Hammill Institute On Disabilities: Sage Publications, Inc

Hammill Institute on Disabilities
Designing Conversation: Book Discussions in a Primary Inclusion Classroom

Author(s): Ruth A. Wiebe Berry and Carol Sue Englert
Source: Learning Disability Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Winter, 2005), pp. 35-58
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4126972 .
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DESIGNING CONVERSATION:
BOOK DISCUSSIONS IN A PRIMARY
INCLUSION CLASSROOM
Ruth A. Wiebe Berry and Carol Sue Englert
Abstract. This study examined the nature of student talk and

the teacher's role during book discussions. The participants were
17 first- and second-graders with and without disabilities in
an inner-city inclusion classroom. Applied conversation analysis
techniques were employed to analyze two videotaped book dis-
cussions. Results indicated that student-selected topics and con-
tingent talk were necessary for fluent conversational discourse.
Additionally, the teacher's role was crucial in apprenticing stu-
dents to deal with a novel participant structure and its attendant
complex linguistic and cognitive requirements. Results also
demonstrated the competence with which students with disabili-
ties assumed influential and decisive roles in the discussions.
Implications for students with disabilities are discussed in terms of
opportunities for self-expression and involvement in constructing
and negotiating the activity.
RUTHA. WIEBEBERRY,Ph.D., is assistant professor, Universityat Buffalo, SUNY.

CAROLSUE ENGLERT,Ph.D., is professor, Michigan State University.
Conversation,whether ordinaryor institutional, can pared to handle conversational skills such as topic-
be defined as "talk-in-interaction"(Schegloff, 1989) sharing. Children from economically disadvantaged
that must be negotiated with others to be effective. backgroundstypically have not participatedin conver-
Institutional conversation typically possesses institu- sations with their caregivers to the same extent as
tion-specific goals and structures (Silverman, 2001), middle-classstudents, and thus exhibit fewer conversa-
exemplified in school classroomsby the traditionalini- tional skills (Bloom, 1998). Further,children with dis-
tiation-response-evaluation pattern (I-R-E) (Mehan, abilities, including many who have language and
1979). However,an increasingawarenessamong educa- learning disabilities,often display expressiveand recep-
tors of the social, as well as academic,aspects of cognitive communication difficulties, are less engaged in
tion has resulted in increaseduse of a more reciprocal social interactions than their general education coun-
model of classroom conversation that emphasizes terparts,and tend to experience greaterdifficulty with
student participationleading to autonomy and empow- the pragmatics of conversational discourse (Alves &
erment in classroominteraction. Gottlieb, 1986; Mathinos, 1991; McIntosh, Vaughn,
Learning more conversation-like patterns of class- Schumm, Haager,& Lee, 1993).
room talk presents difficulties for some children. For Insufficient researchattention has been given to the
example, young children are developmentally unpre- ways in which children are active in the teaching-
Volume28, Winter2005 35

learning process (Biemiller & Meichenbaum, 1998; sion, understanding or using metaphor, moving
Stone, 1998). Forexample, the promotion of conversa- beyond literal interpretationsto share personal feelings
tional skills to increase student autonomy and self- and experiences, evaluating text, and drawing on mul-
regulation, in particular, has generally not been tiple sources of information (Goatley, 1997; Idol &
emphasized in classroom research.Yet, in the area of Croll, 1987; Kuder,2003; Wiig & Semel, 1984).
the languagearts,there has been increasingrecognition A second set of processes for effective discussions
that students' participation in book discussions may involves shiftsin thestructureofpowerand authority.That
have positive influences on the acquisition of higher- is, the teacher does not remain in the position
order thought and mental processes (Raphael, Pardo, of ultimate "cognitive authority," but gradually shifts
Highfield, & McMahon, 1997) as well as the develop- responsibilityto students for employing interpretative
ment of conversationalskills. strategies, as well as for asking questions, clarifying
This study examined the processesby which first-and meanings, and justifying and evaluating answers. In
second-gradestudents were supportedto become more such mutually constituted discussions, students have
proficient in literary conversations. The focus of this power to shape the direction of the discourseas they are
research was a group of students with language and called upon to introduce topics and questions, build on
one another'sideas, finish each other's incomplete sen-
learning disabilities (LLD)for whom participation in
conversationsabout literatureis often a challenge. tences, and struggleto understandunfamiliarideas and
perspectives(Barnes,1993). Fromtime to time, students'
Effective Literature Discussions talk may sound tentative and cognitively uncertain, but
The conception of what literate performancemeans these are the occasions when their ideas and perspec-
has broadened, since "state and national frameworks tives can be developed, synthesized, shaped or opposed,
emphasize substantivegoals such as understandingthe as they constructand reconstructideas in the context of
purposes and features of different kinds of narrative the thinking of the entire group (John-Steiner &
texts (narrative, informative, persuasive) and under- Meehan, 2000). Simultaneously,through participation
standing the meaning of sophisticatedliteraryconcepts in challenging discussions, students come to know they
such as imagery, metaphor, and point of view" have the capability to undertake the rigorous work of
(Morocco, Hindin, Mata-Aguilar, & Clark-Chiarelli, intellectual inquiry. The goal of book discussions is to
2001, p. 47). Thus, students are expected to make infer- internalize thought and interpretativeresponse, but in
ences about character motivation, recognize a wide orderto achieve that end, a supportivecontext must be
range of text genres, apply a theme to a literary text, created that furthers students' opportunities and abili-
describetheir own responsesto a text, engage in literary ties to observe, communicate, and receive feedbackon
reasoning,and provideevidence to supportan interpre- their literarythoughts, decisions, and choices.
tation (Marzano& Kendall, 1995; Morocco, Cobb, & A third set of processes for furtheringthe participa-
Hindin, 2002; Morocco et al., 2001). Many of these tion of students in literature discussions involves the
interpretativestrategiesand reasoning abilities are the use of specificteachingprocessesthat supportthe advance-
focus of literaturediscussion frameworksemployed in ment of students'interpretative skills and discussionper-
schools (Raphaelet al., 1997). An
formance. apprenticeship model, with its concomi-
Fourfundamentalprocessesarenecessaryfor students tant emphases on modeling, coaching, and gradually
to participateeffectively in literaturediscussions. First, transferringcontrol to students for implementing and
literary response requires the acquisition of new lan- regulatinginterpretativestrategiesin book discussions,
guage and interpretiveskills (see Barnes, 1993; Englert, has been found to be an important basis for the suc-
Tarrant, Mariage, & Oxer, 1994; Gee, 1992; Lemke, cessful instruction and self-regulateduse of cognitive
1987; Wells, 1999). These skills include knowledge of strategiesin a number of literacycontexts, such as read-
the interpretativeresponsesand stancesto texts used by ing (Palincsar,1986; Palincsar& Brown,1989; Palincsar,
skilled readers, including those that are (a) text-based Brown, & Campione, 1993; Vaughn, Gersten, & Chard,
(knowledge of genre or story grammar, as well as 2000) and writing (Baker, Gersten, & Graham, 2003;
responses sequencing events, summarizing, and under- Englert & Dunsmore, 2002; Harris, Graham, & Mason,
standing character motivation); (b) reader-based (per- 2003). A high level of responsiveness is typical of the
sonal experience, feelings or affect, putting self teacher who uses the talk of students to assess current
in situation); and (c) author-based (understanding states of knowledge, and then makes contingent and
author's craft, motive) (Raphael et al., 1997). These scaffolded responses based upon those assessments in
requirements offer particular challenges for students order to nudge students' development beyond extant
with LLD, who have problems generating multiple levels of performance (Goldenberg, 1993; Stone, 2002).
interpretations of a text, engaging in story comprehen- For students with LLD, it is especially important that
LearningDisabilityQuarterly 36

