Edgar Armando Córdova García specialised in
teaching Spanish as a native language at the Universidad Virtual del ITESM and
has a Masters in Children’s and Young Adult Literature from the Universidad
Autónoma de Barcelona. Currently he coordinates the Programme for the Mediation
of Reading and Writing for the Department of Education of Durango state
(Mexico).
Research
question
The aim of this study was to describe the functions of
the mediator in an online literary discussion with young people from Spain and
Mexico. Hence, the following question was raised: What actions does the
mediator of an online literary discussion display that facilitate the making of
inferences by participants with regards to a text?
Context
This study adheres to the works surrounding the
literary discourse of the past decade (Fittipaldi, 2008; Cuperman, 2010;
Colomer and Fittipaldi et. al, 2012). It starts from the premise that, in
school: “literary discussion is a didactic instrument for the comprehension of
texts and the creation of reading habits” (Colomer and Fittipaldi 2012, 87).
The literary discussion was carried out on the LEOTECA[1]
platform, between the 1st and 16th of March 2016. The participants were 23
students who attend secondary school in Mexico and Spain. The students from
Mexico belong to the Telesecundaria[2] “Mano Amiga” of
the city of Durango and the young people from Spain study at the Instituto
Escuela Secundaria “Diego Jesús Jiménez” in the Province of Cuenca.
The selected text is called “En un Latido” (In a
Heartbeat) and is part of the anthology by Montse Ganges (2016). The story is
narrated by the Chac Mool[3]. It is about
Balam[4], a farmer who is
enslaved by the Mayans, and Canek, a young prince from Chicén Itzá and champion
of the Ball Game[5]. Canek
chooses Balam as his companion, and together they win many battles and are
praised by their people. One day, however, Canek decides not to fight and they
lose the game. As a result, both are sacrificed.
Methodology
and design
As part of the research, the readers’ responses were
analysed using a qualitative approach based on the categories of literary
responses outlined in the Visual Journeys
project (Fittipaldi, 2012), and the functions of the mediators were classified
(Munita and Manresa, 2012). The resulting data was analysed by means of graphs
or figures. The figures are segments of the tree (literary discussion) that
describe the interactions between the participants. This allows the
identification of the reader response paths and the construction of inferences.
LEVELS
|
LITERAL
STATEMENTS
Emphasis on the content of the illustrations.
Identification, enumeration, description and the establishment of simple
connections.
|
INFERENTIAL STATEMENTS
Search for the meaning of the illustrations.
Speculation, prediction, inference, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and
critical thinking. Use of reasoning and proposal for interpretation.
|
Referential
(Narration)
|
Identification and description of the elements of
the narrative: characters, actions, and framework.
|
Interpretation of the elements that construct the
narrative: the character’s motivations, inferences stemming from the actions,
relationship between the frame and the story, etc.
Why?
|
Compositional
(The book as a material and artistic object)
|
Who? What? Where?
Identification and description of the book as an
object, of the paratext and other visual elements, of the communication
situation (author, readers, edition, etc.), and of the concept of reading.
|
Interpretation of the diverse visual elements that
are typical of the communication situation proposed by the text.
Awareness of the artistic intentions of the author
and the role of the implicit reader.
|
Intertextual and intercultural (The cultural and intercultural connections of the
text)
|
Identification and allusion to Intertextual,
metaphorical, and symbolic references of cultural representations.
|
Establish the relations between the text and the
intertextual, metaphorical, and symbolic representations previously
mentioned.
Use of
Intertextual knowledge as a tool for interpreting the story and
negotiating meaning.
|
Personal experience
|
Establish simple connections between the text and
the life experience of the readers.
|
Establish thoughtful connections between the
text and the life experience of the readers.
|
Table 1 Categorization model of reader’s responses from Visual Journeys’ project.
Source: Fittipaldi (2012)
It was thought that the qualitative paradigm from Discourse
Analysis could constrain and explain the object of the study through the use of
a priori categories, thus viewing the readers’ responses as a web of discourse.
Rapley (2007) states that the analysis of conversation focuses on how speakers
interact to achieve their goals. In this case, the mediator’s questions are
prompts to speak and the readers’ responses are a bridge between literal
meaning and inference based on the narration.
Following Munita and Manresa (2012), the functions of
the mediator used in this study are to:
a.
Help search for textual evidence
b. Help in the
construction and foundation of arguments
c. Relate the
discussion to other books and previous knowledge
d. Offer a
metalanguage with which to talk about books
e. Reformulate,
synthesise and systematise what is said in order to progress the discussion and
establish concepts and content
Analysis
In this research, the functions of the
mediator were analysed based on the literary planning achievements (Chambers,
2007), through three figures that represent the interactions of the network of
literary discussion.
One of the functions of mediation is to
help in the search for textual indices or clues. Likewise, the mediator should
try to get the text to leave “something,” intimate, personal and mysterious
that is never fully defined by the reader or the text. For this reason, the
mediator asked: “When you came to the
character Canek, what stories did you see in your head while reading?” Carolinapc
visualizes Canek entrusting his life to Balam. Meanwhile, Marisolpc mentally
recreates the scene where Balam is intentionally losing. In both cases the
theme of the discussion is the binary of life and death.
Figure 1. Textual clues on the binary of life and death
The child Dsd8 states: "I imagined bloodthirsty people waiting
for some to die, fearful yet courageous players, who at the time of dying
thought about their loved ones, and those who were winning, the seconds seeming
endless to them, and those who were losing, hoping for them to become
eternal." In this statement the word blood emerges as a symbol of both life and death. The words courage and fear also appear, allusions to Eros and Thanatos. Therefore, this
segment of the conversational network was titled: Figure 1. Textual clues on the binary of life and death.
