Since my prime focus has been on examining the effects of
collaborative work on learning, that is, on what happens as a
result of a developing assumption of responsibility for their own
learning by small groups, I have focused most of my attention on
on examining the contexts that enable collaborative exchange,
positive interdependence within and among groups, and how such
situations help students develop as readers, speakers, and
writers. I have therefore used extracts from small-group
discussion transcripts and video-clips to illustrate and support
my arguments. I have always wanted to examine the processes more
closely and hope to get around to the mounds of transcripts I
have.
I hope to find out how children and adolescents use language
differently in such contexts from most classroom settings where
the teachers is conducting a lesson, so to speak, or even in
small group work where the discussion is circumscribed by a set
of questions provided by the teacher. I do not know what form
such an analysis would take. I believe there will be a
difference, if only because children responding to teacher-
directed inquiry are proceeding generally not from their own
goals and therefore are involved in a process of realizing the
context from which those questions come: what is it the teacher
wants of me, my construction of what she means by such and such a
thing, why does this matter and are any of the things that occur
to me relevant or irrelevant, etc.? I can see how the discussion
of prolepsis as I am now beginning to understand it is most
relevant here.
I have used poems (fairly challenging) for such discussions,
simply because they are open texts that most people and even
teachers simply avoid reading on their own (there's a whole
process of mystification involved), and particularly because the
reading of poems in school is mediated to a high degree by
teachers' directive questions.
I'd be glad for any feedback and happy to provide further
information.