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Magirius, M., Scherf, D., & Steinmetz, M. (2023). Instructive dialogue on literary texts. A frame-
work for dialogic teaching promoting high-level comprehension in the literature classroom. L1-
Educational Studies in Language and Literature, 23, 1-27.
https://doi.org/10.21248/l1esll.2023.23.2.584
Corresponding author: Marco Magirius, Institute of German and Dutch Languages and Litera-
tures, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, email: marco.magirius@fu-berlin.de
© 2023 International Association for Research in L1-Education.
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS. A FRAME-
WORK FOR DIALOGIC TEACHING PROMOTING HIGH-LEVEL
COMPREHENSION IN THE LITERATURE CLASSROOM
MARCO MAGIRIUS1, DANIEL SCHERF2 & MICHAEL STEINMETZ3
1. Free University of Berlin
2. Heidelberg University of Education
3. University of Education Weingarten
Abstract
In our conceptual paper, we propose the framework Instructive Dialogues on Literary Texts. We describe
how teachers can identify questions about the literary text which are worthy of clarification and central
in such dialogues. The worthiness of questions depends on three criteria: A question worthy of clarifica-
tion has to be testable based on the literary text and either disputable—i.e., it elicits multiple answers—
or urgent—i.e., there is a students’ urge to clarify—or both. We are going to derive these concepts from
the characteristics of literary texts, particularly from their ambiguity and polyvalence, and relate our
framework to existing concepts of educational dialogue in literature classes. Moreover, we systematize
teacher moves by applying notions of task research to whole-class dialogues. With these verbal moves,
teachers can help their students to (collaboratively) interpret literary texts. Setting out our framework,
we contribute to domain-specific concretizations of instructional quality and scaffolding. Furthermore, we
propose a domain-specific definition of high-level comprehension.
Key words: collaborative reasoning, constructive support, high-level comprehension, dialogic teaching
2 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
1. INTRODUCTION
There is a rich research discourse on conversations about literary texts in the litera-
ture classroom. Although existing concepts show a lot of differences, many research-
ers mention the same starting point (e.g., Nystrand, 1997; Billings and Fitzgerald,
2002): the rejection of common classroom practices often described as mere “reci-
tation” instead of actual discussion (e.g., Nystrand & Gamoran, 1997). Recitation, in
which students merely “recite information already known by the teacher”
(Boyd & Rubin, 2006, p. 143; see also Chisholm & Loretto, 2016), is described as de-
trimental to learning (e.g., Nystrand & Gamoran, 1997, p. 57–58). This is true not
only but especially for literature classes. The abbreviation IRE has been established
for conversations led by the teacher: (I) teacher initiation, (R) student response, fol-
lowed by an (E) evaluation by the teacher (Mehan, 1979). In this case, teacher initi-
ation is understood as asking students questions, which display rather than develop
a certain understanding. These questions are called “display questions”, “quasi-
questions”, or “nonauthentic questions” (Boyd & Rubin, 2006, p. 163; Aucker-
man & Boyd, 2019). Many scholars consider quasi-conversations centered around
such display questions to be incongruent with the nature of learning. For instance,
Barnes (2008, p. 4) characterizes these quasi-conversations as “presentational talk”
in contrast to his notion of 'exploratory talk', which better aligns with his (social-)
constructivist views. Questions that the teacher does not necessarily know the an-
swer to— “authentic questions” (Chisholm & Loretto, 2016, p. 4) or “real questions”
(Boyd & Rubin, 2006, p. 143) —are rare in quasi-conversations (Nystrand, 1997,
p. 9–10). The interpretive authority—understood as “authority to determine
whether responses shared by others are acceptable and add to meaning-making, or
whether responses are irrelevant to understanding the text” (Flint, 1999, p. 119) —
is solely held by the teacher. These practices have the following shortcomings, (a)
students only answer in a “‘fill-in-the-blank’ pattern” (Boyd & Rubin, 2006, p. 143);
(b) students do not refer to each other; (c) students’ ideas are not integrated suffi-
ciently; (d) there is only low-level comprehension. The latter refers to “literal com-
prehension” (Nystrand, 1997, p. 3), focusing on “surface features” such as vocabu-
lary and small narrative steps (Tengberg et al., 2022, p. 7), ultimately resulting in a
mere retelling of the plot. When it comes to interpreting literary texts, students do
not learn how to do so but how to guess the teacher's interpretation. Thus, in such
quasi-conversations, there are very few opportunities of getting involved in pro-
cesses of ‘‘elaborating, adding complexity, and going beyond the given”, while com-
prehending the literary text, "weighing multiple alternatives and sometimes accept-
ing uncertainty” (Resnick, 1987, p. 42).
Although these recitation practices are criticized severely, they still seem to be
common in literature classes (Boyd & Rubin, 2006) and it seems difficult to foster
more dialogical engagement (e.g., Billings & Fitzgerald, 2002). Based on the broad
consensus in research rejecting recitation practices, a wide range of alternative con-
cepts for discussions has been proposed. They differ in various aspects, e.g., the role
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 3
of the teacher, the questions he or she asks, and intentions of the respective discus-
sion regarding the students. These approaches have in common that they promise
lively classes, more uptake of students’ ideas and high-level comprehension instead
of low-level comprehension of the literary text. The term “high-level comprehen-
sion”, however, has only been vaguely defined so far, for example as “critical, reflec-
tive thinking about and around text” (Soter et al., 2008, p. 377; Nystrand, 1997).
In this conceptual paper, we will introduce our concept of Instructive Dialogues
on Literary Texts by addressing the following research questions in a theory-based
exploration:
RQ1: How can high-level comprehension be defined in the context of literature class-
rooms and with respect to the characteristics of literary texts?
RQ2: How can teachers facilitate high-level comprehension via Instructive Dialogues
about Literary Texts?
RQ2 will be addressed via two sub-questions.
RQ.2.1: What must teachers do to prepare Instructive Dialogues?
RQ2.2: What must teachers do to conduct Instructive Dialogues?
By answering these questions, this conceptual paper lays the groundwork for an up-
coming intervention study. Before answering these questions, we will systematically
outline existing approaches. In the interdisciplinary discourse on Dialogic Teaching
(Kim & Wilkinson, 2015), approaches are often categorized based on the goals as-
signed to plenary classroom discussions. In the disciplinary discourse on discussions
in the literature classroom, approaches are usually categorized based on stances to-
wards the literary text which learners should adopt (e.g., Chinn et al., 2001; Soter et
al., 2008). We will present both categorisations (sections 2.1 and 2.2) with examples
(section 2.3). When discussing existing approaches using both classification systems,
we already take into account our own approach—Instructive Dialogues on Literary
Texts—to effectively position it within the discourse. This will become particularly
apparent at the end of each subsection in section 2. Finally, in section 3, we present
the theoretical derivation of our approach, drawing from the characteristic chal-
lenges that literary texts pose to their readers. It is in section 3 that we will address
our research questions.