teachers offer graduated assistance and a hierarchy of Thus, in addition to the necessity of teaching and
support based on what students know and need to learning the interpretative strategies, basic conversa-
know about the text, the interpretative strategies, or the tional skills must be developed to overcome difficulties
discussion process (Kuder, 2003; Stone, 1998, 2002). At with group processes, topic initiation, and topic main-
the same time, teachers cannot simply teach and regu- tenance.
late the use of interpretative strategies; they must relin- Problems with group processes. A major manage-
quish control of the strategies and the discussions in a ment issue concerns establishing communicative
developmentally responsive process based upon the processes, which are crucial in sustaining effective con-
emergent skills and knowledge of students (Wiencek & versations. For example, difficulties in turn taking
O'Flahavan, 1994). In short, in book discussions, there encountered by students with LLD include getting the
is an inherent tension between the need to retain con- floor to take turns, giving turns to others, and using
trol of classroom activity and, at the same time, transfer sophisticated conversational skills (e.g., avoiding in-
control of book discussions and interpretative strategies terruptions and using simultaneous speech in judi-
to students (O'Flahavan, Stein, Weincek, & Marks, cious ways; Brinton & Fujiki, 1989; Tannen, 1984).
1992). Additionally, stepping into mutually constitutive and
Fourth, to actively participate in literature discus- recursive roles associated with being the speaker and the
sions, students must also develop the ability to follow listener in conversations is especially challenging for
and respond to the prior speakers'utterancesby employing students with LLD, who tend to have trouble taking the
a combination of listening, speaking, and communica- "other" perspective in terms of anticipating speaker or
tion strategies. When discussions go well, they involve audience needs regarding continuity and appropriate
coherent talk in the same way that Applebee (1996) sug- information (Roth, Spekman, & Fye, 1995).
Problemswith topic initiation (intertopiccoherence).
gests that curriculum is conversational, in that students
discover that ... echo back on one A second issue in conversational management involves
"interrelationships
another" providing "not only new contexts for explor- the skill of speakers in selecting, introducing, and
ing or redefining the established topic, but new per- sequencing topics. Participants may have trouble estab-
spectives on other elements in the conversation, and on lishing a topic that is interesting to others in the group,
the topic itself" (p. 76-77). Good discussions, therefore, or in initiating or signaling shifts in topics at appropri-
have a coherent, recursive, and reciprocal pattern of ini- ate times. Part of this may be due to difficulty with man-
tiating and responding to utterances that promote the aging topic or speaker transitions, resulting in abrupt
deeper involvement of speakers in meaning-construc- topic shifts and the failure to use strategies that sustain
tion activity. topics (Almasi et al., 2001). This ability is of particular
There are two types of conversational coherence that consequence for students with LLD, who are less sensi-
tive to the conversational needs of their partners
students must acquire (Almasi, O'Flahaven, & Arya,
(Spekman, 1981), and have difficulty signaling and
2001). Intertopiccoherenceinvolves the ability of speak-
ers to select, introduce, and sequence old and new top- adjusting their talk to the language levels of their speak-
ics to smoothly and logically connect and transition ing partners (Bryan & Pflaum, 1978; Kuder, 2003).
Problems with topic maintenance (intratopic coher-
between speakers and topics. Intratopic coherence allows
ence). Difficulties with topic maintenance include mis-
speakers to provide depth to the discussion of particular
handling questions, failure to add new information to
topics by engaging in strategies such as recalling infor- the topic, difficulty following the thread of conversa-
mation from prior topics to enhance the current topic,
tion as topics are introduced, reluctance to give up a
using elaborations to demonstrate an individual's
topic when appropriate, and failure to connect topics
understanding or contribute to the telling of a story and utterances with previous ones (Almasi et al., 2001;
(Duran & Szymanski, 1995), providing evaluations that Brinton & Fujiki, 1989; Sacks, 1992). Children with
demonstrate effective management of the activity,
learning disabilities or specific language impairments
drawing on personal experience, or making intertextual typically display difficulties with these maintaining
links to elaborate the discussion.
strategies compared to their general education peers
Difficulties of Students with Language and (Brinton, Fujiki, & Powell, 1997; Mathinos, 1991), inas-
Learning Disabilities with Regard to Managing much as they tend to produce less complex sentences
and Maintaining Coherent Conversations (Simms & Crump, 1983; Vogel, 1974), have word-
Despite the emphasis on instructional conversations retrieval problems (Wiig & Semel, 1975), fail to under-
in the educational literature (Goldenberg, 1993), teach- stand words with multiple meanings (Wiig & Semel,
ers and students with LLDface several dilemmas related 1984), and elicit less elaborated responses from other
to managing and maintaining coherent conversations. speakers (Bryan, Donahue, Pearl, & Sturm, 1981). Such

