What event(s), text(s), image(s), word(s), discussion(s), caused you to rethink your established ideas about New Zealand and France and their people, the world, your life, the study of French etc.,?
The purpose of the question was two-fold: to identify the experiences that induced a significant change in how the student considers something or someone, and to identify the source of an experience that would lead to Piagetian accommodation.
144 What does the extract show?
L4 answered: “None particulary (sic), as NZ has always tried to preserve the environment and felt connected to nature e.g. Maoris”
Discussion of what it might mean.
L4 stated that she experienced nothing particularly caused her to rethink established ideas. L4 did not acknowledge her apparent epiphany expressed in her song in this question nor in the free comments section of the questionnaire. Her explanation from the above response is that the preservation of Nature in New Zealand and the feeling of connectedness notably in regards to Maori to Nature were not new to her.
Possible explanations for L4’s apparent distancing herself from her epiphany could be explained in two ways. She never experienced any such epiphany and her vociferous and repetitive declarations of it though her songs were in a sense playing to the recorder and to the class as an audience; and she experienced what Scarry (1999) referred to as the awkward feeling of making a mistake about beauty.
Plotting L4’s beliefs about courtly love on the ACC.
L4’s idea appears to have become brittle and tired now and at risk of collapsing. Summary
This chapter has presented detailed classroom transcript data, description, and analysis that trace the learning and classroom experiences of L4 and other students, through Lesson 1 and other lessons. The focus has been on the development of L4’s song that she wrote for the podcast task.
Extracts 1-14 were drawn from Lesson 1: The Mystery of Courtly Love. Based on the transcripts, L4’s conception of courtly love as emanating from the premodern holistic world view, where Nature is an expression of the mind of God and animals serve as moral
exemplars for how to love, most likely originated from Lesson 1 and its readings (Appendix 1: Student readings). From the data set, L4 did not evaluate the ideas regarding courtly love after Lesson 1. L4 introduced her interpretations to L1 who did not dispute their content, but focused instead on translating them into French or verifying L4’s translations. According to
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Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy L1 engaged in understanding which belongs to the lowest order of thinking. L4 on the other hand demonstrated creativity and reorganisation through her song and thus her thinking was of the highest order in Bloom’s taxonomy.
In the following passages I summarise the analysis of extracts 1-15 (see Figure 5.1). Conservation (K1) - Extracts 1-8
Extract 1: L4’s own story.
L4 and her classmates told their own story about what they thought courtly love was. L4 revealed she had a nostalgic and positive view of courtly love as part of a charming
romanticism that had been lost. She contrasted the slowness and intricacy of courtly love with “one night stands” and “texting”. Whereas L5 and L6 gave their definitions of courtly love in French, L4 gave her detailed explanation in English. This generated confusion and tension. The transcript reveals from the outset that there is a discrepancy between the level of French fluency expected under the NZC proficiency Descriptor for communication in the learning Area of Learning Languages at Levels 7 and 8, and the evident difficulty students had in expressing themselves.
Extracts 2-6: teacher’s expert story.
The teacher gave her interpretation of courtly love that included a dictionary definition (Extract 2). It is likely that L4 did not understand the explanations given in French. Students reviewed two medieval artworks as examples of the courtly theme: the tapestry The Lady and the Unicorn and the ivory jewellery box sculpture The Siege of the Castle of Love.
Participation was in French and L4 did not participate significantly (Extract 3). The teacher said in French that courtly love shared a common process with animal courtship echoing the message in the student readings to follow later in the lesson (Extract 4). The teacher said in French she wanted the students to see courtly love her way (Extract 4). In English she gave a mocking rendition of the process of courtly love (Extract 5). The teacher said courtly love was “unusual”. To illustrate this, the teacher spoke about the relationship between twelfth century philosopher Pierre Abelard and his student Heloise (Extract 6).
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Extracts 7-8: expert story from student readings and the beginning of student critique.
L4 was put into a group to read collectively half of an article in French. The text proposed two hypothetical explanations of courtly love for student critique: given the medieval belief that animals could convey moral lessons, courtly love as a model for courtship could have been derived from an imitation of certain animal species and that the excessive adoration of the beloved could have been an expression of the guiding role of the female in Darwinian notions of sexual selection (Extract 7). L4 and her classmates answered comprehension questions based on the text. L4 disagreed with the Darwinian explanation without giving a reason (Extract 8).
Collapse (K→Ω.)
Extract 9 - student critique of the expert story.
L5, L6, and L7 realised that L4 had not understood the arguments in the text. It appeared that L4’s disagreement was founded on a possible bias against the Darwinian argument. This may have caused a momentary loss of face for her.
Reorganisation (α) Extracts 10-13.
L6 corrected L4’s confused and inchoate understanding of the Darwinian explanation of courtly love (Extract 10). L4 gave a relatively coherent summary of the textual argument, having drawn of the feedback from her classmates. She would not, however, agree with them that larger biological investment of the female than the male in human reproduction could explain either courtly love or the tendency for the woman to have the decisive role in whether sexual relations take place (Extract 11). The discussion turned to contemporary practice where “girls always ask guys out” (Extract 12: L6, Line 102). L4 responded gesturing that to see girls infatuated with unattractive boys was sickening (Extract 12). L5 replied, quoting research she had read that showed marriages where the woman was more attractive than the man tended to be successful. L4 appeared to agree with L5, citing examples of celebrity couples where the man was less attractive than the woman (Extract 13). The students went on to cite more examples until L4 was ready to begin writing.