2. COMPARING EXISTING APPROACHES
2.1 Goals of dialogic teaching
If one compares existing approaches of Dialogic Teaching concerning learning objec-
tives, a fundamental distinction can be made: learning through dialogue and learning
for dialogue (Kim & Wilkinson, 2015). Expressed in the terms of Rapanta and Felton
(2021, p. 478), in a learning-through-dialogue setting, “there is the intentional in-
structional framing of dialogue to produce specific argumentative gains” about an
4 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
object of inquiry (which is not the dialogue itself). Learning for dialogue aligns more
with the
non-instrumental view, in which dialogue represents a form of social meaning-making,
valuable in itself and not defined by external gains [...] (ibid.).
An exploration of established approaches within the interdisciplinary discourse was
presented by Kim and Wilkinson (2015). Among these approaches, some of them can
be attributed to the learning-for-dialogue perspective, for example the works of
Wegerif (2011; 2013) and of Matusov (2009). Conversely, other approaches, such as
Resnick's (1999) and the approach proposed by Resnick et al. (2018), can be catego-
rized as learning-through-dialogue. Comprehensive approaches exist that combine
learning-for and learning-through, e.g., the ones of Mortimer and Scott (2003), and
of Alexander (2004; 2018).
The introduced fundamental distinction has also been applied to literature class-
rooms. The learning-through-dialogue approaches see dialogue as a tool for collab-
orative reasoning to achieve a certain goal of understanding, such as comprehending
and interpreting a literary text. Recitation practices, which we mentioned earlier, are
a flawed form of such dialogues. Seen from the learning-for-dialogue perspective,
dialogue opens up relations with others that foster reflection, creativity, and discov-
ery. Here, the literary text can be seen as a pretext for dialogue, with a lesser em-
phasis on thorough comprehension of the literary text itself. Possible learning goals
could include conversational competence, social cohesion, or the shared enjoyment
of a literary text. In this case, the teacher is supposed to act as a moderator or is a
participant in a symmetric conversation with the students. He or she refrains from
guiding the conversation. Although it is discussed much less in research literature,
there are also flawed forms of such conversations. In a dialogue where the students
hold as much interpretive authority as the teacher, there are risks that a) the literary
text is lost sight of, b) the conversation driftlessly jumps from one point to the next,
c) the students do not sufficiently engage with each other, d) they misunderstand
each other, and e) important insights into the text are mentioned but then skipped
over (Loska, 1995, p. 180, cf. Zabka, 2015, p. 171).
Beyond these extremes, both forms of learning— ‘through dialogue’ as well as
‘for dialogue’ —can be useful in literature classrooms. In fact, they depend on each
other. A dialogue can only progress if there are contributions by the students which
are marked as meaningful. Hence, they need interpretive authority over their indi-
vidual comprehension of a text. On the other hand, a dialogue will fail if the conver-
sation breaks off or changes topic whenever there is a lack of ability to interpretively
clarify intersubjective differences (cf. ibid., p. 172). Even if the analysis of a literary
text is not seen as an end in itself—a brief overview on the different purposes of
reading fiction is given by Fialho (2019) —we emphasize in our concept called In-
structive Dialogues that at a certain juncture during discussion in class, the literary
text should be the focal point. This enables the literary text to unleash its potential
in achieving goals such as “insight into human nature” (Schrijvers et al., 2019, p. 1),
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 5
fostering the development of Theories of Mind (Zunshine, 2006) among the students
and “expand[ing their] conscious awareness through thought experiments about
how characters create and interpret their self-consciousness” (Sumara et al., 2008,
p. 223). These goals and purposes, however, go beyond the scope of this paper. In
our concept, Instructive Dialogues on Literary Texts, detailed in section 3, we em-
phasize the significance of “critical close reading” (ibid., p. 228) and the accumula-
tion of evidence to both support and challenge various interpretations. For now,
high-level comprehension can be understood as this accumulation. High-level com-
prehension, which is based on such critical engagement with the literary text, lays
the groundwork for the aforementioned purposes by learning about literary texts
through dialogues.
2.2 Efferent, aesthetic and critical-analytic stance
In research on literature education, approaches are often classified according to
stances towards the literary text, which the students should take (cf. Waggoner et
al., 1995, p. 583). We follow a well-established categorization of these stances,
which was proposed by Chinn et al. (2001). They adapted concepts of Rosenblatt
(1986). Chinn et al. (2001, p. 381–382) differentiate between the “aesthetic/expres-
sive stance”, the “efferent stance” and the “critical-analytic stance”.
To read in an aesthetic stance means to put “attention on what is being lived
through in relation to the text during the reading event” (Rosenblatt, 1986, p. 124).
Dialogue settings which emphasize this stance “give[…] prominence to the reader’s
affective response to the text, that is to the reader’s own spontaneous, emotive con-
nection to all aspects of the textual experience” (Soter et al., 2008, p. 374). In a learn-
ing-for-dialogue setting, readers can learn how to meaningfully exchange their per-
ceptions. In this case, adopting an aesthetic stance is particularly beneficial. This
stands in contrast to learning-through-dialogue settings, which are more closely as-
sociated with reading in an efferent stance. Here, the purpose of “reading [is] to ac-
quire information” (Chinn et al., 2001, p. 380) and to “accumulat[e] evidence for a
verifiable result” (Rosenblatt, 1986, p. 124–125). According to Rosenblatt, reading of
a literary text often means falling “at different points on the efferent/aesthetic con-
tinuum” (ibid., p. 125). For example, to read a sonnet by Shakespeare as a poem,
elements of the efferent stance are required, although the aesthetic stance domi-
nates: “Admitted into the center of selective attention must be, of course, the refer-
ents of the particular words” (perceived in efferent stance), “but the shutters must
be open wide to admit their experimental aura”, which must be perceived in aes-
thetic/expressive stance. If “the purpose is to classify the metaphors or analyze the
syntax” the efferent stance is dominant (ibid, p. 124–125). Therefore, in learning-
through-dialogue settings, both stances are needed. Chinn et al. (2001, p. 380–381)
added a third stance: the “critical-analytic stance, in which the purpose of reading is
to interrogate or query the text in search of the underlying arguments, assumptions,
worldviews, or beliefs” (Wilkinson et al., 2015, p. 36). Reading with this stance
6 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
means a focus on a major dilemma or problem facing a character, consideration of rea-
sons for different courses of action, and appeals to the text for evidence and for inter-
pretive context (Chinn et al., 2001, p. 382).
Our concept called Instructive Dialogues on Literary Texts links all the mentioned
stances. In section 3, it will become more evident that it places a stronger emphasis
on efferent and critical-analytic stances, as achieving high-level comprehension in a
learning-through-dialogue setting requires the discovery of evidence within the text
for various interpretations. But we also acknowledge the significance of adopting an
aesthetic stance. Emotional and affective responses shape individual and collective
understandings of the text (McGinley et al., 2017). Furthermore, without emotional
and affective responses the collaborative reasoning becomes meaningless to the
participants (Zabka, 2012) and the dialogue may lack the necessary engagement. To
locate our concept in the discourse, we will now present existing approaches.
