4.1 Sample

The sample of students was taken from a class of year 10 students (15 years old, equivalent to grade 9 in the USA) preparing for their General Certificate in Secondary Education (GCSE) in English Literature, with a study of Macbeth by William Shakespeare. This class and year group was selected as they had begun their GCSE preparation: thus, the discourse of examination and assessment was relevant. The class was officially classified as being of middle ability based on the school streaming system and the school had prioritised finding strategies for improving the group’s performance. It was a multi-racial and mixed-gender group in the South East of England. This makes it a fair representation of similar groups and students in similar institutions in the region.

In line with the requirements of voluntary participation in research (BERA, 2018) all students in the class were invited to participate and provided with written information. Five students completed the parental consent form and therefore, only these five participated in the study. The sample consisted of two girls (one white: one black) and three boys (one mixed-race: two white). In a sense, the sample group was essentially self-selecting. This small number immediately raises the issue of representativeness, as it will be difficult to make any generalisations on the basis of our findings (^{FLICK, 2014}). However, because reflective research of one’s practice is one of the focus of this study, we felt that the small sample would provide insights into issues around researching one’s practice, as one of the authors teaches the group directly.

Second, our goal in this study as researchers was to be immersed in the research field with the ultimate goal of establishing and furthering the course of a fruitful relationship with respondents and through theoretical contemplation to address the research problem in depth. In such a situation, “concept formation through induction and analysis aims to clarify the nature of some specific situations in the social world, to discover what features there are in them and to account, however partially, for those features being as they are” (CROUCH; McKENZIE, 2014, p. 483). We, therefore, see our investigation as scrutinising a dynamic and continuously developing situation and our findings as potentially constituting instalments in knowledge development.

4.2 Research design

The study was designed as a qualitative case study. Data were collected during a lesson that followed a departmental sequence of learning on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Students had previously studied the social context of the play and natural order of the time period. Students worked in small groups studying a previously unseen extract, where minor characters discussed events highlighting Macbeth’s disruption to the natural order. Students were asked to explore the language and themes in the extract and link to their prior knowledge of other scenes in the play. Students then completed a short writing task in a similar style to examination questions (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance – AQA). The question was: Starting with this conversation, explore how Shakespeare presents ideas about the disruption to the natural order in the play. The plan for the delivery of the lesson was not adapted to support the research. Rather, a suitable lesson was selected from the departmental planning and the lesson was a natural progression within the sequence of learning and preparation for terminal examinations.

Pre and post-lesson-delivery, data were collected through audio recording using the school approved IRIS Connect software and the students’ written work. To address the problematic teacher’s self-observation (^{MASON, 2012}), video recording software was used to allow the space and time to transcribe student talk, reflect and listen. The permanence of the data of the video recordings and the written work, allowed for fine-grained analysis. Because IRIS Connect software for recording lessons is used regularly in the school, the process of data collection appeared to be normal.

4.3 The lesson

All data were collected within a one one-hour lesson. During the lesson, all participant and non-participant students were given an exam style question on an extract from the play. They had 10 minutes to work in groups and discuss how the extract linked to the play as a whole. Students were required to make annotations. During the rest of the lesson, students wrote an individual GCSE essay style written task in response the question. They were not given instructions about the need to use a range of voices.

4.4 Data analysis

Data collected from student talk were transcribed and digested by the researchers. A simple semantic denotation was used in classifying and colour-coding the data. Using the existing theoretical engagement with talk, a simple process of content analysis was applied. This allowed the semantic groups that have emerged to be classified thematically. An analysis of the themes was then carried out, mapping across the students’ verbal comments with their writing. Research into student talk often use recordings of transcripts, (^{MERCER, 2000}; ^{MYHILL, 2006}; ^{SUTHERLAND, 2015}), as it is the voices of students that are of interest. As this research was also interested in the nexus between group talk and written outcomes, students were required to make notes on an assigned text during their group talk session. The talk activity was followed by a GCSE style written task which was analysed for thematic and linguistic links to the student talk. Each student’s work was coded individually and then recurring themes were explored.

5.1 The voice of power and authority

Power relationships between the students were demonstrated through who controlled the direction of the discussion; who asked the questions; who took on the roles of authority and who expressed knowledge. Ray spoke the most and he also often managed the group by asking questions such as “What do we have then?” and “Has anybody mentioned…?” or by highlighting specific scenes ‘link it back to act two scene three and act one scene seven.’ He provided the most extended utterances on a greater range of topics (chaos, weather, the old man, the heavens, darkness, Duncan and the supernatural). He also offered a modern “translation”, providing a position of knowledge and power. Although Ray demonstrated a depth of knowledge during the discussion, this was not fully demonstrated in his writing, which was the shortest in length. In his writing Ray considers one theme he had picked up on during the discussion and had spent some time exploring: the significance of the old man. Whilst the other students used a range of ideas and voices from the discussion in their writing, Ray only explores one idea in depth – his own. His speech implies he was interested in this idea through his awareness of how it was “significant” and how it “made sense that they [Shakespeare] got an old man to comment”, suggesting his thought process regarding the requirement to explore methods, according to the GCSE mark scheme (AQA).

