Enhancing face value: A description of teacher and student negotiation of power and politeness in a one -to -one first-grade reading intervention.

Abstract

As reading teacher and researcher, I studied my instructional interactions with my students in my one-to-one first grade reading interventions to observe identity and social relationship positioning that served and disrupted student engagement and learning. A total of 16 interactions selected from 73 half-hour Reading Recovery lessons videotaped with five children were analyzed, reflecting negotiation of power, as well as positive and negative politeness breaches and repairs in communication. Power, theorized as a circulating current that alternates between members of an interaction, was observed as functioning to maintain and deflect instructional interactions. When circulation was stymied, usually with the intent of controlling the lesson agenda, the struggle to regain control resulted in a breach of positive or negative politeness features and a breakdown of productive instructional communication. Power struggles and face-threatening acts were shown to pull the student's and/or the teacher's attention away from the reading work, with a resultant loss of lesson productivity. A Reading Recovery program served as the setting for teacher-student interactions which were analyzed through discourse analysis. Situation network (Gee, 1999) analysis demonstrated the reflexive contexts of interactions. Analysis of pragmatic aspects of the shared discourse revealed examples of face-threatening acts, breaches in politeness, neglect of teacher and student situated identities, and examples of resistance. Application of positive politeness strategies, affirming approval of the injured party, and negative politeness strategies, minimizing imposition on her/him, are shown to effect communication repairs and a return to collaborative productivity. The study informs six-year-olds' expressions of power and politeness. A proposed professional development program for the benefit of pre-service and in-service teachers is offered, as well as suggestions for implementing the study of power and politeness using discourse analysis in a regular classroom. Future research possibilities include contrasting one-to-one structures with small groups in a reading intervention, as well as targeting low-achieving children within the regular classroom, using the techniques applied in this study.