2.3 Examples of approaches
Critical engagement with literary texts often involves asking questions. Conse-
quently, questions pertaining to literary texts are particularly relevant to our con-
cept. We will, therefore, focus on approaches that propose certain types of ques-
tions. We are going to briefly introduce one approach for each stance, selecting ap-
proaches that can be clearly attributed to the respective stances.
One example of approaches which are assigned to the expressive stance (Chinn
et al., 2001; Soter et al., 2009; Murphy et al., 2008) is the Book Club. According to
Raphael and McMahon (1994), the Book Club is a cross-functional concept in litera-
ture education promoting student-led small group discussions. The researchers set
out four components for the implementation of these discussions: reading, writing,
whole-class discussion and instruction. In the discussion parts, the questions of the
students—not of the teacher—should be negotiated. These student questions
should result from an aesthetic stance and the associated emotive reaction to the
literary text.
Concepts that are close to the efferent stance can be exemplified by Shared In-
quiry (Great Books Foundation, 2021). These whole-group discussions are initiated
by an interpretive question posed by the teacher. An interpretive question is defined
as “a question of meaning that has more than one reasonable answer based on the
text” (ibid., p. 9). They are employed to “explore complexities and contradictions”
(ibid., p. 11). Hence, these questions “support meaningful discussion” (ibid.). They
are authentic in the sense that they “express genuine doubt and curiosity” (ibid.,
p. 12). Although Shared Inquiry is assigned to the efferent stance by various meta-
analyses (e.g., Murphy et al., 2008), these questions are sparked by an aesthetic
stance while reading the text. During the discussion, the “leader” (Great Books Foun-
dation, 2021, p. 21) is requested to solicit interpretive questions from the partici-
pants. Furthermore, he or she asks follow-up questions that encourage clarification
and elaboration of answers, demand textual evidence and connections, and seek
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 7
additional perspectives. Questions which “have one correct answer based on the
text” (ibid., p. 10), are called factual questions. They “bring to light evidence in sup-
port of an interpretation and can clear up misunderstandings about details” (ibid.).
The Shared Inquiry approach aims to facilitate discussions that stay closely focused
on the text and do not overshadow it with contextual information about the author.
There is a third type of questions, namely evaluative questions. These go “beyond
the text being discussed” and are answered “in light of [… the] knowledge, values,
and life experiences” (ibid., p. 10) of the participants. They should be placed at the
end of the discussion once the text has been thoroughly explored.
An example for concepts which are assigned to the third stance—critical-analy
tical—is the Paideia Seminar, a participatory, student-oriented whole class conver-
sation where participants sit in a circle. As Billings and Fitzgerald (2002) explain, in
Paideia Seminars the teacher’s role is to be a “dialogue facilitator” (ibid., p. 910),
asking “only a few planned and discussion-prompted, open-ended questions de-
signed to promote students’ thinking and critique [...].” (ibid.) Open-ended questions
are questions that elicit many correct answers (cf. ibid., p. 924).
In many concepts, like the Questioning the Author (Beck et al., 1997) or the Hei-
delberg Model of Literary Conversations (Härle & Steinbrenner, 2004), elements of
all stances can be found. A concept that explicitly aims to combine “the best fea-
tures” of all three stances is Quality Talk (Murphy et al., 2018, p. 1120, Wilkinson et
al., 2010). According to findings of their own meta-analyses (Soter et al., 2008, Mur-
phy et al., 2009), critical-analytic approaches are best suited to promote high-level
comprehension, which means that “students engage with text in an epistemic mode
in order to acquire not only knowledge of the topic but also knowledge about how
to think about the topic and the capability to reflect on one’s own thinking” (Soter
et al., 2008, p. 377). This is why Quality Talk “emphasize[s] a critical-analytic stance”
(Murphy et al., 2018, p. 1120). Quality Talks should take place in small groups of four
to six students. The teacher has the authority to choose the text and the topic of
discussion. The interpretive authority, however, is shared among all participants.
Both teacher and students, are asked to bring in “a variety of open-ended, authentic
questions” (ibid., p. 1121) to the discussion “as well as questions that elicit critical-
analytic thinking (i.e., generalization, analysis, and speculation)” (ibid., p. 1122).
Despite these differences between approaches, many of them have in common
that they favor authentic questions posed or taken up by the teacher. Rubin and
Boyd (2006, p. 163) show with qualitative research that authentic questions can ini-
tiate a lively dialogue. However, “that dialogue was much less likely to focus on the
texts being read” (ibid., p. 163). Such dialogues seem to us as appropriate especially
in learning-for-dialogue settings. To collaboratively develop a deeper understanding
of a literary text, display questions that “build on previous student utterances” are
much more useful. Although these questions are mostly rejected in the referred ap-
proaches, Rubin and Boyd (ibid.) show that these questions—called “contingent dis-
play questions” — “pushed the students to provide more information until the stu-
dents were able to launch themselves into an elaborated response” (ibid., p. 161).
8 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
Another type of question that is recommended by various approaches is one that
cannot be answered unambiguously. When different perspectives come together in
a dialogue, lively discussions about such interpretive questions can arise. However,
existing approaches rarely base their inclination towards open-ended, authentic
questions on the characteristics of literary texts and literary communication. To rem-
edy this, our concept Instructive Dialogues on Literary Texts focuses on these char-
acteristics, as we will explain now. At the end of section 4 we are going to compare
our approach to the ones explained above. It will become clear that unlike most of
them, we also recognize the necessity of display questions and questions that are
not open-ended in order to strive for comprehensive interpretive insights.
3. INTRODUCTION TO INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS
In the following paragraphs, we elaborate on our concept of Instructive Dialogues in
detail. Firstly, we outline our approach to modeling literary learning and show how
Instructive Dialogues can enhance it (section 3.1). In section 3.2, we introduce the
concept of worthiness of clarification, answering both RQ1 and RQ2.1. We then delve
into the notion of 'constructive support' in section 3.3, followed by an exploration of
teacher actions that promote consistency and discussion in section 3.4. Here, we
provide a detailed account of what teachers need to undertake to effectively con-
duct Instructive Dialogues, thus we address RQ2.2 in these two sections.
3.1 Learning about literary communication
Literary texts often feature systematic polyvalence, ambiguity, uncertainty, and in-
directness (Zabka, 2006). Therefore, to understand a literary text means to go be-
yond its literal meaning and first impressions. For this, specific competences are
needed, as Zabka (ibid.) points out. An example of these competences is:
A specific competence in literary understanding is the construction of complex assump-
tions that go beyond a basic comprehension of a text passage, provoked by systematic
vagueness/ambiguity, such as assumptions about the psyche of a literary character.
