This study examines the impact of "Disaggregate Instruction" on students' science learning. "Disaggregate Instruction" is the idea that science teaching and learning can be separated into conceptual and discursive components. Using randomly assigned experimental and control groups, 49 fifth-grade students received web-based…

Writing courses are increasingly popular in higher education. This paper presents a pedagogic approach that combines theory and practice, in an accessible way, to help students appreciate the interrelation of styles and contexts, and develop skills for writing in a range of genres. The approach is characterised as "adaptive application".…

To test whether epistemically unproblematic ways of thinking and talking about science could be transformed during preservice teacher training, we designed a system of learning activities based on a set of "heuristics for progressive disciplinary discourse" (HPDD). The HPDD outline six design principles of learning environments where the aim is to…

According to research in educational psychology, advance organizers lead to better learning and recall of information. In this research, the authors explored advance organizers from a business perspective, where larger documents are read under time pressure. Graphic and verbal advance organizers were manipulated into six versions of an advisory…

Discusses how a dialogic approach might relate to the French curriculum in theoretical terms and proposes a blueprint for a contemporary French culture course that places various approaches to cultural dialogue at the fore. Several key permutations o this way of analyzing culture are examined, and specific examples of how to integrate these…

This paper proposes that transformative social change by community educators is not achievable unless they can challenge the social, economic and political discourses that have an impact on the practice of community education. As educators of community workers, the authors regard the development of voice to be a prerequisite for the challenging of…

This article describes the types of discourse seven high school teachers used during cooperative leaning. One classroom lesson where students worked in cooperating groups was audiotaped and fully transcribed for each teacher and a vignette of two of the teachers and one of the groups in his or her room are also provided. The data from the…

Outlines two flaws in G. Thomas Goodnight's theory of the public sphere. Argues that Goodnight's distinction between the technical and public spheres is untenable and that modification of his position to recognize the technical nature of public argument strengthens the formulation. Suggests other more applicable terms to describe Goodnight's…

This paper focuses on textual issues in the reporting of action research. There exists a large body of text-analytical work on research reports from various fields, examining for example the organisation and rhetorical purpose of research articles or sections thereof. However, less has been done on the specific issues of reporting action research,…

Despite the multifaceted role language plays in promoting direct and indirect violence, activities that would develop the linguistic knowledge and critical language skills for understanding how discourse shapes individual and group beliefs and prompts social action are conspicuously absent from peace education. This article aims to address this…

Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action has held much promise for critical theory and its examination of the structure of society. This theory, however, has been accused by some as being limited in regard to other forms of discourse, especially fictional, mythical, and religious texts. Habermas has argued that literature (i.e., fictive…

Examines interaction between demonstrative and rhetorical modes of visual argumentation by drawing upon two examples: the first includes illustrations from paleoanthropological debates on the origins of modern humans; the second references the widely disseminated "march of progress" image of human evolution. Concludes that rhetorical…

Clarifies how the scheme systems work in C. Perleman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca's "The New Rhetoric," responds to a critique of it, and examines patterns of scheme use in five panel discussions. Concludes that the description of inferential scheme categories in "The New Rhetoric" is generally complete and useful for the study of…

Elucidates the special properties of narrative as a mode of discourse and as a cognitive instrument. Argues for the potential power of narrative in many common business writing situations. (SR)

Indicates that the language of discourse needs to be evaluated more diligently by participants, greater attention must be paid to the tradition out of which an interpreter speaks, and hidden assumptions need to be unveiled more critically by participants in continuing professional discourse. (JOW)