Contends that if a teacher gives students "good words" (by reading aloud to them throughout the day and giving them plenty of time to read silently), students will give good words back in their writing. Advocates getting children in the letter-writing habit. Shares letters from students over the years. Lists Mark Twain's rules for…

Examines the oral discourse of four university teaching contexts (lectures, laboratories, writing classes, and writing conferences) for the incidence of exchange patterns. Defines exchange patterns and explores previous research on three-part exchanges. Presents new research on two-part exchanges. Focuses on how non-native speakers of English…

Analyzes the behaviors of over 60 student groups in professional writing classes. Finds gender-related effects on collaboration: tendencies to stereotype men as technical experts and to self-segregate into gendered working teams. Suggests new perspectives on the role of gender for collaborative groups in professional writing classrooms. (PA)

Twelve children (ages 4-11) with autism and 12 controls selected their preferred prosody of voice or a story passage recorded using monotonous, conversational, and enthusiastic prosodies. Significant preferences were found for 3 children with autism. Children were less likely to respond if a monotonous prosody was used. (Contains references.) (CR)

Deals with the organization of children's interaction in a school setting where the teacher is absent. Basing the analysis on a 30-minute session where a small mixed-group of pupils are working on a math problem, examines the ways in which the children accomplish the task, the on-task talk through which they organize and work through a particular…

This study investigates the effect of out-of-class communication on learning outcomes. Participants came from a predominantly white public university. The average participant was 21 years old, and had completed 4.66 semesters of college. The results provide evidence that out-of-class communication may play a causal role in student learning.…

The advantages of group consensus testing are discussed, procedures for preparing and testing students by this method are outlined, and research supporting consensus testing is reviewed. (MSE)

Examines strategies that students use to signal comprehension problems in classrooms, specifically, requests for clarification. Finds strategies differ with regard to the type and amount of communicative effort required of participants. (MS)

Suggests using a structured feedback form to facilitate communication between teacher and students. The form has columns for assignments/tests, scores, ways to improve, strengths, and teacher's comments, plus a response column for the student's comments. (MKR)

Presents and analyzes data focusing on how teacher and students moved between theory and data in a unit designed to engage seventh-grade students mostly in the deductive direction of scientific activity, and how the dialectic of education was played out in the classroom as teacher and students were engaged in the activity. Contains 29 references.…

Describes how a fourth/fifth-grade teacher helps her students discover their tapped and untapped potential through talk in a democratic, shared community of learners. Discusses how issues of sex bias, sex stereotypes, and prejudice and bigotry were addressed in this classroom community. (RS)

Notes that studies of the social contexts of literacy learning in school suggest that literacy development cannot be understood apart from the context in which it occurs. Argues that some learning environments provide differential access to literacy activities in which participating in meaningful discourse is both process and product. Concludes…

Describes methods for engaging a large number of students simultaneously in Socratic dialogue. (JRH)

Two articles discuss recent trends in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) research, focusing on the conflict between research that examines the social contexts in which English is used and micro-level ethnographic research, and research that more directly involves teachers and students in the study of classroom discourse. (contains 20 references)…

A study of the discourse of formal instruction (inductive and deductive presentations) of two foreign language teachers is reported that suggests formal instruction can involve discursive negotiation resulting in the coconstruction of understanding between teacher and student. The discursive mechanism, "prolepsis," is discussed. (32…