(Zabka, 2006, p. 82; translated by the authors)
Another competence can be described as follows.
A specific competence in literary understanding is the expectation and cognitive han-
dling of systematic polyvalence, as many literary texts open up a plurality of interpreta-
tion possibilities through the unsolvable competition of statements, statement connec-
tions, and provoked inferences. An example is non-authorial narration that leaves it
open whether and in what way the competing statements and perspectives of the nar-
rative figures combine into statements and perspectives that the text as a whole con-
veys. (Zabka, 2006, p. 82, translated by the authors)
Instructive Dialogues aim at developing these competences in the following way.
Reading individually with an aesthetic stance results in individual perceptions and
interpretations. Instructive Dialogues add to this when different readers share their
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 9
individual perspective. Consequently, the systematic ambiguity and polyvalence can
be perceived during these conversations. Moreover, in Instructive Dialogues, learn-
ing through dialogue about literary communication and the characteristics of a liter-
ary text can be achieved when the participants are encouraged to substantiate their
interpretations with evidence from the text. For that, they must adopt an efferent
and a critical-analytical stance, focused on seeking out corroborating or contesting
evidence which can include inferences as well as broad and figurative interpreta-
tions. Thus, in Instructive Dialogues, interpretations are objectivized through collec-
tive reasoning when different interpretations compete by testing their plausibility
against the text. In this way, the learning group goes beyond individual readings and
possible individual misunderstandings. When implausible interpretations are falsi-
fied (Eco, 2008) via collective reasoning, ambiguity and polyvalence are experienced
without allowing for arbitrariness of understanding. Hence, we follow Murphy et al.
(2018) by understanding high-level comprehension as an “outcome produced when
students engage with text (i.e., critical-analytic thinking) and meaningfully consider
the nature and quality of the content or arguments within the text” (ibid., p. 1114).
However, we only speak of high-level comprehension when the literariness of texts,
particularly their polyvalence and ambiguity, is in the center of attention during the
dialogue. We will define high-level comprehension more precisely in section 3.2.,
and thus answering RQ1.
Our approach Instructive Dialogues on Literary Texts is not suitable for explaining
in full detail what happens in students' minds when high-level comprehension oc-
curs. The focus of our research—conceptually and empirically (Magirius et al., 2021;
2022; 2023, in prep.) —is on the role of the teachers. How can they fulfill their expert
roles and create great potential for fostering understanding in the aforementioned
sense? Our framework aims to assist them in preparing and conducting conversa-
tions—by answering RQ2.1 and RQ2.2. According to our concept, to prepare these
dialogues teachers have to identify questions about the literary text which are wor-
thy of clarification. When conducting Instructive Dialogues, teachers must provide
constructive support with the purpose of addressing the students' difficulties in an-
swering these questions and overcoming the challenges posed by the literary text.
We are going to elaborate on both main concepts—1) worthiness of clarification
and 2) support—by using the short prose text Der blaue Falke (The Blue Falcon) writ-
ten by Jürg Schubiger (1994, translated by the authors) and selected sequences of
four transcribed literature classes with children aged 11 to 15 years old. The tran-
scripts were first analyzed with qualitative methods by Harwart and Scherf (2018)
and Harwart et al. (2020). Later Magirius et al. (2022; 2023) used quantitative meth-
ods to find empirical evidence for their assumptions on quality criteria of learning-
through-dialogue settings. We developed our concepts based on this data (Magirius
et al, 2021).
10 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
The Blue Falcon
A girl walked through a garden, in which a woman was busily working. Have you seen
my blue falcon? she asked her. No, said the woman. The girl went on. She met a man
lying under a car. Only his legs were visible. Have you seen my blue falcon? asked the
girl. Blue what? Blue falcon. Does something like that exist? asked the man. The girl
walked on, kept asking, but no one knew anything about her bird. It was already evening
when she asked the question again: Have you seen my blue falcon? This time she asked
a foreign woman. I am not from here, the woman answered in flawed German and
pointed to a bus stop: Look, there! Indeed, there was a bird sitting on the back of a
bench. But it’s not blue and doesn’t look like a falcon, the girl objected. Now it was the
bird who spoke: But it’s me! he said. The girl came closer. She apologized: I didn’t rec-
ognize you right away. You are rather black and look more like a raven. That’s all right,
said the blue falcon. It is only important that we have each other again.
3.2 First main concept: questions which are worthy of clarification
According to our definition (Magirius et al., 2021), the worthiness of a text-related
question depends on three criteria. A question can be (a) disputable, (b) testable,
and (c) urgent. The disputability and the testability of a question are crucial for its
potential of enabling high-level comprehension, thus we turn our attention closer to
RQ1.
We speak of disputable questions when something is not obvious, and several
perspectives can exist side by side. To be more precise, we define a question con-
cerning the text as disputable if it allows for a competition of answers based on the
irreducible ambiguity or polyvalence of the literary text. Of course, there are indis-
putable questions. When readers engage with a literary text, they are processing in-
formation without which they would not understand the text correctly. In the case
of The Blue Falcon, one could ask which character is referred to by the words “my”
and “she”? It is indisputable that these words refer to the same character of the
story—the “girl”. To be able to recognize indisputability lays the ground for inter-
preting, as Matuschek (2013) points out:
Interpretation begins where it is up to the reader to make a decision: the decision to see
something that is no longer clear one way or the other. To be able to read better, means,
to be sure about all that is indisputably established about a text and where that indis-
putability ends and decisions of the reader are added. (Matuschek, 2013, p. 21, trans-
lated by the authors)
Here we present a disputable question regarding The Blue Falcon, which was pon-
dered in one literature class from our data set:
Teacher: What are the persons’ thoughts at the moment the girl asks them? (Tran-
script 1, pos. 142)
As seen in this example, disputability is linked to a need for interpretation that can-
not be unambiguously resolved based on the literal meaning. The thoughts of the
characters are not represented clearly on the text surface. Therefore, answers to the
question cannot be qualified as definitively right or wrong.
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 11
What must be done to answer such a question? To answer the disputable ques-
tion above, readers have to decide which elements of the text are relevant. But that
is not all. In the sense of (the early) Charles Sanders Pierce, readers have to perform
abductive reasoning (Magirius et al., 2021). This refers to a process in which an (po-
tentially unexpected) observation is explained by applying a rule and using a hypoth-
esis that arises from the observation and the same rule. All three stages—identifying
textual signals, choosing a rule, and drawing a conclusion (cf. Jannidis, 2004, p. 79)
—are up for debate and hence, can render a question disputable. For weighing dif-
ferent observations against each other, a (partly) efferent combined with a critical -
analytical stance is needed.