difficultiesin extending topics at the local level (words, what extent did primary-grade students with LLD
sentences, and meanings) impact these students'partic- develop the ability to engage in book discussions, as
ipation in largerand less bounded segments of discourse represented through their ability to manage group
that span multiple topics, ideas, and speakers. processes as well as to introduce, develop, and sustain
Given such difficulties among students with LLD, topics (e.g., maintain intertopical and intratopical
teachers may avoid placing these students in literature coherence)? and (c) How did the teacher and student
discussions and conversationsthat are heavily depend- roles, and the nature of book discussions, change
ent on verbal interaction. However, doing so may over time?
underestimatethe extent to which these students can
attain conversational skills, and worse, may deprive METHOD
them of crucialopportunitiesfor learning (Goldenberg, Participants
1993; Wells & Wells, 1984). Several researchershave Located in an urban midwestern city, the partici-
provided evidence that the participation of students pants were primary-gradestudents and their teacher in
with disabilities in book discussions can have power- an elementary school (grades kindergarten through
ful beneficial effects on students' interpretation of fifth grade)characterizedby a high mobility rate and a
literature,comprehension, and communicative abilities large number of students from low socioeconomic
(Goatley,Brock,& Raphael,1995; Morocco et al., 2001, backgrounds. Approximately 86% of the students
2002; Raphaelet al., 1997). attending the school received free or reduced-cost
Although there have been several qualitative studies lunches. The 17 students who participatedin the study
with upper-elementary populations (Goatley et al., were members of an inclusion class of about 30 stu-
1995; Moroccoet al., 2001, 2002), few, if any, studies of dents. Represented among the 17 participants were
literaturediscussions have included primary-gradechil- three gradelevels and four ethnic groups. Eleven of the
dren with language and learning disabilities.Their less participantsreceived special education services and/or
sophisticatedmastery of the language and social facets were consideredto be nonreadersby their teachers.The
of communication coupled with difficultiesin language
participants of the book discussion groups are
processingand productioncan seriouslyaffect the qual- describedin Table 1.
ity of their book discussions. Similarly,the role of the The teacher in the study, Ms. Travis(pseudonyms are
teacher in changing the traditional institutional dis-
supplied for all participants),was an Anglo-American
course to allow for an alternativestructurethat is more female who had taught for several years as a general
empowering for students by supporting the participa- education teacher. At the time of the study, she was
tion of studentswith disabilitiesin book discussionshas
not been fully investigated. teaming and coteaching with the special education
teacher to provide instruction in a full-time, multi-age
The purpose of this descriptive investigation was to inclusion classroom.This meant that all primary-grade
examine the development of students' discussion skills students (K-3)with disabilitieswere enrolled full-time in
and the nature of the teacher'srole in book discussions the classroomfor the entire school day. Mrs. Travis,as
in an inclusion context with primary-gradestudents
well as the special education teacher, had participated
with and without disabilities. Of importance was the
for several years in the Literacy Environments for
nature of the scaffolds that teachers provided, the
AcceleratedProgress(LEAP)Project(Englert,1998). The
nature of students' interactions during book discus-
LEAPProject involved a longitudinal examination of
sions over time, and students' ability to maintain topi-
how students with learning disabilities were appren-
cal coherence. We examined the book discussions at
ticed into reading and writing literacy through the
two points: (a) midyear,when the teacher had recently
teacher-researchercollaborations that supported these
initiated book discussionsin her classroom;and (b) end
of year when she felt more successful in achieving her apprenticeships.
goals for book discussions. We interviewed the teacher Book Discussions in the Classroom
to provide an insider's perspective on the goals of the Book discussions were a regular weekly feature of the
book discussions and her role in achieving her discus- participating classroom. The two discussions analyzed
sion goals. in this study took place in January and June. In January,
Of primary interest in this research were three ques- the group discussed the book Moongame (Asch, 1984),
tions: (a) How did the teacher perceive and fashion her and in June, Two Bad Ants (van Allsburg, 1988). Both
role in modeling, promoting, and scaffolding certain books featured animals as main characters, but the
kinds of discourse, as well as supporting the develop- themes differed. In Moongame, a character named
ment of conversational coherence (based on teacher "Little Bird" teaches another character, "Bear," to play
interviews and transcriptions of discussions)? (b) To hide-and-seek. Having learned the game, Bear tries to

Table 1
Book Discussion Participants
Reading Grade in Speech

Name Gender Ethnicity levela school Disabilityb services Non-readerd
January book discussion

Bobby M African-American 0.0 1 - -
Hernan M Hispanic 0.7 2 LD - -
Jason M Caucasian 4.1 1 - - -
Jay M Other 0.0 2 EMI Yes /

Katie F African-American 1.2 2 LD - -
Larry M African-American 0.0 1 EMI Yes

Nick M African-American 0.0 1 HI Yes
Sharon F Caucasian 0.5 1 - - -
Tanya F African-American 0.0 1 EMI -
June book discussion

Bobby M African-American 0.0 1 - -
Carl M African-American - 1 -
Dean M African-American - 1 LD Yes /

Jason M Caucasian 4.1 1 - - -
Jay M Other 0.0 2 EMI Yes 4

Katie F African-American 1.2 2 LD - -
Larry M African-American 0.0 1 EMI Yes /

Lee M Caucasian 0.0 1 LD Yes /
Mike M Caucasian 0.0 K LD Yes /
Nola F African-American - 1
Reggie M African-American - 1 - - -
Rita F Caucasian 0.9 1 - - -
Tanya F African-American 0.0 1 EMI -
Tim M Caucasian 0.2 1 - - 4, RR

a Grade equivalent scores, Slosson Oral Reading Test (SORT),October (pretest). b LD = Learning Disabilities; EMI = Educable Mentally Impaired;
HI = Hearing Impaired. State guidelines were followed in identifying students to receive special education services. LD determination was derived
from clinical judgment based on consideration of basic psychological processes and ability-achievement discrepancy (no formula used in this state).
c
Students receiving related speech-language services. d Considered by the teacher to be a nonreader; RR= Reading Recovery.
play hide-and-seek with a personified moon, believing These two book discussions were selected for analysis
that the moon is hiding when it is obscured by clouds. because the teacher considered them representative and
In Two Bad Ants, the adventures of two ants inside a typical of three teaching and learning concerns: (a) the
human's house are told from the point of view of the frustrations she felt in trying to teach discussion skills to
ants. Among these adventures, the ants fall into a her students, (b) the discussion processes that charac-
"brown lake" (coffee) where they encounter some huge terized the students' interactions at the two time points,
"crystals" (sugar) to take back to their queen. and (c) the students' behaviors and challenges in acquir-

ing discussion skills. As researchers, we were interested flexible and open to accommodating low-achieving
in these two discussions in order to examine differences students.
in the nature of teacher and student participation over To facilitate face-to-face interaction during the book
time as well as the changing participation of primary- discussions, Ms. Travis and the students sat in a circle
grade special education students and the features that on the floor. In addition, Ms. Travis suspended one
characterized their successful participation in book dis- ubiquitous social participation rule used in most read-
cussions. ing lessons: students were not required to raise their
Once a week the general and special education teach- hands to bid for speaking turns during the discussion
ers divided the class into two groups, and each teacher phase. She wanted the discussions to have the "feel" of
held a separate discussion with one of the groups. The conversation.
book discussions conducted by the general education Each book discussion was comprised of four phases.
teacher were selected for study because general educa- In the first phase, which took about 6 minutes in the
tion teachers typically feel unprepared to meet the January discussion, and 3 minutes in June, Ms. Travis
needs of special education students included in their reviewed with the students two important facets of
classes (Cook, 2002); however, this teacher seemed discussion: (a) "Rules for a book discussion" (i.e., the
Figure 1. Teacher's lists: "Rules for a book discussion" and "Things we can talk about."
RULES FOR A BOOK DISCUSSION