Another duty of the mediator, similar to that
of the philosopher, is to situate themselves in the question rather than in the
answer. That is, to never affirm that a question is completely defined and thus
to place themselves in a synthetic perspective between the reader-text and
search for dialectic thought.
For this reason, the mediator selects a
question whose answer can have two simultaneous strands. The question is: “In the end, the Chac Mool says ‘but do not
feel sorry for me, because I was once someone very important: I was the Balam,
the noblest and bravest’ Why does he say this? Was he the same character or
were they different? What do you think?”
Most reader responses insist that Balam
and Chac Mool were the same character (Figure 2. To read is to find a blind spot). However, there are not sufficient
textual clues to confirm either this reply or the reply that Chac Mool was
simply a witness who contemplated the life of Balam and thought that at some
point he was Balam. This was confirmed by the author on the discussion thread that
she participated in with the students[1].
Therefore, the mediator qualifies the students' assertions, asking them to
provide arguments to be discussed by the literary community. To read is to try
to answer the question that has no single answer or that leads to a blind spot
(Figure 2).
Figure 2. To
read is to find a blind spot
Since it is evident that the readers had
understood that Balam, the main character, was a hero, the mediator decided to
ask questions regarding Canek. Canek is a secondary character whose voice is
hardly heard and who is known only by the actions described by the Chac Mool.
Consequently, the mediator opted for the
following prompt: “I propose that we think
of Canek: how does Canek value the attitude of Balam? And what do you think of
Canek's attitude towards his partner and what is happening in his village?”
The responses of the students were: selfish,
very selfish and only thinks of
himself. However, there is a response by ChicodelAtun that goes beyond the
positioning of the main character by the author of the story: "I think he is a bit selfish, but it is
also understandable that he is this way because in the Mayan culture the game
was very important" (Figure 3, To
understand is to take ownership of the secondary character).
This response infers the motives and
feelings of Canek that determine his actions, that is, it refers to context of
the Mayan culture. This is a product of the function of the mediator: to help
the reader in the construction and foundation of his or her arguments.
Conclusions
1. The procedure of analysing the
data through graphs of the conversational network facilitates the processing of
the interactions between the participants of an online literary discussion, given
that:
a. The mediator's instructions
and the reading responses form a conversational network
b. The structure of the network
contributes to the description and explanation of the principal and new
functions of the mediator
2. New functions of the mediator
are determined:
a. To help the reader's inner
knowledge
b. To propitiate reading as a
contemplative experience
c. To infer the actions and
motivations of the secondary characters
3
Online discussion, unlike
literary discussion within the classroom, is an exercise in self-reflection for
the mediating teacher. It becomes a space to professionalize their performance
as a mediator, since it brings to light their successes, weaknesses and
strengths by allowing them to read themselves. In addition, it is possible to
identify who intervened, who replied to whom, the exact sequence of the entries
and how they were thought out and written; as well as describing the reading trajectories
of the participants, who replied, who assumed mediation roles and who did not participate
in the chat. It also allows the participants to state everything they need,
think and feel – even regarding the mediator – without any fears.
It is advisable for teachers,
librarians or promoters of reading to implement online literary discussions
supervised by specialists, to bring an awareness to their
mediation process and thus become better mediators.
References
Chambers, A. (2007). Dime. Los
niños, la lectura y la conversación. México: FCE.
Colomer and
Fittipaldi et al (2012). La literatura que acoge: Inmigración y lectura de álbumes.
Barcelona: Banco del Libro-Gretel/SM.
Cuperman, R. C. (2010). Las respuestas lectoras en niños preadolescentes:
espejo de la agresión. Bellaterra: journal of
teaching and learning language and literature, 2(2), 123-137. Seen the 20th
of March 2016 on http://www.raco.cat/index.php/Bellaterra/article/viewArticle/194352/0
Fittipaldi M. (2008). Travesías textuales: inmigración y lectura
de imágenes. Trabajo final de investigación del Master en Didactica Lengua
y Literatura. Dirección de T. Colomer, Departament de Didáctica de la Llengua,
de la Literatura i les CCSS. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.
Fittipaldi
M. (2012). Categorización de las
respuestas infantiles ante los textos literarios. In Colomer y Fittipaldi La literatura que acoge: inmigración y
lectura de álbumes (pp.69-86). Barcelona: Banco del Libro- Gretel/SM.
Ganges
M. (2016). Lo que cuentan las estatuas
del mundo. Ediciones Ekare
Munita
y Manresa (2012). La categorización de
las respuestas infantiles ante los textos literarios. Análisis de algunos
modelos y propuestas de clasificación. In Colomer y Fittipaldi (ed) La
literatura que acoge: Inmigración y lectura de álbumes, pp.119-143.
Barcelona: Banco del Libro-Gretel.
Rapley,
T. (2014). Los análisis de la
conversación, del discurso y de documentos en Investigación Cualitativa.
Morata.
[1] LEOTECA
is an online community for children and adults with a shared interest in
children’s and young adult literature.
[2] Telesecundaria is a system of distance education
programs via satellites for secondary and high school students created by the
government of Mexico.
[3] The
Chac Mool refers to a Mayan sculpture depicting a reclining figure with its
head facing 90 degrees from the front, supporting a bowl upon its stomach used
to hold sacrificial offerings.
[4] Balam
means jaguar in Mayan.
[5] The
Ball Game was a sport played in Mesoamerica that had important ritual aspects
and sacred ends. Played in a rectangular field, players could only hit the ball
with their hips, knees and forearms. Penalties were given to the team who
touched the ball with their hands or lost the ball more than once; the winning
team was the one with the least number of faults or that scored the most
points.