Readers might answer the question relating to the man under the car by forming
the hypothesis that he is annoyed by the girl. Readers could back that hypothesis by
observing that he is busy. They could choose as a rule that people who are busy and
who are taken by surprise in such a communication situation may tend to react with
anger. The outcome of this creative operation is not logically determined. Another
reader could observe the same fact about the activity of the man under the car. Fur-
thermore, this reader could acknowledge the mentioned rule about busy people get-
ting annoyed. However, the counter-question “Does something like that exist?”
could hint at the curiosity of the man, despite his work obligations. In fact, a student
in one of our analyzed classroom dialogues understood the situation like that. From
the perspective of this student, the girl disrespects the other characters, when she
does not reply to them and only poses her repetitive question.
When choosing rules, hypotheses, and text elements, readers have to decide
which contexts they want to employ when assigning meanings to the text (Danne-
berg, 1990; Borkowski, 2015; Magirius, 2020). Maybe they will employ knowledge
about pets, friendship, or social conventions. These decisions are influenced by the
readers' prior knowledge and experiences, in particular their cultural backgrounds.
For instance, Zhang (2022, p. 63) notes that “readers in East Asia perceive the char-
acters’ activities with more socially oriented tendencies, while their Western Euro-
pean counterparts do so with more individually-oriented tendencies.” Such differing
expectations can result in contrasting evaluations of the characters' behavior in The
Blue Falcon. Knowledge about literary communication (Kämper; van den Boogaart;
Pieper, 2008) or even about conventions of interpreting in school (cf. Klausnitzer,
2015) could be important, as well. Especially when reading literature, the rules (typ-
ically) are not explicitly stated in the texts. Hence, abduction proves to be a creative
process. If this process heavily relies on prior knowledge, we must describe how
these processes can be scaffolded by the teacher (see the second main concept), so
that conversations about disputable questions make tangible the competition of dif-
ferent interpretations. For this, it is important that students can learn from all par-
ticipants of the dialogue—of course including the teacher—which plot elements and
literary stylistic features (Gambino et al., 2020) might be suitable for backing up com-
peting interpretations. This brings us to our second criterion.
12 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
Our second criterion is called testability. A question is testable if we can find ele-
ments of the text which help to answer it. These can be elements of the plot as well
as stylistic features to which meaning can be assigned and/or which can be used for
inferences. Testability is necessary for questions to be worthy of clarification. Why is
this criterion so important? When understanding literary texts, creativity can also
take on a life of its own and overshoot the target, especially in the absence of prior
knowledge. In our empirical data we found that students tend to do this when pon-
dering questions whose answers are hypotheses which are not testable, e.g.,
Teacher: Why on earth is somebody looking for a blue falcon? (Transcript 2, pos. 334)
In the text The Blue Falcon, there is no information to answer this question. Of
course, it is possible to speculate about the intentions of the girl and these specula-
tions might be suitable for discussions which could succeed the thorough collabora-
tive examination of the literary text. (Stated in the terms of Shared Inquiry, such
questions could be used as evaluative questions at the end of class.) In our data,
students ponder these questions at all stages of the classes for a vast amount of time.
While doing this, their paths of understanding are dead ends or move away from the
text rather than towards it. In a literature class aiming at learning through dialogue,
however, the literary text should be at the center of attention.
Of course, testable questions can be non-disputable. This is the case, for exam-
ple, when they can be answered solely via deduction. But often, when pondering
testable questions on literary texts, there might be no conclusive evidence for one
single answer in the text. In these cases, there are only clues which can help to con-
test or corroborate answers (Weimar, 1995). In this case, the question is testable
and disputable.
Why do we think disputability and testability are particularly important criteria?
Why do literary texts allow for multiple answers to such questions and subsequently
for multiple interpretations based on cues in the text? Different positions of literary
theory give different explanations. Some point to the polyvalence and ambiguity of
every communication. These communications get disambiguated by the conventions
of interpretative communities (Fish, 1980; cf. Jannidis, 2003, p. 309). Others, like
Schmidt (1991, cf. Jannidis, 2003, p. 314), see ambiguity/polyvalence as a result of
conventions of particularly literary communication. As questions which are worthy
of clarification must be testable, we are going to focus on a position of literary theory
which explains ambiguity and polyvalence with characteristics of the literary texts.
Jannidis (2003) does that by redefining and employing the concept of manifestness
introduced by Sperber and Wilson (1995, p. 39): “To be manifest [...] is to be percep-
tible or inferable” —in our case elements of the literary text can be perceptible
and/or used for inferences. Sperber and Wilson differentiate between strong and
weak manifestness. When pondering testable and disputable questions for which no
simple right-wrong dichotomy applies, weakly manifest information must be utilized
when arguing for or against an interpretation. Literary language leads to an increased
attention to relationships between (in particular stylistic) elements of the text
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 13
without the resulting information becoming more than weakly manifest (Jannidis,
2003, p. 327). If different interpretations disambiguate the text differently, they
have to be justified by the presence of (a finite number of) weakly manifest infor-
mation (cf. ibid., p. 324) in order to prove viable in a learning-through-dialogue dis-
cussion. (Sometimes an interpretation might be proven tentatively viable by falsify-
ing a competing interpretation [cf. Eco, 2008, p. 128], as we will see later.) In such a
discussion, weakly manifest information needs to be processed to achieve an appro-
priate comprehension of the literary text. This is why we stress the importance of
questions that are both testable and disputable. Overall, we understand high-level
comprehension in the literature classroom primarily as deliberating about testable
and disputable questions that are resulting from the systematic polyvalence, ambi-
guity, uncertainty, and indirectness of literary texts (Zabka, 2006). This answers RQ1.
Most of the time, strongly and weakly manifest information must be related to
each other when achieving high-level comprehension. Here is another question from
our data:
Student: I am confused. Is it the blue falcon or is it a raven? (Transcript 1, pos. 35)
One could argue that only the girl uses the words "blue falcon" —a strong manifest-
ness—and conclude that the blue falcon only exists in her imagination—weaker
manifestness. But it is not only the girl, the narrator speaks of a "blue falcon", too—
again a strong manifestness. Whether this is as well focalized by the girl and bound
to her perception or external to the girl is not quite clear—weak manifestness. If we
understand the utterance of the narrator, "blue falcon", as not focalized by thegirl,
the interpretation that the blue falcon only exists in her imagination is falsified—
stronger manifestness. In this way, we were able to falsify a specific answer to the
question above. Although the question could not be conclusively answered and re-
mains disputable, we were able to precisely point to the associated elements of the
text. This is what high-level comprehension according to our definition is all about.
It is important to note that low-level comprehension is not unnecessary when com-
pared to high-level comprehension, but rather serves as the foundation for thorough
examinations of literary texts—especially when students do not achieve a basic un-
derstanding of the text on their own. This brings us to the third criterion.
The third and final criterion for the worthiness of questions is called urgency. A
question is urgent, if it is brought up by a student: He or she sees a puzzling phenom-
enon in the text. This leads to a personal urge for clarification made explicit through
questioning. An example for such a question is: “Is it the blue falcon or is it a raven?”