Eyeson the person talking.
One person talk at a time.
Talkonly about the book.
It is okay to disagree.
THINGS WE CAN TALK ABOUT

Title
Illustrations
Author
Author'spurpose
Characters
Settingof the story
Problem/solution
Feelingsabout the book and why
Actions and events
Fictionor nonfiction
Lessonsin the story
Relatingit to one's own life
Linkingit to other books
Favoriteor least favoritecharacteror part of the story
Evaluatingthe character.

social norms for participation and communication), In phase four, about 2 minutes in both January and
and (b) "Some things we can talk about" (i.e., appro- June discussions, the teacher reviewed with students
priate content topics and literary responses to texts). whether and to what extent the purposes of the book
These corresponded, respectively, to "How to share" discussion had been met, specifically, which items of
(rules) and "What to share" (things we can talk about) the "things we can talk about" had been covered and
(Raphael & Goatley, 1997). The rules and social norms which were determined to be the focus of the next book
for discussion were displayed on a large poster chart discussion.
placed near the discussion area (see Figure 1). Social Data Analysis
norms included expectations related to making eye
There were two main sources of data: audiotaped
contact with a speaker, one person talking at a time,
teacher interviews and videotapes of the book discus-
conversation confined to the book, and permission to
sions. First, to gather information about the teachers'
agree or disagree.
Ms. Travis also displayed on a second poster the list goals and perceptions of the students in book discus-
of interpretative responses that she wished her students sions, the primary author conducted interviews with the
teacher following the book discussions. In addition, dur-
to employ during the discussion. Interpretative
ing the analysis phase of the study, and in order to con-
responses and topical content included: (a) text-based firm our interpretation of events and teacher activities,
responses (e.g., discussion of the title, illustrations, the primary author held an audiotaped viewing session
characters, story setting, problem/solution, and actions
with the teacher. As she reviewed the videotapes, she
and events); (b) reader-based responses (e.g., feelings
about the book and why; favorite part of the story; rela- commented on student performance and described her
tionship of the story to one's life); and (c) author-based thoughts and actions at particular moments that she con-
sidered consequential in terms of responding to specific
responses (e.g., author, author's purpose, story genre
students or in cultivating specific discourse practices.
[fiction or nonfiction], and theme or lessons in the
These sessions were transcribed and searched for recur-
story). The purpose of these reminders was to scaffold
performance by making visible and accessible the lan- ring themes or patterns regarding the teacher's inten-
tions for the students' participation in the discussion.
guage and strategies that might support students in
making their responses to the text or other speakers. Second, we used conversation analytical techniques
The second phase, 4 and 8 minutes in January and with the book discussion transcripts to make visible the
teacher's and students' participation. Applied conversa-
June, respectively, involved the teacher orally reading
the book. During this phase, students were expected tion analysis (CA) is a suitable tool for researchers "who
to listen quietly as the teacher read the story aloud have a practical, moral, and/or political interest in the
and showed the pictures. The teacher did not invite practices studied" (ten Have, 1998, p. 184) that goes
discussion or insert commentary while she read. If a beyond identifying structures and forms of conversa-
student commented on the story during this phase, the tion to discover what makes sense for "participants,
teacher responded briefly but did not encourage further locally, in their practical context" (p. 186). For us, the
discussion. potential of applied conversation analysis lay in its use
The third phase involved the discussion of the story for practical purposes, that is, for (a) identifying the
by the teacher and students. This phase, the longest, requirements and challenges of using new classroom
15 minutes in January and 13 minutes in June, was the conversation patterns, and (b) learning techniques for
capstone of the lesson. In the two book discussions, the instructing young children to use new conversation pat-
students and teacher collaboratively constructed the terns effectively. Accordingly, using conversation analy-
content of the discussion by initiating topics and sis, we identified and examined episodes of talk that
taking speaking turns. The students initiated the focus, characterized the book discussions in order to under-
or topic, of the group's discussion 80% of the time, stand how the teacher and students managed both the
thus taking major responsibility for "what got talked group processes necessary for conversation and the con-
about." The proportion of speaking turns taken by versational content with regard to topic initiation and
the teacher within these topics was about 40% in topic maintenance strategies.
both book discussions, with the remainder of the Several analyses were conducted to identify patterns
speaking turns (60%) distributed among the students. of talk. First, each discussion phase was divided into seg-
Since two-thirds of classroom talk is typically produced ments of topical episodes (defined as all talk directly
by the teacher (Edwards & Mercer, 1987), the fact and tangentially related to a single topic and bounded
that teacher talk occurred only 40% of the turns by the conclusion of one topic and the introduction of
seemed advantageous for this study of student partici- a subsequent or new topic). Within each topical seg-
pation. ment, three features were noted: who initiated the seg-
Volume 28, Winter 2005 41