5.2 Discussion

The dissonance between Ray’s verbal utterances and his extended writing is interesting. Does his authority in the discussion suggest a confidence in himself and a disregard for the contributions of the others? Why then was his written response so short? Perhaps further student interviews might shed more light on these issues and his thinking about the learning and writing process. One further issue is the way in which a more able peer is often used to support and scaffold the work of students in a group. While other students used and adapted other people’s utterances, Ray did not. Therefore, although the group work did not benefit Ray in terms of the sharing of knowledge, it may have supported the development of his own ideas through thinking aloud. This resonates with the claim that students will “contribute through extended turns, by reasoning and building on their own and each other’s ideas and positioning themselves in a cumulative exchange” (CALGANI; LAGO, 2018, p. 4).

5.3 Positions of submission

A second emerging theme is positions of submission. Unlike Ray, Marianne was quiet during the discussion. A normally gregarious character, it was interesting that she remained quiet during the recording. Evidence from the written work suggests that Marianne mostly echoes Ray’s comments.

R: he basically says that in all of my life like he’s an old man so would be very wise that’s what they’d see at the time. he says I’ve seen some dreadful things and some strange things but nothing at er compared to this.

M: to show how bad it is.

In her writing, Marianne wrote: they use an old man to say these things Shakespeare also presents ideas about disruption to the natural order in the play… This is good because an old man is wise and have lived long way back and if he has never seen anything like what is going on then (sic) its telling us that killing Duncan was a very bad decision.

She echoes the language of “wise” and incorporates her own words of “bad” but develops these into her writing, although her expression lacked sophistication. Marianne’s voice in the group task differs to her usual voice in class. What was it about the power dynamics of the group that induced this? Whilst there is no conclusive evidence to support such generalisations, ethnic and socio-cultural identities shape our voice and our silences and should not be ignored in further research (^{COOPER-STOLL, 2013}), even though they might be challenging to explore and unpick.

5.4 Discussion

Marianne deferred to positions of power within the group, in particular Ray’s knowledgeable authority. This is arguable when the scaffolding of groups working with a more able peer works to support students within the Zone of Proximal Development. Again there was a divergence between the written and the spoken word with Marianne arguably writing more in terms of quantity, but in a less academic voice. Is this because she, unlike Ray, does not fully rehearse her expression through informal speech? As a passive recipient of knowledge, has she not yet transitioned between primary (spoken) and secondary (written) speech? Additionally it raises questions of “divergent normative perspectives upon whose knowledge is held valid, who can participate and how” (CALGANI; LAGOS, 2018, p. 6). Further interventions could explore how the teacher could harness these powerful voices to engage and support collaboration to support students like Marianne. Is Marianne’s written work empowered by her connection to Ray or is her spoken voice disempowered by his authority?

5.5 Silence

The third emerging theme is silence. Glen spoke only three times, and only after Ellie’s prompting. However, although his utterance appears vague when he says, “with that triangle thing with the animals are quite low,” it refers to the historical context of the play and the “Great Chain of Being”, which had been explored in previous lessons. He brought in the voices of teacher explanation and the context of the play. Although Ray uses inclusive language “What do we have?” unlike Ellie he does not attempt to include individuals and instead uses these questions to structure his own talk and in fact undermines Glen, with “OK let’s get on with this then,” reasserting his position of power. Despite his silence, Glen was able to complete the written task, although his written response was predominantly his own ideas. He uses five quotations in his response, two of which were suggested by Sam: he also uses quotations, ideas and terminology (oxymoron, symbolism) that had not been discussed. However, Glen is able to formulate his own explanations and, therefore, develops his independence and written voice from his silence. This internalisation and independence is a requirement of his GCSE examination. Whilst the data comparison of spoken and written work did not help explore the research question regarding how voice is reconstructed, it does highlight difference between Glen’s silence and Marianne’s, and would be worthy of further research.

5.6 Discussion

These findings would suggest that Glen’s silence is neither a lack of confidence with the knowledge, nor in his own abilities. His written work was expressive and informed. Why then was he so quiet during the discussion? The argument that speech allows a rehearsal of ideas may not be applicable to Glen. Although he did not speak much, his written response is academic in style. Speech does not seem, therefore, to be a prerequisite for good writing. Would greater active participation in the group have allowed Glen to develop his ideas further or at least support others? ^{Ollin (2008)} argues that although talk has become a shorthand for learning and silence is passive, there is a “process of maturation in which cognitive development is internalised” (p. 267). His writing may be a demonstration of an internalisation of learning over time. There may be other reasons why a student remains quiet, including personal, internal and external conditions that contributed to Glen’s silence. For example, Glen is a student in receipt of free school meals. How far does this contribute to his confidence and lack of authority? Again further research could go some way in exploring this. Lastly, it could be argued that due to the individual and silent nature of the written task, all students actually were allowed a voice and the opportunity to express their ideas through the written word. It is worth considering the ways in which written tasks are worded and structured to allow this to fully unfold.

