by empowering students to share their thoughts through collaborative reading and annotation activities . By using Talis Elevate to add and respond to comments on shared documents , students were able to co-create knowledge and help shape discussions about the readings . As a result , my role in the seminars was to facilitate and participate in , rather than dominate , discussions by posing questions , offering my own ( subjective ) interpretations of sources , and prompting further analysis when necessary . Students responded well to this more dialogic and democratic approach to teaching and learning , as it allowed them to debate and develop ideas in conversation with one another . Talis Elevate encouraged students to take ownership of their learning and to become active participants in knowledge creation , which enhanced their critical thinking skills and helped them to prepare for their assessments in which they were required to present arguments about the primary texts . 8
4 . Diversifying knowledge
The potential for all students to engage in discussions via Talis Elevate meant conversations were more reflective of the diverse learning community . The diversity of the group , in turn , encouraged students to diversify their knowledge of the literary texts , as well as the wider social issues explored within them , by providing them valuable insight into multiple approaches to reading and interpreting the subject matter . Students could share their perspectives and learn new ones by reading and engaging with the annotations of their peers – a democratic and dialogic process that , as I have argued , is key to critical pedagogies . The opportunity to encounter different perspectives through critical pedagogic practices has broader social implications , as it encourages students to move beyond what Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ( 2009 ) calls ‘ single stories ’ of people , places , and issues in literature and society more generally . As Adichie demonstrates , ‘ single stories ’ in literature can result in critical misunderstandings and harmful stereotyping by causing readers to make generalised assumptions about heterogeneous groups of people in literary texts and , by extension , society .
As part of my critical pedagogic practice , I spoke openly with students about the importance of engaging in critical discussions that resist homogenising groups of people in order to move beyond ‘ single story ’ perceptions of subject matter
( and to be critical of instances whereby assigned authors and poets present one-sided cultural representations that reinscribe harmful stereotypes ). Students were encouraged to consider the complexities and nuances of identities and issues through set discussion questions , which prompted them to identify multiple themes and perspectives when annotating the sources on Talis Elevate . For instance , in one collaborative reading activity , students debated whether Caryl Churchill ’ s Top Girls ( 1982 ) upholds or challenges gender and class stereotypes . In another activity , they engaged in critical discussions about race and identity in Fatimah Asghar ’ s ‘ Map Home ’ ( 2018 ), concluding that the crossword form of the poem reflects the multiplicity of identities in the context of immigration . These conversations took place in breakout rooms during small group collaborative reading activities on Talis Elevate , through which the groups responded to question prompts by adding their arguments and reflections as annotations on the shared documents . The annotations were visible to everyone in the seminar group , creating opportunities for students to view texts and issues from multiple perspectives . In the above instances , Talis Elevate was integral to the promotion of critical pedagogic teaching and learning practices by encouraging students to transcend – and contest – ‘ single story ’ narratives that perpetuate harmful stereotypes of perceived group homogeneity , precisely by enabling them to read other people ’ s annotations and interpretations of social issues within texts .
Inspired by critical pedagogy , I encouraged students during the aforementioned activities to consider their own positionalities and how personal experiences impact our approaches to reading literature . The attention to our own subject positions not only resulted in multiple interpretations of social issues in literature and contemporary society , but also empowered students ‘ to find their voice ’ – to borrow hooks ’ words – and employ it as a critical lens through which to read texts , share ideas , and diversify their knowledge by encountering additional perspectives contributed by others . Talis Elevate was appropriate for this task , since it enables students to annotate the same document and thus records multiple interpretations in one space , which students can return to when exploring these issues further in assessed essays . Students appreciated the ability to read their peers ’ interpretations , with several students reporting that it helped them to expand their knowledge of the literary texts and
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