Natalie Carrillo

Roepe

Writ 2

02/28/2024

WP #2: Can Dialogic talk in the classroom create a more

academic environment as well as create more competent

future writers?
 Mrs.Quiroz walks into the classroom 10 minutes early before her first class starts, she

sets up as usual and readily pulls out her lesson plans as well as the related articles she printed

out to go over the material. As the students file into the classroom as class is about to begin,

Mrs.Quiroz regularly greets her students with a nervous look on her face. When everything is

settled, Mrs.Quiroz starts “So class as you all know we’ve been learning about grammar and its

use in our writing as well as how our word choices can affect our writing. But I just wanted to

take the temperature a little and see how we are feeling about this unit so far. Does anyone have

any questions or thoughts?”

The students all look around waiting to see if anyone responds, hesitantly a quiet voice

belonging to one of her more academically difficult students named Brady responds “I’m not

sure about it, because I have a hard time remembering all of the rules.”

Many students nod their heads in agreement and another voice cuts in, “I think that

worrying about all of the rules I have to follow makes me a worse writer.”

A chorus of agreements ensue and Mrs.Quiroz takes this opportunity to address her class

again, “I know it may seem like I am trying to be super strict about these grammar rules but these

are the foundation of your writing! But we’re going to try something new with this approach, has

anyone heard of the word dialogic?”

Confused faces are all she sees as it is evident the class has no idea on what she’s talking

about. Mrs.Quiroz laughs and takes this time to explain, “Well dialogic basically just means

relating to stuff about talking! For today, I wanted to try using a more dialogic approach, which

basically entails me being less of a strict teacher and more of a conversation starter between all

of you.”

One of the students perked up “So you’re not going to be our teacher anymore?”
 Mrs.Quiroz laughs and realizes she’s not quite getting through to her students, she

continues, “Think of it more as if I am being less of a person who makes you follow certain rules

and guides no questions asked, to someone who still teaches you but I get your feedback on your

understanding in real time. It’s like instead of your math teacher just telling you how to do

derivatives or presenting solely on their own they teach you how to as well as then asking your

different perspectives in order to help improve our learning. Think of your thoughts, feelings,

and dialogue in this type of teaching as all connected to one another to support learning one big

idea!”

Mrs.Quiroz tries to readily think of another example that the kids could understand, as

teaching this concept to middle school children is not the easiest, “It’s like when you get in

trouble, instead of your parents being angry and automatically lecturing you and giving you

punishment, they let you tell your side of the story and work with you to come up with a solution

that will prevent whatever you were doing in the first place.”

Another voice from the back emerges, “So it’s more of like a conversation rather than

you talking the whole time?”

Mrs.Quiroz laughs, her students' bluntness is one of the things she loves and hates about

her students. But she continues, “Yes! It’s more of a class discussion and today we are going to

be using that with learning grammar, because since grammar is something that you already have

knowledge on, since you use it everyday without realizing, it's better to view it as a choice that’ll

affect your future writing rather than it being a strict set of guidelines that you have to follow.

Hopefully this makes it easier for you when we’re learning how to use grammar in our writing.”
 “Now who remembers our friend Mrs.Dahl?” A chorus of “me’s” rang out in the

classroom, much to her delight. “If we remember how she talked to us about her students in

Norway and how their scores were not that great at that time, she recently talked to me about

how she improved her kid’s scores with this discussion style of teaching. Now she’s a great

friend of mine so I asked her to explain and guide me on how to tailor this to your needs, and she

said the best thing we could do is restart the lesson and approach grammar as a way to refine or

perfect the things you’re saying. This activity I want you to think of grammar as an implicit

choice you make, not some rules you have to follow but instead a bunch of choices you can use

to help you write. Think of how your parents tell you that no one is perfect, which is absolutely

true, but think of grammar as a way to make your writing close to perfect. Now this can be

especially to all of you since you all will have to continually write while you’re in school so I

want you to get the most out of this lesson.”

Mrs.Quiroz brings out a pile of papers from her desk as she passes them out to the

students, in their hands now is a list of the different language choices pertaining to grammar that

they could possibly use in their writing. Mrs.Quiroz then pulls out her old lesson plan she had,

and asks her students to do the same. She goes on, “I want everyone to look at these two

different worksheets and notice the differences, see how the one we worked on initially had only

do’s and don'ts but the new worksheet is just a list of a bunch of different choices.” She looks

around, no confused faces, yet she thinks, so she keeps continuing. “I was talking with some

other teachers, and they had the same problems teaching this unit as well. They feel that you

guys need a more laid back approach rather than being super strict and stuck on the certain words

you need. We as teachers need to make sure you guys are properly learning the structure of
language not only for yourself, but if any of you want to become a writer or a teacher then this is

very important. Take a look at the worksheet and let me know what you think!”

Mrs.Quiroz nervously waits for her students' responses, she’s worried that her message

was not clear enough. But as she looks around the room she sees not confusion, but thinking

evident on their faces, for her it validates she’s on the right track. One of her student’s pipes up

“I like this newer one better, it gives a lot of options .” Another student, “And it helps me pick

what I want to use rather than having to follow a strict format that is hard to use!”

Relieved, Mrs.Quiroz laughs, “That's good to hear! So since we’re feeling good, let’s

really get into the details of the lesson. Here are different grammatical choices that you can use

whenever you are writing…”

END
 Conclusion

Dear Reader,

For some initial background information on this classroom discussion, Mrs.Quiroz is a

7th grade middle school teacher who has started a new lesson plan centered around introductory

grammar and linguistic choices within academic writing, she has introduced the unit to her

students previously who have seemed to not understand or taken much of an interest. Mrs.Quiroz

aims to find a different teaching approach that is more effective and one that will appeal to the

many types of learners in the classroom. She goes online searching for resources and finds

articles that are based in dialogic talk as well as the role grammar plays in the successful

teaching of writing. The next day, she attempts to create a conversation with her students about

their thoughts of the new lesson plans as well as explaining her approach. After creating a new

perspective of this conversation through a different genre as well as listening to the original

conversation through the creation of this project, I favor the pedagogical approach of dialogic

teaching, especially when it comes to language related subjects. This main conversation was

centered around how grammar can be taught in an implicit way with student dialogue. There

were also many concerns in this argument about the future of teaching students as well as other

personalities being concerned about how those students will fare later on in their life, especially

if they go for a profession with intensive writing demands. From this conversation I’ve learned

it's better to encourage more student-teacher interaction or dialogue instead of solely teacher

presentation when implementing strong fundamentals into their academic lives. My

understanding changed as I progressed through my different sources, my understanding changed

most when viewing the dissertation where it gave different perspectives of teachers on their

views of implicit vs explicit approaches to teaching. From the two arguments of implicit and
explicit, many were more concerned with their students getting the information engrained rather

than encouraging them to voice their opinions while learning. With teaching ever evolving, I can

see different ways this conversation can evolve, especially if new approaches are made through

these initial ways. I feel this conversation will steer more towards accepting dialogic talking and

teaching as a real effective approach in any type of subject and will eventually lead to a better

future for the students of the future.

 Works Cited

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portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1732846&dswid=-12. Accessed 28 February

2024.

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February 2024.

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https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/teachingwriting/article/view/26239. Accessed 28

February 2024.

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https://ntnuopen.ntnu.no/ntnu-xmlui/handle/11250/3107803. Accessed 28 February 2024.