ment, the manner in which the segment was initiated, hopefully - will naturally come, but they need to
and whether the speakingturn for each topical segment keep their eyes on the person talking, and talk only
was contingent upon prior conversation or condition- about the book, so we're not off talking about
ally developed by later speakers.Second, speakingturns Goosebumpsfrom last night. And um, you know,
were counted to determinethe extent to which teachers one person talk at a time.
and students took turns and how turns were concluded. Goals for topic management: Cognitive con-
Third, in order to better understandthe role and types tent and intratopical coherence. A second goal of
of teacher moves, the teacher's utterances were Ms. Traviswas to develop her students' employment of
extracted from the transcripts,and discourse analyses the interpretativestrategiesand responses that charac-
were used to sort and classify them according to their terize good discussion. Toward this end, she designed
content and function in the book discussions. the visual scaffolds listed on the poster to remind stu-
dents of the types of interpretativestrategiesthat they
RESULTS
The following sections (a) explain and illustratepat- might employ and the language they might use to ini-
tiate their responses to texts. From the beginning, she
terns of group process and topic management in the
was awarethat her students needed support to employ
book discussions, and (b) examine features of the
these interpretativestrategies,and she used the poster
teacher'sparticipationas she addressedthe problemsof
to prompt their use of the strategiesand the language
teaching students how to manage their own discus- of more expert readers (Baker, Gersten, & Scanlon,
sions. First,we describethe teacher'sgoals and scaffolds
based on teacherinterviewdata;and second, we present 2002).
the results of the conversational analysis of the two A third goal of Ms. Travis was to develop students'
book discussions. ability to converse coherently; in other words, to listen
and respond to each other's ideas and to articulateand
Teacher Goals and Scaffolds for Book Discussions
justify positions and viewpoints, using evidence, expla-
Goals for group processes. One of the challenges
nations, and/or personal experience. Many times she
that primary-gradestudents face in holding discus- told her students, "Ifthat's what you think, then stand
sions involves the need to use good communication
skills to respond to prior speakers'utterances and con- up there and tell me why. I'm not going to argue with
versational topics in the social context. Ms. Travisheld you; I just want to know why." For Ms. Travis,defend-
this view about her young readers,and expressed this ing a point of view meant giving reasonsto explain why
an individual held a particular position. As she
as one of her early book discussion goals. As she
explained in an interview:
explained (teacher quotes are taken from recorded The "why" part's the hardest part. "Why do you
field notes and from the transcript of the videotaped think that? Why do you feel that way? Tell me." So
viewing session): that's definitelya goal; tryingto get them to be able
They don't come to us with conversational skills. to defend and to tell why they think something
They don't come to us actually knowing how to should be that way or why they disagreewith some-
give and take in a conversation,listen and respond,
listen and respond ... You know, you can encounter thing. And they don't do that verywell to begin with.
Ms. Travis felt that students would benefit from
a little child anywhere,and they'll just want to start
learning to express themselves verbally, believing that
talking to you, to tell you what they're doing and communication is a lifelong skill.As she stated, "Ithink
where they've been. These kids don't talk. They
don't converse ... They don't ever have a conversa- generally in life and as they get older, even in a school
tion with their parents, per se, or any adult, not setting, they'regoing to have to be able to communicate
even an adult, any peer, where they can just talk. their needs, their wants, and what they agree with and
what they disagreewith."
Thus, Ms. Travisfelt that one of her primary initial
tasks was to support her young readers in developing Analysis of the January Book Discussion
the social and communicational skills associated with As mentioned, the teacher's intentions were to
good conversation. Consequently, she emphasized the develop social and communication skills related to
ground rules for engaging in classroom conversations, conversation. These intentions were further explicated
since she felt these were the foundation for building talk and correlated to her teaching practices through our
among speakers (Mercer, 1996). These communication analysis of the January discussion. Both the teacher's
skills had preeminence in her mind over the interpreta- discourse moves and the effects of these moves on
tive strategies, as she explained in an interview: students' participation were examined by evaluating the
To me the (ground) rules are more important than teacher and student roles in the discussion, the nature
the topics because I think the topics - eventually, of the teacher's scaffolding and assistance, and the

students' facility in managing the communication from the context of use. When the teacher did not pro-
processesand topical coherence processes. vide these social supports, the topical floor ended
Managing group processes. The examination of stu- abruptly,and students were not able to sustain the con-
dent talk revealed that students did not, initially, versation or reflect on others' ideas. In this manner,
demonstratemasteryof the dialogic practicesassociated she sought to apprenticeher students into the respon-
with good discussion (turn-taking,floor-holding)or the sibilities and behaviors of "speaker"and "listener,"and
skills associated with effective conversation (eye con- positioned them in reciprocal communicational rela-
tact, revoicing).Thus, the teacher'sstated goals and her tionships with other group members.She tried to teach
perceptionsof students'difficultiescorrespondedto the them how to talk (Daniels, 2001). In so doing, she
observationalevidence. In turn, our observationsof the strived to create a communicative context where con-
teacher revealed that many of her January responses versational roles and social practices were understood
focused on instructing students in the social require- by the participants,as well as supportedand collabora-
ments for participation, such as how students might tively developed by students.
addressor listen to each other using appropriateverbal Managing the topic. The teacher'ssecond stated goal
or nonverbal responses. In this respect, the teacher pertained to the selection of interpretative responses
focused less on the content of students' utterancesand that might be employed to develop the topic. She
more on the communicationalobligations and dialogi- taught her students the discourse of interpretative
cal relations requiredfor successfulparticipation. response - the what we talk about. There were three
An immediateproblemto which the teacherattended sourcesof topic selection in the Januarydiscussion: the
was the students' difficulty with participatingin a col- teacher's list of posted topics as described above, the
laborativelydeveloped discourse.In most language arts topics generated by students independent of the list,
lessons, the teacher asks questions and students direct and teacher-selectedtopics.
their answers to the teacher. However, in book discus- Our analyses of the Januarydiscussion revealed that
sions students are expected to directtheir attention and students tended to choose interpretative responses
remarksto peers ratherthan to the teacher, so this was from the teacher's list. Thus, 13 of the 20 topics intro-
an unfamiliar discourse practice. Ms. Travisattempted duced in the Januarydiscussion, both teacher- and stu-
to bridgethe gap between the speakersand listenersby dent-selected, were connected to the list of "things we
gluing their utterances and responses into a common can talk about." Of the 15 topics selected by students,
conversational thread of initiation and response. The 8 were from the poster (7 different topics; 1 topic was
following transcriptexcerpt illustrates a set of moves selected twice). Thus, 65% of student-initiated
she typically used to instruct the speaker,in this case a responses were influenced directly or indirectly by the
studentwith LLD(all studentswith LLDareindicatedin teacher, whose ideas about what constituted "legiti-
the transcriptsby an asterisk),to firstidentify the appro- mate book talk"were representedin the posted list.
priate audience and then directly communicate with The posted list of interpretativeresponses supported
them. (See Appendix for list of transcription conven- students as they tried out new response strategies,sug-
tions used.) gesting its influence as a mediational tool that could be
Katie*:The s:etting was outs:ide. used to introduce students to new ways of responding
T: Well, are you talking to me or are you and to help them enter the conversation. However, the
talking to the group? "list of things we can talk about" served as a double-
Katie*:The group. edged sword. Students'reliance on the list resulted in a
T: Ok, then look at the group and tell the conversation that seemed to flow as though students
group. were simply addressinga list of questions. Thus, their
In this segment, Ms. Travismentored her students in discourse lacked intratopic and intertopic coherence.
appropriate conversational behavior by "literally Ms. Travis expressed her frustrationwith this pattern
walk[ing] them through what a discussion looks like; when she said, "Sometimes I just feel like they're topic-
you know, ask that person, answer that person, what do hopping almost. Here - there; here - there. ... I don't
you think, look at that person." She explicitly provided feel that it's organized; I don't know if it should be
the metaknowledge and communicated the ground organized."
rules (e.g., look at the group, tell the group) that the stu- The analysis supported her contention: Topics
dent, Katie, might employ to engage in collaborative seemed to exhibit a linear pattern, moving from topic
discourse. Important, too, the type of coaching the to topic without being sustained beyond a single
teacher supplied was provided in the situated context speaker (Almasi et al., 2001). The following portion of
of students' interactions and responses rather than the discussion shows four topics introduced in quick
imparted in decontextualized settings that were remote succession, the first three drawn from the teacher's list

