dialogic reading

Dialogic reading practices do not negate the value of linear arguments and explanations, but contextualizes them within other ways of doing research and coming to know. My learning and theorizing process included reading lots of abstracts and the backs of book covers, gaining prompts to thought, and introductions

to new ideas. It also included following my body, hands, and eyes to a article, chapter, page, or word. Sometimes that piece would offer the perfect quote, insight, or concept. In other cases, it was only one word in the middle of a paragraph or in a book title that would trigger further insights.

Once led to a word, sentence or paragraph, I would stop and listen rather than immerse myself in that person's detailed arguments. What did I have to say in response? What did the universe have to say in response? What insights came in the spaces in between? (Minh-Ha, 2006).

Dialogic reading practices, then, could best be described as prompts, listening, and response, which enabled a more balanced integration of conceptual reasoning and intuitive/embodied knowing. In some instances, just reading a short section was enough to prompt new insight. In other instances, I returned to the text, usually at a later time, to read further. This process required resisting my socially constructed desire to read an entire piece, and as a result, enabled me to move beyond thought, which was central to my opening to porosity.

Often...it is not student teachers' inability to imagine otherwise that restricts the possibility of educational change but teacher education's inability to provide them 'otherwise' experiences that break with the traditional, the expected, the obvious, and the taken-for-granted. (Segall, 2002, p. 167)