The purpose of the research was to investigate how students, teacher and text intersected to develop interpretations and understandings of “edgy” literature. Aronson (2001) states that young adult literature includes texts which address, “the profoundest, deepest, and richest issues that we face as a nation” (p.8). The mediation of one such young adult novel, Night Fires (Stanley, 2009) is the focus of this teacher research, which took place with a class of urban sixth grade students during the 2011-2012 school year. The ways students interpreted and understood the text were analyzed through the theoretical frames of critical literacy, testimony and dialogism. These theories do not fully align with one another; however the data shows how they can work together in the analysis of a mediation.
Data are drawn from a qualitative teacher research study conducted in an urban sixth grade English class located in a large Midwestern city. Teacher research positions the researcher as an insider whose first responsibility teacher and not researcher (Baumann & Duffy-Hester, 2002). Within this research project, having my students as my primary responsibility meant that I was not an unbiased observer, instead I worked to understand the mediation of the novel through my knowledge of the students and through theoretical lenses and related research. In order to better understand how my students were interpreting the novel, I also worked to understand the research context – an urban middle school in a diverse community – from the students’ perspective. This allowed me to recognize and honor how the students defined themselves and their community, as opposed to imposing the label “urban”. This aspect of the research facilitated both my teaching and the research as the intersections of the students’ urban location and the novel became a part of the mediation.
Data analysis of six episodes from the novel mediation shows that the students, text and teacher intersected and interacted in a variety of ways. These interactions and intersections influenced how students read and interpreted the novel. This findings from this study suggests that the interactions students have in their study of literature will develop through their use of personal knowledge, the text, teacher facilitation and the parallel inquiries with classmates. The role of each aspect of a shared reading – the text, students and teacher – will vary throughout the mediation of a text, and the way a mediation will develop is unpredictable. When students’ personal knowledge did not align with the text, they had to deconstruct and reconstruct their understandings of their world to make sense of new information. The study also shows that when students were presented with a character who is a witness who refuses to see what is going on around him, a prolonged crisis ensued. Finally, this study demonstrates the role of teacher decision making in the mediation of literature. When deliberate decisions are made by the teacher to allow multiple interpretations of the text, and to allow student ideas and interpretations guide the instruction, the students and their views of the text are centered.