of topics (topics are bolded): there were 113 student speaking turns, 20 topic
Katie*: Um, that's that's like Little Bear couldn't changes, and 17 unique topics (excluding recurring top-
get to the moon, but Little, the other ics). With the exception of the longest topic discussed
book was Little Bear get to, getting to the below, each topic averaged 4.8 student turns per topic
moon. This book he's trying to find the before the topic shifted. This indicates that most topics
moon. remained undeveloped (see transcript segment above).
T: Good job. I like how you compared that. However, the following transcript segment, from the
Hernan*: Who was one of the authors, Ms. Travis? same discussion, provides a notable exception, because
T: Pardon me? it contains 22 turns on the same topic, the most turns
Hernan*: Who was one of the authors? related to any topic in the January discussion. We
T: Frank Asch. include this exception in order to demonstrate the
Jason: Um I liked the part / when he didn't emerging, but imperfect, attempts of students to engage
find / when the moon was um hiding in coherent and connected conversation. The children's
from the big cloud. revoicing of the words "moon" and "clouds" (indicated
Sharon: How does the bear know how, how does by underlining and double underlining) suggests that
the bird know how to play hide and go they attempted to extend the prior speaker's conversa-
seek? tional intent.
This segment of discourse illustrates the conundrum Sharon: Is the moon the king? That's why the um
created by the scaffold. On the one hand, two of the clouds went over?
three students (Katie, Hernan) who relied on the posted T: Say that again. I didn't hear you.
interpretative responses were students with LLD, sug- Sharon: Is the moon the king?
gesting the potential value of the poster as a scaffold T: The king? Do you mean
that allowed less proficient readers to participate in Sharon: Yeah.
book conversations. On the other hand, the discussion T: ... Is the moon the king? What do you
sounded lifeless, with none of the topics contingently mean when you say, is the moon the
related or elicited by the previous speaker's ideas, and king?
no utterances followed up by other speakers. As the Sharon: Because it's the clouds [inaudible] the
teacher had suggested in her interview, the lack of topi- moon
cal depth suggested that young students had difficulty T: I'm not understanding what you mean.
sustaining topics or employing transitions to signal the Sharon: The clouds went over the moon
connections among topics. Students had difficulty initi- [inaudible]
ating and regulating the discussion topics, and the bur- Katie*: The wind blew the clouds over the moon.
den fell to the teacher to manage and sustain the Tanya*: The clouds
discussion. Hernan*: Maybe the clouds
Coherence within topics. Coherent talk must occur Tanya*: The clouds / the clouds / the clouds
from speaker to speaker; that is, conversation should be covered up the moon.
dependent on a prior speakers' utterances and echo or Hernan*: Maybe the clouds moved.
build upon what topics and ideas came before and what Sharon: It was no clouds when the / when the
succeeds them (Burbules, 1993). This entails intratopic moon was out.
coherence as speakers sustain particular topics through T: So what happened?
elaborations, questions, and reflections. The teacher was Hernan*: (points and says something inaudible)
concerned that the students learn: Sharon: Maybe they just come to cover the moon
the appropriate way to have a discussion, ... not to up.
stop after one thought, go to something new, stop T: That might be. What do you think, Larry.
after one thought, go to something new ... You don't / Do you think the clouds just came to
go up to somebody and say, "I watched it on TV," cover up the moon? (Larry*nods.)
and then don't tell them why you watched it or what T: Yeah? Do you think anything different?//
you liked about it. I mean, conversations involve a Larry*: The clouds cover up the moon so the bear
little bit more than just one quick sentence. can sit still.
One way we measured talk was by counting the num- T (nods): Yeah, good.
ber of speaking turns per topic. Student and teacher When Sharon initiated the topic by stating that the
number of turns and proportions of the book discussion "clouds went over the moon," the next set of speakers
talk were similar for both January and June; therefore, (Katie, Tanya, Hernan) thought aloud about how the
for efficiency, we will report student data. In January moon became covered with clouds. The development of

Figure 2. Development of meaning in exploratory and contingent talk in January.
STUDENT AGENT TOPIC ACTION OBJECT CAUSE-EFFECT
Sharon [clouds] [Moon]

Sharon clouds [went over] moon
Katie [wind blew] clouds over moon
Tanya clouds [covered up] the moon
Hernan The clouds [moved]

Sharon No clouds [when] Moon was out
Larry Clouds cover moon so the bearcan sit still
this topic is represented in Figure 2. Katie hypothesized Nevertheless, this single example of contingent talk
that the wind blew the clouds over the moon. Two suc- seemed difficult to interpret in its direction, was not
cessive speakers (Tanya and Hernan) revoiced and cued by a previous topic, and ended rather abruptly
rephrased this concept using different terms (The clouds when the teacher, after a short pause, introduced an
"covered up the moon," and "the clouds moved"). The entirely new topic of conversation. In fact, the teacher
fact that students revoiced and rephrased prior speakers' seemed uncertain as to how to support the deeper con-
ideas in slightly elaborative ways suggested that these ceptual understanding of her students or how to link
young readers were drawing upon the words of other their ideas to the story events and theme. Overall, the
speakers as a cognitive resource to deepen their involve- dialogue did not seem adequately developed or sus-
ment and to develop a more in-depth understanding of tained in its movement toward a mutual understand-
the text ideas (Gutierrez & Stone, 1997). ing or agreement (Burbules, 1993).
During this segment, the group's talk sounds Maintaining a topic by providing support for opin-
exploratory as the young readers hesitate, falter, and ions and responses based on personal experience
work at the outer limits of their knowledge to make and use of text (Almasi et al., 2001) is an attribute
sense of the text and their experience. This is apparent of skillful conversation and represents a more
in the hesitations in their speech (indicated by slash critical literary discourse. Our analyses of the
marks), and by speakers' self-repetitions (e.g., "The teacher's talk revealed that she actively coached her
clouds / the clouds / The clouds covered up the moon"). students in how they might support their own
Interestingly, the students who took the greatest advan- opinions and those of others by requesting that
tage of the opportunity to participate in this exploratory points of views be supported or buttressed with
talk were the students with LLD,as suggested by the fact evidence and explanations. To accomplish this goal,
that four of the five participants in this longest segment Ms. Travis used questions to animate her young read-
of contingent talk were special education students. It is ers into more active respondent positions, inviting
possible that the discussion format privileged students them to challenge or seek support for the ideas of
who needed to explore meaning in relation to their prior speakers. The following exchange is an example
world experience in a tentative fashion. If so, participa- of an instructional interaction where Ms. Travis mod-
tion in a discussion group might have cognitive and lin- eled how to request that speakers explain their rea-
guistic consequences for students with disabilities, soning, and then prompted students to ask the prior
offering them a discursive space for engaging in speaker to offer evidence for their opinions (see
thought and meaning making processes. underlined prompts).