(see above), because it was brought up by a student. Mostly, the urge to clarify arises
in a reader when there is a cognitive conflict, such as a comprehension problem that
requires a solution, the realization that something read is not completely clear, or
the discovery that something read is disputable (as mentioned above). From the per-
spective of the psychology of learning, it is obvious that without an urge to clarify,
achieving clarification is hardly possible or perceived as meaningless over-analyzing
of the literary text. If a question is urgent in the above sense, i.e., if it is expressed by
14 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
a student, it does not necessarily have to be testable. Then it is up to the teacher to
take up the question productively without on one hand giving it too much space and
on the other without demotivating the student. An urgent question expressed by a
student should not be ignored by the teacher. This is why urgency is a criterion for
worthiness of clarification in our framework.
However, as our data shows (Magirius et al., 2023), students often miss crucial
aspects of the literary texts when posing (urgent) questions. This is why before the
dialogue, the teacher should identify questions that are indispensable for a basic un-
derstanding of the literary text (Zabka et al., 2022). We classify such questions as
urgent questions, too. If the students think at first glance that such questions are
irrelevant or uninteresting, the task of the teacher—as an expert on high-level com-
prehension of literary texts—is to transform the necessity of clarification from a
teachers’ perspective into the students’ urge to clarify. If this transformation fails,
more supportive teacher moves (see the second main concept) are needed.
Before we are going to introduce different supportive teacher moves, we briefly
summarize our aforementioned criteria for worthiness of questions:
a) Disputability: Does the question lead to several contested understandings?
b) Testability: Are there clues in the literary text which can help to contest or
corroborate an understanding?
c) Urgency: Is the question brought up by a student or is it identified by the
teacher as indispensable for a basic understanding of the text?
How do these criteria contribute to the worthiness of a question? We define: Ques-
tions about literary text are worthy of clarification if and only if 1) they are testable
and they are either 2) disputable or 3) urgent or both. This definition implies that
testability is the only necessary criterion. Disputability and Urgency are not neces-
sary, but at least one of these criteria must be met. The flowchart in figure 1 can be
used to quickly determine the worthiness of clarification for a given question.
Figure 1. How to determine whether a given question is worthy of clarification
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 15
For example, the question
Student: Is it the blue falcon or is it a raven? (Transcript 1, pos. 35)
meets all three criteria and thus is worthy of clarification. The question
Teacher: Why on earth is somebody looking for a blue falcon? (Transcript 1, pos. 334)
lacks testability and urgency, if we assume it is not necessary for a basic understand-
ing of the text. (A didactic analysis according to Zabka et al. (2022) can provide fur-
ther insight.) If this assumption holds, the question is not worthy of clarification. This
does not mean that such questions are worthless. They can be briefly addressed or
put aside to come back to them in a later stage of the conversation. Sometimes, they
can spark creative interpretations. However, they should not be the center of atten-
tion for an extended period in our learning-through-dialogue setting. If there are no
elements in the text which can be used to corroborate or contest different answers,
a discussion of the question is most likely not going to lead to high-level comprehen-
sion. This is why Instructive Dialogues focus on questions which are worthy of clari-
fication. When preparing Instructive Dialogues, teachers have to evaluate the testa-
bility, disputability and urgency of questions in order to determine their worthiness
of clarification. This answers RQ2.1.
3.3 Second main concept: constructive support
Determining which questions are worthy of clarification and should be addressed is
only one aspect of our framework (RQ2.1). It is also important for teachers to know
how to guide the clarification of these questions during the conversation (RQ2.2).
We call this constructive support. With the second main concept of our framework,
we aim to systematize verbal teacher moves, which can help to deepen the under-
standing of literary texts. For this purpose, we apply notions of task research (cf.
Heins, 2017, Steinmetz, 2020) to whole-class dialogues. Task research often models
the process of understanding the literary text and completing the given tasks as
problem solving (cf. Winkler, 2011, p. 109). In the case of teacher-led Instructive Dia-
logues, these ideas can be applied too. Text comprehension can be thought of as a
process of problem-solving (cf. Zabka et al., 2022, p. 148–149).
A short detour into task research will help us to systematically present different
types of support. When readers work on the task ‘Please interpret this literary text!’,
(1) they usually face a text-related problem—an irritation, a question, a search for
meaning. (2) They search for a solution, for an answer, for a way to make sense of
the text. (3) After they come up with a solution, they try to test it by examining the
text closely, by relating different text elements to each other, by making inferences,
and by drawing conclusions (4). If the solution does not prove viable or the question
is disputable, they have to repeat this process and weigh different solutions against
each other. We do not claim that this model should be used directly to describe every
meaningful engagement with literary texts in learning-through-dialogue, let alone
16 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
learning-for-dialogue settings. For example, literary texts can be thought of as an-
swers to questions which are yet to be found and experimented with (cf. Birkmeyer,
2010, p. 72). In such cases, some more abstraction is needed to apply the model of
problem solving. However, we claim that this model helps to systematically describe
supportive teacher moves in the following way.
Now, we are able to describe two superordinate categories of supportive teacher
moves: syntactic support and substantive support. With these and the following dis-
tinctions concerning constructive support, we follow the habilitation study of
Steinmetz (2020) on tasks and their effects. He has empirical evidence that without
supportive teacher moves, students can quickly become overwhelmed by excessive
demands. According to task research, this leads to arbitrary and/or oversimplified
interpretations (Köster, 2010; Winkler, 2010; Heins 2017; Steinmetz, 2019; 2020).
Our approach aspires to counteract such tendencies. We apply these findings of task
research to conversations, as exemplified in table 1 and 2 (see Appendix).
We begin with syntactic support. Teachers can guide through each of the four
steps mentioned above with different types of text-related support (cf. Steinmetz,
2020, p. 101). Text-related types of support result from the comprehension demands
that the specific text places on its readers. In this case, support functions as a scaffold
attached to the syntax of the narrative and of the text’s aesthetics, which is why we
refer to these support types as syntactic support. We differentiate between the fol-
lowing:
1. Conflict-inducing Support. First, the teacher must bring the problem to the stu-
dents’ attention. At the beginning of every process of problem-solving, students
need to recognize the necessity of clarifying the problem and must acknowledge it
as being meaningful to their further conversation. According to our first main con-
cept, this means bringing urgent questions into the discussion. If they are also testa-
ble, they are worthy of clarification. In our data, a student puts the central conflict
between two understandings of the text as follows: “I am confused. Is it the blue
falcon or is it a raven?” (Transcript 1, pos. 35) The teacher responds:
Teacher: Well, that's a good question. Is it the falcon or isn't it the falcon? A perplexing
passage. I think some of you were a little surprised. (Transcript 1, pos. 36)
With this, the teacher takes up the question and repeats it. If the teacher poses
a question in order to present a conflict for the whole class to debate and to collec-
tively solve the corresponding problem, we call this teacher move conflict-inducing
support.
