Dialogue (as a writing style)

This is a great way to write about something, learn in collaboration with others, and have a bit more fun with a topic. Instead of just writing within an outline, you both write back and forth to each other, holding a conversation. This way, you get the added insight of an extra brain, the reflective treatment that the topic deserves, and a paper that will hold a reader's interest. It is not for nothing that Paulo Freire uses the term "dialogic" to describe personally relevant, reflective learning, since a literal dialogue can be one of the easiest ways to achieve this. In fact, Freire wrote a book with Ira Shor, completely in dialogue form! It reads like a drama, and makes the discussion come alive in a way that might surprise those who find Freire's texts really boring.

Creating a dialogue can be done in a number of ways: by passing written notes back and forth, by tape recording an actual conversation and transcribing it, or by conversing by some other means like email.

Three of the students involved in the 1995 Portfolio Writing Workshops did a Portfolio segment collaboratively, traveling together, talking about their experiences as they found them, sharing notes they took when they split up, and discussing the process of what they were doing. By doing so, they were able to take a field trip which disgusted them and make it into a really rich, relevant learning experience.

Portfolio segments are not the only place to examine real dialogue, either. Community Meetings involve an oral dialogue. So do advising sessions. This Resource Guidebook is a sort of dialogic forum, because of its emphasis on feedback and revision. There is a section in this Guidebook containing minutes from a Journal Writing Workshop, entirely in dialogue form (SENIOR THESIS (I.1)). Newsletters can also contain dialogues. Here is a random excerpt, just to illustrate (from an ME/IC newsletter of 1993):

...

krys:  Yes, when constructive spacing out is a conscious break in 
work, experience, doing, in order to think, rest, reflect, etc.

jonathan:  Nevertheless, I don't know of anyone, anywhere, who is 
completely in control of time spent (as opposed to the other way 
around); there are times when I'm especially industrious and/or 
conscious, and even then, I find it common and healthy to suddenly 
awake from reverie and find my essay lingering on the second sentence 
where I left it an hour ago.

krys:  This is what I mean when I say trying.  There is a quote from 
an excerpt that I put in the last Mooncycle, from one of Henry 
Rollins' books.  It goes:  "I am in motion at all times.  Waging war 
with you, Exhaustion.  Winning some and losing some."  This is what I 
mean; not the succeeding, but the trying.

jonathan:  Let me try something else.  The Hebrew-speaking Israelis 
here have a phrase, la-sim lev [al] literally meaning "to place 
[one's] heart [on something]."  Generally it means "watch out," 
"concentrate," or "pay attention."  The last meaning, for me, seems 
best to convey what you mean when you speak an underlined word.  
Living is living that you pay attention to.  When meandering 
down a city street, paying attention is watching the things and 
people around you.  When distracted for an hour from typing, paying 
attention is noticing the import and consequence of time spent in the 
astral plane (or whatever).  When traveling, paying attention is 
finding some kind of connection with a new place, even if some 
isolation is involved in the process.

krys:  Yes, not to miss life.  When you really see or do things, you 
remember them, because of the level of consciousness and participation 
involved.  You remember what the drive from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem 
looks like, because you really saw it.

...

Workshop Discussion Sparks

Relation of written dialogue to dialogic learning

Inspired and Creative

A number of accomplished authors (including Lewis Carroll, Plato, Galileo, and Douglas Hofstadter) have used dialogues between fictional characters to illustrate conceptual points. Check the CREATIVE WRITING sections (D.3) for support.

Rigorous Training

Practice for your Portfolio by putting dialogues in your Center Newsletter (as above).

AAAAAGGGHHHH!

An interview is a kind of dialogue. Check the INTERVIEW section (F.5) for more hints.

See Also

RELEVANCE AND DIALOGIC LEARNING (C.4)
COMMUNITY MEETINGS (J.2)
ADVISORS AND ADVISING (I.3)
INTERVIEWS (F.5)
OTHER MEDIA (D.7)
PROCESS AND PRODUCT (C.6)
A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education, by Paulo Freire and Ira Shor (written entirely in dialogue form, about dialogic learning!)

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