Co -élaboration du sens dans les cercles littéraires entre pairs en première secondaire: Étude des relations entre les modalités de lecture et de collaboration

The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the dynamic interplay between reading and social variables in literature circles at the secondary level. To better understand how young teenagers sustain co-elaboration of meaning in such a collaborative setting without a teacher, we need to know: (1) in which proportions they use and integrate the different reading modes and strategies; (2) the quality of their verbalization; (3) in which proportions they use the different modes of collaboration and types of interactions; (4) if there is any difference between a regular group and a “fast track” one and finally, (5) if any correlations exist between all these variables.

This study has been conducted by the teacher-researcher in a natural teaching setting and aims to render operational a junction between the actual learning socio-constructivist theories and cognitive-aesthetic theories of reading. Population comes from an urban, multiethnic school in Montreal. Students (61) have all the year long been introduced to transactional strategy instruction and been trained, for the pre-experimentation (March-April)., to use literature circles. During the experimentation (May-June), they independently read the novel Vendredi ou la vie sauvage by Michel Tournier. After, in each class, one sample of two heterogeneous teams (5 students) has been selected. Each team has had two discussions tape-recorded.

Qualitative content analysis of the transcriptions and statistical treatment had been used to analyze the data. Results show that in these eight autonomous literature circles: (1) the Literal reading mode is as much used as the three other reading modes together traditionally associated with literary stances, that are Aesthetical Engagement, Textual Analysis and Evaluation-Critic modes. The “Identification, moral judgment” reading strategy is the one most frequently used. (2) 45% of all analyzed episodes reached a very good or excellent degree of elaboration. However, Aesthetical Engagement and Analysis modes are the ones where verbalization reaches the highest levels of elaboration. (3) Feedback and Management collaboration modes had been used in an equivalent proportion as cognitive modes, such as Articulation and Subject Development modes. (4) Students in the regular group differ from those in fast track group in the fact that they use a larger proportion of “Approval” and fewer remarks to “Doubt others' ideas” or to “Help others to develop their ideas”. (5) Excellent episodes analyzed show that the fast track group seems to adopt a divergent modality of co-elaboration, as opposed to the regular group, which is more convergent.

By offering a modelization of the literary reading process, literature circles are an opportunity for students to integrate all reading modes they need to read a novel and elaborate their own interpretations. Explicit teaching of reading strategies and rhetorical rules to elaborate verbalization serves as an intellectual tool to support the reciprocal scaffolding of peers and the structure of exchanges. Feedback and Management modes of collaboration greatly support this shared literary interpretation process. Different co-elaboration modalities (divergent and convergent) may conduct to an excellent degree of elaboration, but regular and fast-track groups seem to differ on this point.