Sharon: The book is not real. Katieanswered. Sharon wondered
T: Does anyone want to know why Sharon why did the cloud go over the moon,
thinks the book's not real? and Katiesaid the wind blew it over.
Ss: Why? Why, Sharon? What do you think?//
Sharon: Because/ uh / the moon wouldn't hide Tanya*: The clouds
behind a cloud. Hernan*:Maybe the clouds
T: Anybodywantto knowwhy shethinksthat? T: Just a minute, I want to hear what
Ss: Why? Tanya's saying. / One person at a time.
Hernan*:Why do you think that, Sharon? Tanya*: The clouds / the clouds / the clouds
Sharon: 'Cuz (looking at the teacher) covered up the moon.
T: Areyou talkingto me or to everybodyhere? T: OK.Do you think the wind blew the
Sharon: (Lookstowardsthe group) 'Cuz the clouds to cover up the moon?
moon / doesn't really have clouds and (Tanyanods).
the moon has (inaudible). In this segment, Ms. Travis positioned Tanya to
This segment shows the apprenticeship that the become a more active player in the dialogue by asking
teacher provided in extending the topic by requesting her to comment on Katie's suggestion. While waiting
warrantsand explanations. When there was no imme- for Tanya to formulate her response, Ms. Travis pro-
diate response or uptake on Sharon'stopic, Ms. Travis tected Tanya's conversational space from Hernan, who
promptedstudents to requesta reasonfor Sharon'sposi- attempted to usurp the floor before Tanya, a slow
tion, therebyapprenticingher students in the reciprocal responder, had completed her thought. Tanya's even-
communicative and reasoning moves that audience tual response was a simple revoicing, but it was signifi-
members use to extend the topics and ideas of other cant insofar as Ms. Travis had managed to secure her
speakers.In so doing, the teacheranimated her students participation.When Tanya did not directly addressthe
as position holders and respondents in a dialectical group'sspeculation as to what agent might have caused
relationshipwith other speakers.Consequently,Hernan the clouds to cover the moon, Ms. TravisofferedTanya
used the explicit speech turn modeled by the teacherto a possible repair, "Do you think the wind blew the
ask a question of his peers (e.g., "Why do you think clouds?,"which Tanya accepted with a nod.
that, Sharon?").In this manner,Ms. Travismodeled and In the following exchange, Ms. Travisfurther helped
assistedher students in the rhetoricalmoves that could Tanya extend her response.
be used to achieve understanding,agreement, elabora- T: Tanya,have you ever played hide-and-
tions, and consensus (Pontecorvo & Sterponi, 2002). go-seek?
This move also prompted students to treat other speak- Tanya*: [inaudible]
ers' ideas as objects worthy of expansion, contempla- T: Likethe bear did here?
tion, reflection, and disagreement (Wells, 1999). This Tanya*: [inaudible]
formed an importantbasis for guiding students' partici- T: Who did you play hide-and-go-seekwith?
pation into a more criticaldiscourseleading to reason- Tanya*: My brotherand Shehan.
This segment illustrated a strategy that Ms. Travis
ing and argumentation.
used to secureand scaffoldthe participationof students
Scaffolded Mediation of the Involvement of with LLD.She asked a direct question about personal
Students with Disabilities experience (e.g., "Have you ever played hide-and-go
Finally, of special interest was the nature of the scaf- seek?" "Who did you play ... with?"). Often when stu-
folding Ms. Travisprovided specificallyto support students had difficultyentering the discussionsuccessfully,
dents with LLD.In the example above, some students the teacherfound ways to connect the storyto their per-
literally imported Ms. Travis' utterances as they ventril- sonal lives and experiences, providing them an imme-
oquated through her words to participate in the discus- diate opportunity to become more active participants in
sion (Wertsch, 1991). However, other students with the discussion.
LLD offered a greater challenge to Ms. Travis' efforts Jay, another special education student, provided an
to include them in the conversation. For these less even greater challenge. Ms. Travis described Jay's partic-
active or successful students, Ms. Travis provided more ipation as follows:
detailed language structures. For example, she invited Jay has a tendency just to comment, just to com-
Tanya, a student with LLD, into the conversation by ment. He repeats what you say, or if he has a
asking her direct questions. thought, he may comment on that thought, but
T: Tanya, I'm thinking about that same not really... Just keeping him on track, keeping him
question that Sharon just asked, and focused. It's always a major goal with Jay... We