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Arrival at Renewal/Growth (r) – Student Evaluation of the Expert Story Extract 14.
L4 led the writing in English of the group response to their text, in this way selecting a direction to take. L4 agreed with the link between Darwinian sexual selection and courtly love, emphasising that it was the author’s opinion and would sceptical until she had more facts.
Renewal (r) – The Creation of an Original Idea Extracts 15-18.
The next time courtly love was mentioned in was in Lesson 6, 35 days later. In this instance I explained to the class how the lessons in the unit of work were connected. L4 and L1 decided to focus on the connection between the premodern medieval world view and courtly love (Extract 15). In Lesson 7, L4 said humans learnt the idea of courtly love from observations of Nature (Line 4 Extract 16).
Extracts 17- 22 come from lesson 8.
At the beginning of Lesson 8, L4 introduced the first draft of her song exuberantly to L1, suggesting an epiphany. The song appeared to resolve her apparent issues with Darwinian evolution by side stepping the question of the origins of Nature, and focusing on a
communion with the aliveness of Nature. L4’s verse “the environment sings with passion and the trees also in the breeze” is reminiscent of two Old Testament texts (Extract 17).
In the same lesson L4 addressed the conservation of biodiversity in the next verse saying that “the animals proved their worth because they showed the way to love” (Extract 18).
L4’s creativity and synthesis demonstrates high order thinking in terms of Bloom’s taxonomy (1956).
Arrival at Conservation (K2) - Idea Refinement Extract 19.
L4 wrote the final draft verse of her song: “So remember this and never forget how you felt when you know (sic) that Nature is alive” (Lesson 8, Extract 19). The verse itself possibly
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overlaps with Old Testament and New Testament notions. “Remember this and never forget” may have been drawn from Deuteronomy 9.7 (NIV). The remaining verse recalls
contemporary Christian devotional music that recalls the Resurrection and a moment of conversion. Nevertheless, in spite of L4’s apparent epiphany she did not acknowledge it in her exit questionnaire.
Conservation (K2) – Idea Calcification and Senescence Extracts 20-25.
L4 appeared settled into the contents of her song and began to shed aspects of uncertainty. Even though L4 had made a connection between conservation and courtly love she said she did not see the link, and decided to drop the idea (Extracts 20 & 22, Lesson 8; Extract 23, Lesson 9). L4 decided to put the song to a “famous French song” (Line 1, Extract 21). After two trials she decided to and set the song to The Saints Go Marching In (Extract 21). In Lesson 9, L4 defended the use of her song. She said it was all about appreciating Nature (Lines 99-100 Extract 23). In Lesson 10, L4 and L1 sang the completed song to their classmates (Extract 24).
Finally, in her postunit questionnaire L4 said that there was nothing in the Unit of Work that led her to rethink any aspect of her life (Extract 25). This suggests that to her the song was now jaded and that she was in error to think that she was saying anything new. At this point her idea may have been ripe for collapse.
Conclusions
In this section I have described the development of L4’s conceptualisation of a biological interpretation of courtly love that I proposed in Lesson 1. At the outset L4 saw courtly love positively as romantic and charming in contrast to “one night stands” and “texting”
(Conservation K1). By the end of the course she said that “animals proved their worth
because they showed the way to love” (Conservation K2). During the passage between these
two points she initially rejected the evolutionary and biological arguments for female coyness and mate preferences even though they appeared to support her view of courtly love. She had not understood the arguments and appeared to reject them without thinking them through (Collapse Ω). Through her classmates’ translations and paraphrasing she tentatively accepted
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the arguments (Reorganisation α). In Lesson 6, L4 decided to focus on the connection between the premodern world view and courtly love (Renewal/Growth r). In her song she said she had no idea what made Nature but insisted on a vital communion with it. She said that animals prove their worth because they show the way to love. The song appeared to give an account of an epiphany. She polished and defended her experience and ideas
(Conservation K2). At the end of the course L4 declared that nothing in the Unit of work led
her to rethink anything (poised for Collapse Ω2).
There are three conclusions to be drawn from this account of L4’s learning in this classroom context:
1. The account of L4’s learning can be coherently plotted qualitatively onto an ACC template. This suggests that the pattern of L4’s learning is analogous to that of ecosystem change.
2. L4 generated an original explanation for courtly love that was a consilience between Darwinian sexual selection, courtly love, premodern medieval world view, and her Christian beliefs. This synthesis could represent higher order thinking according to Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy.
3. L4 was unable to discuss and debate ideas in French. There is no evidence that she learnt in the target language but instead relied on translation and paraphrase of the translation from her classmates.
In Chapter 6, I present the results for student L5 following the same method as for L4. For her French podcast L5 chose to treat the theme of the authenticity in the artistic and
commercial representations of the New Zealand landscapes in relation to the current state of the environment, and in respect to the ideal landscapes and the savannah hypothesis. I include an investigation of possible communication between L5’s learning cycle and that of her two classmates L3 and L7.
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