I am trying to interest Peter in joining the discussion, but it's a busy
time still (after the holidays, grades going in).
The focus of his interest is akin to Marty's emphasis on the 'genre
context' of teacher questions: he looks at longer sequences to see to what
extent teachers follow-up on student answers and contributions in ways that
make the dialogue more truly reciprocal and not simply alternating. That
is, students would have a greater degree of thematic control of the
discussion than is typical in normal IRF known-answer triadic patterns.
He looks more at the consequences and frequencies of the different patterns
in the same class than at external comparisons. Marty's tracking
comparisons certainly remind me as well of Angel Lin's reference to Hasan's
work, and the comparison data I know of from the not-yet-published
dissertation of Kay O'Halloran (Murdoch University, Australia; now National
U of Singapore) in mathematics education looking at social class and gender
differences in discourse patterns and how they relate to empowerment in
subject matter based discourses of power. No one will be surprised by the
conclusions, but the methods are quite interesting, as is the intersection
of class and gender factors.
More perhaps in another posting. JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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