Two teachers engage in assessment discussions based on an analytical rubric to assess an ELL student's writing. Discourse analysis methods were used to analyze recorded/transcribed assessments and discussions. The teachers focused on descriptors for the rubric's lowest scores, neglecting their own knowledge and experience with English learners. As…

This article describes the author's efforts to engage teachers in language study in a graduate course involving graduate students in Literacy Studies and TESOL programs. In the course "Language, Culture, and Identity: Issues for Teachers and Children," teachers study language like linguists: looking closely at language in use through in-class…

In this article, we address the ways children collaborate to inquire about text in the context of group discussions, addressing the question: How do students stay on-topic and sustain their discussions of text? We speculate that a framework for dialogic discourse, referred to as exploratory talk, allows students to understand that discussions of…

Discusses the collaboration that developed among two classroom teachers and a university instructor while one of the teachers visited classrooms to investigate the question: How can classroom teachers promote children's language and language skills? (HTH)

Laments the trend toward the use of management and administrative jargon as the language of school analysis. Endorses a new discourse and mode of analysis of the nature of schooling that would indict the shortcomings but also reveal new possibilities for organizing school experiences. (HTH)

Reflects on studies by teacher-researchers that show how attending to children's multiple oral discourses informs teachers' understanding of learning and language development. Discusses the school as a site of discourses in contact, ways of talking, appropriating new discourses, exploring different language genres, explicit practice in discussion,…

Discusses what a spontaneously formed group of three children thought and did as they composed a story together. The observations focus on the whole writing process. (HTH)

Discusses one teacher's gradual acceptance of poetry as a useful means for teaching many areas of the language arts. Includes a case study of one student's growth as a poet. (HTH)

Explores children's spoken narratives and the quality and purpose of Sharing Time in the classroom. Considers the quality and effects of teacher responses to students' talk. (HTH)

Describes a class project in which students solicited the opinions of famous and important people concerning the issue of nuclear war. The project taught students the process of inquiry and critical thinking. (HTH)

Based on data collected during a three-year ethnographic study, this article explores the inextricably-linked notions of language and identity for White girls living in a high-poverty neighborhood in the US. Class-specific primary discourses are analyzed through an informal discussion, a literature-based discussion, and a conflict within a…

Explores four drafts of a child's story about the disappearance of television, showing how the later draft suggests the writer's interest in questions about the nature of reality, and how the student grew as writer. (HTH)

Explores the gendered nature of talk in one multicultural, eighth-grade classroom, discussing how talk is an integral part of engendering. Looks at how the genderlects "Boy Talk" and "Girl Talk" contributed to classroom inequities. Offers suggestions to teachers for ways to validate and utilize the girls' discourse practices to their advantage,…