviewed about their experiences and perspectives on engagement with peers within the context of the classroom. Using Fleck's (1935) notion of thought style and thought collective I noted that participants' talk about the novel and their perspectives on the experience was shaped by their dynamic, ever changing subject positions as adolescents, students, boys and girls, and as members of the middle class. This study explores their subject positions and how they shaped student engagement as reflected their interactions and talk for the purpose of generating a theory of social learning within this particular classroom context. Implications include the role of teacher inquiry as an integral part of literacy teaching, and the use of discourse analysis as tools for teachers, teacher educators, and researchers in developing a critical perspectives on the classrooms and teaching. Additionally, the study offers a framework for supporting teachers, teacher educators, and researchers in listening to and critically assessing peer-talk within the classroom and how such knowledge can guide reflection and inform practice.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Language, Reading & Culture

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Arizona.

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Smiles, Tracy

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Short, Kathy G.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Goodman, Yetta M.
• Gilmore, Perry

• literature circles
• peer-talk
• middle school
• language arts
• adolescents
• thought styles

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Language dc:language.iso

EN

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194776

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.arizona.edu:10150/194776