CRITICAL PARTICIPATION AND WRITING THROUGH STRUCTURED DIALOG

Introduction:
Dialogue is defined as "written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange." The word "dialogue" derives from two roots: "dia" which means "through" and "logos" which means "the word", or more particularly, "the meaning of the word." The image of a dialogue is one of a "river of meaning" flowing around and through the participants.
Any number of people can engage in dialogue - one can even have a dialogue with oneself - but the sort of dialogue we are considering involves a group of three people seated in a circle talking together in a digital environment. We, the participants, agreed to leave behind debating tactics that attempt to convince and, instead, talked from our own experience on subjects that we improvised on the spot. We have been meeting for a few hours every week over a period of three months.

Structured Dialogue:
Is a disciplined form of dialogue where we agreed to follow a framework of facilitation that enabled us to address complex shared problems. Our paper presents a "structured dialogue" representing our dialogical practice that we developed as a means for understanding problems and acting consensually. Whereas, most traditional dialogue practices are unstructured or semi-structured, such conversational modes have been observed as insufficient for the coordination of multiple perspectives in solving a problem.

Dialogued Pedagogy:
Paulo Freire advanced dialogue as a type of pedagogy. Freire held that "dialogued communication" allowed students and teachers to learn from one another in an environment characterized by respect and equality. A great advocate for oppressed peoples, Freire was concerned with praxis—action that is informed and linked to people’s values. Dialogued pedagogy was not only about deepening understanding; it was also about making positive changes in the world.

Conclusion:
Through our interaction, we explored individual and collective presuppositions, ideas, beliefs and feelings. Because the nature of Dialogue is exploratory, its meaning and its methods continue to unfold. No firm rules were laid down for conducting this dialogue because its essence was learning - not as the result of consuming a body of information or doctrine imparted by an authority, nor as a means for examining or criticizing a particular theory or program, but rather as part of an unfolding process of creative participation between peers.