Always Flipped? A Peer-Centred Cycle for Teaching and Learning in the English Literature Class

Abstract

In English departments, the default literary pedagogy of ‘read and discuss’ renders student performance particularly vulnerable to shortfalls in the area of deep reading. Where students rely on online content resources before reading literary texts, they effectively flip the class, decreasing rather than increasing active learning. This article presents a blended model for mitigating this trend by means of a reciprocal peer learning feedback loop. The Peer-Centred Cycle minimises direct instruction online or in class, and uses an online-to-classroom feedback loop to shift the majority of classroom activity to reciprocal peer learning, distinguishing it from both flipped classroom pedagogies, as well as from RPL as an occasional classroom strategy.