2. Conceptual Support: The process of problem-solving can be facilitated by
providing or collecting tentative solutions. These solutions can often be expressed
as answers to questions. They have the status of hypotheses which need to be tested
and weighed against each other by collectively investigating the literary text. Teacher
moves which provide these tentative answers/solutions are called conceptual sup-
port. In our data, the teacher does not provide hypotheses, but collects them from
the students. Here are two examples:
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 17
Student A: “For her, the bird looks like a falcon and she knows her pet. So, it must be
the falcon and not a raven.” (Transcript 1, pos. 37)
Student B: “Maybe she's just imagining a falcon. She makes things up.” (Transcript 1,
pos. 55)
3. Focus Support: We have already emphasized how important it is to examine
questions with respect to the text. After all, questions worthy of clarification must
be testable. To provide support in examining the text, the teacher can give hints to
critical elements of the text. These teacher moves are called focus support. How can
the two answers of students mentioned above be tested? The students associate the
outward appearance of the bird with the perception of the girl. However, as shown
in section 3.2, at least one textual element can be found where not only the girl but
also the narrator speaks of a “blue falcon”. That is exactly what the teacher is trying
to point out with focus support:
Teacher: Look in your text. Look for the places where ravens, falcons, and colors are
mentioned. Who speaks of what? Look in the text! (Transcript 1, pos. 68)
After this request, the students examine the narrative structure of the text and find
evidence against the solution of the falcon-versus-raven problem that only the girl
sees a blue falcon.
Conflict-inducing support helps with the initiation of a problem. Conceptual sup-
port and focus support scaffold the process of problem-solving. It is important to us
that problem-solving should not be conflated with simplification or reduction of the
literary text. At the end of the conversation about the raven-versus-falcon problem,
the teacher says:
Teacher: Too bad! We thought that maybe it could help us, that it was always the girl
who was talking about the blue falcon, but that is not true. The narrator mentions the
blue falcon, too. Now, we're confused again, we are whirled around. We can't solve it
with certainty. (Transcript 1, pos. 101)
Problem-solving sometimes means just working out that some solutions are less ac-
ceptable than others. This corresponds to Umberto Eco's notion that interpreting is
about distinguishing good interpretations from less good ones (cf. Eco, 2008, p. 128).
However, through this process of distinguishing, the irreducible polyvalence or am-
biguity of the text does not get resolved. Hence, a disputable question stays disput-
able.
We proceed by introducing the second superordinate category of supportive
teacher moves. A lack of text comprehension often results from a lack of knowledge.
We speak of substantive support (Steinmetz, 2020, p. 103) when the teacher acti-
vates or generates knowledge that is not initially connected to the specific text but
must be related to it. Two types can be distinguished:
4. Declarative Support: If the teacher activates or generates prior knowledge
about contexts which could be useful to assign meaning to the text, we call the teach-
18 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
er move declarative support. In our data, a teacher activates prior knowledge about
the appearance and occurrence of ravens and falcons:
Teacher: Falcon and raven, should I explain that, or do you already roughly know what
they look like? [...] Can someone briefly describe again where these animals can be
found? (Transcript 2, pos. 63)
5. Procedural Support: If teachers activate or generate knowledge about (literary)
reading strategies that help with text comprehension, we speak of procedural sup-
port. The following statement from our data is an example of this:
Teacher: Let's take a look at the text and see what hints it might give us. You did this
with the other texts as well: being text detectives, looking at the text closely. Are there
any hidden clues, maybe something that is connected with the words? We will do this
for the entire text in just a moment. (Transcript 1, pos. 68)
The teacher combines procedural support (text-independent reading strategy) with
focus support (hints to text elements) —and thus substantive with syntactic sup-
port—when he continues as follows:
Teacher: Look for the places where ravens, falcons, and colors are mentioned. Who
speaks of what? (ibid.)
All of these support types help to advance problem initiation or processes of problem
solving. The support types can be arranged according to their position and function
in the problem-solving process. To initiate the process of problem-solving, conflict-
inducing support is particularly important. To advance problem-solving, conceptual
support and focus support are particularly useful. The substantive forms of support
are useful for both phases. The tables 1 and 2 in the appendix provide an overview.
3.4 Beyond the main concepts: teacher actions promoting consistency and discus-
sion
To answer RQ2.2, we need to incorporate additional elements beyond our concept
of support. According to our empirical findings (Magirius et al., 2022; 2023; in prep.),
conducting an Instructive Dialogue on Literary Texts in a professional way depends
on two more competences a teacher has to exhibit: during the dialogue, teachers
should demand consistency and enable discussions between the students. What do
we mean by that?
3.4.1 Demanding consistency
When conducting an Instructive Dialogue on Literary Texts, the teacher has to decide
how to handle students' questions, comments, and statements on the fly. Depending
on the stage of class, some statements are more helpful than others in advancing
the dialogue. In this regard, we distinguish between directive teacher moves, which
guide students towards certain interpretations, and exploratory teacher moves,
which allow for a wide range of interpretations. The teacher's exploratory moves
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 19
preserve the openness of interpretation and prevent it from being constrained. This
can be useful, for example, for collecting different reading impressions or ap-
proaches to the literary text. However, especially when it comes to addressing ques-
tions that are worthy of clarification, exploratory teacher moves do not always lead
to consistent problem-solving. When many different interpretations are collected,
but none of them has to prove itself in accordance with the literary text—and there-
fore no falsification is possible—no high-level comprehension takes place. The
teacher must decide which paths of understanding to pursue and which ones to mark
as dead ends. In order to pursue the right paths, it may be important for the teacher
to selectively reinforce certain answers and statements and disregard others. There-
fore, selective reinforcement is a crucial type of teacher move that contributes to
maintaining consistency.
3.4.2 Enabling discussion
For us, facilitating discussion is an indispensable part of Instructive Dialogues on Lit-
erary Texts. According to our definitions, questions worthy of clarification are often
disputable. Hence, different interpretations must be formulated and collaboratively
weighed against each other by evaluating evidence. According to this, actions of a
teacher which initiate or strengthen discussions—for example, calling for compari-
sons between students’ interpretations, i.e., highlighting differences and references
between them—help to elaborate skills for dealing with disputable questions (Ma-
girius et al., 2022; 2023; Zabka, 2015). Moreover, they cultivate an atmosphere in
which it is indicated that the different students’ thoughts matter (Boyd, 2023, p. 10).
Now we have answered RQ2.2 and hence RQ2, as shown in figure 2.
Figure 2. Tasks of the teacher when implementing Instructive Dialogues on Literary Texts
20 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
4. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
In this article, by addressing RQ1 and RQ2, we have presented a conceptual frame-
work for Instructive Dialogues on Literary Texts. Our conceptual thoughts refer to
learning-through-dialogues settings that target text-based interpretations and high-
level comprehension.
First, we defined high-level comprehension with respect to the characteristics of
literary texts (RQ1). Second, we developed the concept of Instructive Dialogues in
order to assist teachers in fostering high-level comprehension in the literature class-
room (RQ2). Instructive Dialogues on Literary Texts are based on two main concepts.
