LEg-GOdt: Play Well Co-constructed Meaning-making in an Elementary Classroom

Making meaning is a social and semiotic endeavor. The positive roles of talk and play have long been argued as critical factors in the comprehension process. Yet, in classrooms today, there are limited opportunities for students to enact these social behaviors, collaborate, and negotiate understanding of a text or concept in spaces independent of the teacher. Comprehension is named and evaluated as an outcome versus honoring the agentive processes that lead learners to that outcome (Aukerman, 2013). There is still much to be learned by scholars and practitioners about the acts of making meaning—the agentive work done in the spirit of comprehending. This single case study sought to better understand what can be learned about the comprehension process by observing five fourth grade students (organized in two groups) co-construct meaning of a story using LEGO pieces. The data revealed that when students are provided with the gifts of time, talk, manipulatives (i.e., LEGO pieces), and play, they can co-construct deep and symbolic understandings of a text. The findings contributed to a conceptual model for co-constructed meaning-making, which reflects how students explore inferential understandings and empathy and concretize their understanding through the meaning potential of the LEGO pieces. In the process, the students create a shared LEGO language, which in turn, allows them to reconstruct representations that reflect deep and personalized understandings of the text. The findings of this study challenge educators--intermediate grade teachers, in particular--to think broadly about how they design opportunities for students to co-construct meaning of texts through talk and play. Additionally, this conceptual model extends to theory in that it reveals how students move toward understanding; it is a latent and layered process.