5.7 The voice of the text

Although students used each other’s utterances, references to prior learning and the Teacher’s voice, they also used the source text - Macbeth. Sam spoke frequently and often. However, of his 18 utterances 9 are direct quotations from the text. He explains his understanding of these quotations only 4 times. Sam demonstrates both his knowledge and his deference to the voice of the text. His knowledge of the text however was mostly focused upon the extract and only once refers a quotation from the whole play – one that had been studied thus bringing in the voice of the teacher and his previous learning. Sam’s other utterances were positive agreements with the other students. This was interesting as Sam appears to lack confidence in written tasks as he is dyslexic, yet in the discussion he spoke with self-assurance. Marianne’s comments were the most intertextual with a reference to fairy tales: “so its like what its like fairy tales that have that one source of light.” This linking to classic texts helps Marianne to conceptualise her understanding of the play. This also provides a voice from outside the space of the classroom. Although, this reference was ignored by the other students as potentially irrelevant, it is interesting to note the difference between how the students viewed some utterances for their functional purposes and how a researcher with a theoretical perspective views the same utterances.

5.8 Discussion

Each of the students played a different role within the group discussion and each student provided utterances with different purposes – Glen’s context, Sam’s quotations, Marianne’s intertextual references, Ray’s explanations and Ellie’s supportive questions. Sam’s responses with the text at the heart of his utterances are the first steps towards an exploration of the text as a construct and the importance of the author’s voice. However, this was not fully explored. Students incorporate different voices in different ways: students who appear verbally confident are able to develop and explore their own ideas in writing in more depth and use the discussion time to explore their own thinking rather than build on the voices of others. However, silence does not necessarily indicate that students do not have understanding, as they are able to draw on a range of utterances to develop their own written voice. Voices within the classroom are not just limited to the time and space of any assigned group work, but can emerge from students’ own contextual knowledge, the text and previous lessons. This raises questions of how to research this and collect data for future analysis.

The data suggest that learning does intersect with social, political and historical spheres and that each utterance is reconstructed to shape new meaning and new understanding from a range of voices. The students’ voices may be filtered through power and socio-economic associations beyond the classroom, which influence the ways in which students respond: “we reconstruct, we can resist, reshape and re-accent a speech genre so that it becomes “half-ours and half-someone else’s” thus making new meanings possible” (^{HAWORTH, 1999}, p. 101), with the direction of learning from the social to the individual.

6.1 Questions of practitioner research

Although this study was a small scale exploration of the power dynamics of a group discussion and the subsequent written outcome, it was also an avenue for testing of methodology and in particular the complexities of researching one’s own practice. Arguably, research is as much about individual development as contributing to the body of knowledge. However, there are a number of issues with regards to researching one’s own practice, particularly with regards to bias and subjectivity - indeed these issues are true of any research within the interpretative paradigm. Within any research “stands the personal biography of the researcher, who speaks from a particular class, gender, racial, cultural and ethnic community perspective” (^{DENZIN; LINCOLN, 2008}, p. 28). For one of the researchers, who is a white teacher in a mixed, multi-cultural comprehensive school in South East London, these issues play out daily, although it is evident that it is easy to miss the depth and subtleties of student interactions (^{MASON, 2012}), whilst in the midst of problem solving and delivery. It is also possible to be ideologically blind to students’ identities (^{COOPER-STOLL, 2013}): as researchers and practitioners we need to learn that impartiality starts with ourselves and reflective practice (including the use of reflective logs or journals) is an important part of any qualitative research.

It could be argued that the same questions could have been answered by researching a different school, a different teacher and a different group of students, but ^{Kemmis (2006)} argues that action research leads to a greater understanding of ourselves and the consequences of what we do, so that we can act more wisely. However, ^{Mortari and Harcourt (2012)} argue that even the most interesting or fascinating question for research is not sufficient to legitimise involving children in a research project, let alone the use of video for data collection). Arguably, it is only through improving ourselves as teachers that we can improve the education and equality for our students. Research encourages us to listen, look, read and question radically (^{CLOUGH; NUTBROWN, 2012}). Researchers need to ‘develop the capacity to see their topic with new and different lenses in order to look beyond and transform their current knowledge’ (^{CLOUGH; NUTBROWN, 2012}, p. 26). Despite questions of power and agency in research being done to children, ^{O’Leary (2014)} argues that research should empower the marginalised, by providing a voice. Finally, there is the “known adult” which “makes the research conversation more meaningful (and increases the likelihood that the children’s views might have impact… rather than being ‘simply’ data for the research study” (^{CLOUGH; NUTBROWN, 2012}, p. 32).

Therefore, the arguments and problems with researching one’s own practice can be legitimised because of the value for the practitioner and ultimately for the students, by improving not only the quality of education they receive; but also to empower. Subsequent research would aim to include these voices more.