On one hand, we model dialogues in relation to challenges in comprehension that
the text poses to its readers—e.g., ambiguity and polyvalence—by defining which
questions are worthy of clarification. The worthiness of clarification of a question
depends on its disputability, testability, and urgency. To prepare Instructive Dia-
logues, teachers have to put attention to questions which are worthy of clarification
(RQ2.1). On the other hand, for conducting Instructive Dialogues, we propose a
framework of verbal teacher moves, which help students to collectively clarify these
questions during the dialogue (RQ2.2). We call these moves constructive support. In
our view, it is important to provide students with specific types of support to initiate
and to process the clarification of questions. And, finally, we deduced from our em-
pirical studies (Magirius et al., 2022, 2023, in prep.) that teachers should pay atten-
tion to the consistency of collaborative problem solving. Furthermore, they should
encourage students to refer to each other in their statements. Our framework aims
at enabling discussions in which students weigh different text-based interpretations
against each other and prove them against the text. However, students can quickly
become overwhelmed by excessive demands. When students oversimplify textual
problems, or their attention is too often drawn to the mere identification of surface
features (Tengberg et al., 2022), high-level comprehension cannot be reached. Our
approach aspires to counteract such tendencies.
Our framework has differences to and similarities with the approaches to literary
conversations mentioned above. As our concept is close to the idea of learning
through dialogue, taking efferent or critical-analytic stances towards the literary text
seems most appropriate. We acknowledge that an expressive stance towards the
text can result in questions, ultimately leading to an analysis of the text that students
may perceive as meaningful. Nonetheless, our concept obviously differs from ap-
proaches which were assigned to the expressive stance. But there are fundamental
differences to approaches of the other stances as well. According to concepts like
the Paideia Seminars, an example for the critical-analytic stances, the teachers take
on the restrained role of mere moderators. Here, their task is to prepare and keep
the grounds for the dialogue, and not to decide about the direction of discussion. On
this point, we fundamentally disagree with this approach. If the purpose of a learn-
ing-through-dialogue setting is to enable high-level comprehension, the teacher has
to perform as an expert of literature and literature education. We do appreciate
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 21
when students and teachers bring in authentic questions (like they are proposed in
Quality Talks, an approach emphasizing the critical-analytic stance). However, during
collaborative clarification, display questions brought up or taken up by the teacher
could also be valuable, particularly if they are contingent to student utterances (Ru-
bin & Boyd, 2006). Therefore, we agree with Rubin and Boyd (ibid.) that the function
of a question for a dialogue is more relevant than its authenticity.
In particular, our distinction between disputable and indisputable questions is
related to the distinction of factual and interpretive questions in the concept Shared
Inquiry (Great Books Foundation, 2021). Both disputable questions (in our concept)
and interpretive questions (in Shared Inquiry) call for the exploration of multiple an-
swers. Moreover, the authors of Shared Inquiry believe that dialogues should be
closely focused on the text—like we do. Apart from that, there are some differences:
We have designed a concept that is suitable for conversations about literary texts
and therefore specifically fosters literary competences. We assume that literary texts
require different competences from students than non-literary texts do. Accordingly,
we justify our concept with characteristics of literary texts like polyvalence, ambigu-
ity, and indirectness.
To what extent teacher moves, as conceptualized by us, actually promote stu-
dents' competence growth regarding the understanding of literary texts, has to be
determined through more empirical research. We have initial empirical findings (Ma-
girius et al., 2022, 2023, in prep.) that indicate that supportive teacher moves facili-
tate appreciative evaluations of the conversation by the students, as well as their
appreciation for the literary text. A large-scale intervention study, in which the inter-
vention group will conduct Instructive Dialogues on Literary Texts, is currently being
planned.
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26 M. MAGIRIUS, D. SCHERF & M. STEINMETZ
APPENDIX
Table 1. Support that helps to initialize a text problem
Syntactic support
Substantive support
type
conflict-inducing
support
declarative support
procedural support
definition
to bring the problem to
the students‘ attention
to activate or to provide
(prior) knowledge about
contexts
to activate or to provide
(prior) knowledge about
procedures or strategies
method
e.g., by taking up stu-
dents' statements, or by
pointing out gaps, indi-
rectness, or polyva-
lences in the text
e.g., by providing mate-
rial, or by assigning a re-
search task, or by giving
a presentation
e.g., by providing infor-
mation in the task instruc-
tion, or by providing mate-
rial
example for
application to
conversations
Student: “I am confused.
Is it the blue falcon or is
it a raven?”; Teacher:
"Well, that is a good
question. Is it the falcon
or is it not the falcon? A
perplexing passage. I
think some of you were
a little surprised." (Tran-
script 1, pos. 101)
Teacher: “Well. I must
honestly say that I have
never in my life
searched for a blue fal-
con. I think they do not
exist." (Transcript 2,
pos. 263)
Teacher: “Do you see any
parts of the story where
you stumbled over that
while reading? Not neces-
sarily in a literal sense, but
in terms of content, where
you were surprised?“
(Transcript 1, pos. 68)
INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUES ON LITERARY TEXTS 27
Table 2. Support that helps to solve a text problem
Syntactic support
Substantive sup-
port
type
conceptual support
focus support
declarative sup-
port
procedural sup-
port
definition
to provide or collect
tentative solutions
to provide clues
for examining
the text
to activate or
provide (prior)
knowledge
to activate or
provide (prior)
knowledge about
procedures or
strategies
method
e.g., by providing sev-
eral interpretation hy-
potheses, or by offer-
ing an interpretive text
e.g., by pointing
to critical ele-
ments of the text
with prompts,
hints or ques-
tions
e.g., by providing
material, or by
assigning a re-
search task, or by
giving a presen-
tation
e.g., by providing
information in
the task instruc-
tion, or by
providing mate-
rial
example
for applica-
tion to con-
versations
Student A: “For her,
the bird looks like a
falcon, and she knows
her pet. So, it must be
the falcon and not a
raven.” Student B:
”Maybe she's just im-
agining a falcon. She
makes things up.” […]
Teacher: „We have ac-
tually heard all possi-
ble variations now.“
(Transcript 1, pos. 37–
68)
Teacher: “Look in
your text. Look
for the places
where ravens,
falcons, and col-
ors are men-
tioned. Who
speaks of what?
Look in the text!”
(Transcript 1,
pos. 68)
Teacher: Falcon
and raven,
should I explain
that, or do you
already roughly
know what they
look like? [...]
Can someone
briefly describe
again where
these animals
can be found?
(Transcript 2,
pos. 63)
Teacher: “Let's
take a look at the
text and see
what hints it
might give us.
You did this with
the other texts as
well: being text
detectives, look-
ing at the text
closely. Are there
any hidden clues,
maybe some-
thing that relates
to words? We
will do this for
the entire text in
just a moment.”
(Transcript 1,
pos. 68)