were trying to get him to talk, so any time he would of the moves of a reciprocal dialogue between speakers
utter anything, we'd jump on it and ask him to and audience members. The teacher provided the lin-
repeat it. guistic, cognitive, and social facets that students needed
The following transcript segment illustrates Ms. to participate, but that were beyond their immediate
Travis's technique for involving Jay in the conversation. competence. Through a complementary process, there-
Student: Mama bears, baby cubs/ fore, of guided participation (e.g., teacher-assisted par-
Jay*: Mama bears. ticipation) and participatory appropriation (e.g.,
T: What do you think, Jay? / What did you students' appropriation of some forms of talk, scaffolds
say? or practices) (Rogoff, 1993), the teacher and students
Jay*: The little bear couldn't find the moon. were both participating in a "joint cultural activity
T: Did the little bear find the moon? rather than merely observing or reacting to each other"
Jay*: The moon behind the clouds (inaudible). (Stone, 1998, p. 351).
In the above segment, the topic under discussion was These examples illustrate that the nature of the
whether the story was make-believe or real. Ms. Travis teacher's instruction extended beyond the construction
immediately responded to Jay's mumbled repetition of of simple speaker-audience relationships. Ms. Travis cre-
another student's comment, "Mama bears," by asking ated participant structures that opened the floor to stu-
him to restate his ideas ("What do you think, Jay? What dents to challenge or interact directly with each other's
did you say?"). Realizing his difficulty in entering the ideas (Reid, 1998). For instance, when she said to a stu-
discussion, Ms. Travis accepted Jay's offered response as dent, "Katie said the wind blew it over. What do you
an appropriate bid for a turn, and gave it further recog- think?," Ms. Travis animated both Katie and the other
nition in the discussion. In the following sequence, Ms. student as position holders - people who can hold sim-
Travis initiated a new topic by asking Jay two direct ilar or different positions. Similarly, by revoicing a par-
questions, beginning with an eliciting question to seek ticular student's opinions, she invited other students to
his opinion of the book.
place themselves in possible alignment or opposition to
T: Um, / Jay, I'm wondering. Did you like those views (O'Connor & Michaels, 1993). Through
the book? Did you like the book, Jay? // these instructional moves, Ms. Travis put her students
Yeah? How come, how, what made you with disabilities in more powerful roles associated with
like this book? critical thinkers and debaters, and prompted them to
Jay*: The book is // (inaudible) //
present their positions, offer evidentiary support, or
T: The book is what?
challenge suppositions. This type of tactical positioning
Jay*: (inaudible, something about the color was especially used to foster the participation of stu-
green, dark green) dents who participated less frequently. In these cases,
T: You liked the color dark green in the
the teacher called upon specific students by name to
book?
relate the text to personal experience or to respond to
Jay*: Yeah. another speaker's ideas (e.g., "What do you think, Larry.
As with Tanya, Ms. Travis shaped Jay's ambiguous
Do you think the clouds just came to cover up the
comment into an appropriate response. She created
moon?"). As O'Connor and Michaels (1996) have sug-
space for Jay to participate, and then transformed and
fleshed out the kernel of his ideas into more fully gested, Ms. Travis used her teacher authority to make it
formed and legitimated responses. Ms. Travis under- possible for voices to be expressed or heard that might
not be otherwise, and for assertions to be challenged or
stood that participation was the first step on the road to
expanded in the supported participation structure.
deeper involvement and learning by students with dis-
abilities. She accepted Jay's participation at the point The June Book Discussion
where he was able to start, and found ways to reconnect By June, Ms. Travis, at the suggestion of another
his ideas to the discussion. As she explained: teacher in the research project, had discontinued using
I think, in a way, he wants to be in on [the con- the poster of interpretative responses. She described
versation], he doesn't know how. ... There was an why this seemed a good move in helping students
appropriate [way] to raise your hand or get into the develop coherent conversations: "It was almost like a
conversation. ... He doesn't have the appropriate cheater list. ... Now they have to just think on their
skills to get in there, but his commenting allows his own." Stone (1998, 2002) has highlighted the tempo-
voice to just come out. rary nature of effective scaffolds, arguing that an impor-
In this manner, the teacher demonstrated how to cre- tant condition of effective implementation is that
ate and sustain a dialogical relationship by offering scaf- scaffolds be dismantled when students demonstrate
folded interactions that allowed students to fulfill some their growing competence. Likewise, the teacher felt

Figure 3. Development of meaning in exploratory and contingent talk in June.
ACTION or
STUDENT AGENT TOPIC DESCRIPTOR OBJECT EVIDENCE
Katie [ants think] crystals are sugar interpretation

sugar is crystals
Dean [crystals] [are] stone
Nola [crystals] are sweet practical knowledge

(implied)
Katie that guiy [crystals] putting in supporting details

coffee/tea from text
Teacher nobody mentioned coffee brown lake

how do we know coffee/tea
they [who?] said [coffee/tea]
Katie coffee/tea brown practical knowledge

in a cup & details from text
Dean brown lake no such thing practical knowledge
Lee they [ants] thought brown lake interpretation
Dean brown lake no such thing lakes practical knowledge

are blue practical knowledge
Lee this book reminds me of movie [scaffold/list]
Dean character[?] crystals supporting details

from text[?] [unclear]
Rita I saw crystals [not] [the word] supporting details

(stone) "sugar" from text
Dean ants crystals eat them (reasoning unclear)
Lee [I never knew] ants liked sugar revisiting knowledge

assumptions
Katie ants crystals not be able to eat them practical knowledge

that her students had outgrown the scaffolds,and their be called upon, often blurringthe distinction between
continued presence hindered her students' develop- their own utterance and that of the preceding speaker.
ment and independence. With the removal of the As opposed to a more traditionalteacher-controlledles-
poster in June, only one third of the identified topics son format, it was apparentthat students had begun to
directly reflected the teacher's poster list, while the take increasingownership of the activity and their par-
remainingtwo-thirdswere self-generatedby students. ticipation. Their willingness to argue and disagree
showed that they were thinking more deeply about the
Analysis of the June Book Discussion
We will now look at the same elements - managing topics in highly personal and engaging ways. In fact,
Burbules(1993) argued that skillful dialogue is repre-
group processes,managing the topic, coherence within sented by participantswho get "caughtup" in good dia-
topics, and involvement of students with disabilities-
as they appearedsix months later in the June book dis- logues that "carry away" their participants in an
interaction that takes a force and direction of its own.
cussion.
Using Burbules'definition as a criterion, the case may
Managing group processes. In the June discussion, be made that effective dialogue was absent from the
guiding students in the social processes related to par-
Januarydiscussion, but was highly present in the syner-
ticipating in conversations and discussions seemed to
be of less concern to Ms. Travisthan it had been earlier. gistic and absorbing encounters that carried away the
The occurrence of simultaneous speech and interrup- June participants.
tions became a greaterconcern, particularlyduring an Managing the topic. Topic introduction and sequenc-
animated discussion of whether or not the crystals in ing had also grown less linear in June. Thus, topics were
introduced,linked, embedded, or modified in a shifting
the story were, in fact, stones or sugar. While simulta-
neous speech need not be disruptive to discussion panorama of ideas or themes (Almasi et al., 2001). In
the January discussion, 20 topics were introduced in
(Brinton & Fujiki, 1989), Ms. Travis repeatedly called 15 minutes, an average of 45 seconds of attention per
students' attention to the need for speakingone person
topic. In June, there were 114 student speaking turns,
at a time. 17 topic changes, and 9 unique topics. Eachtopic aver-
The following segment illustrates how several stu-
aged 6.7 student turns before the topic shifted, but 12.7
dents talked over other speakersto advance their posi- turns per actual topic, suggesting deeper development
tions. (Overlappingtalk is indicatedby use of brackets.) of topical content. This was an increase over January
Dean*: But it's not sugar.It's stones. of nearly 8 more turns per topic, representinga nearly
200% improvement in topic density. The topic that
Katie*: Um, page four???Pagefour and five??? recurredmost frequently concerned the nature of the
crystalsin the story (discussedbelow), which consumed
Group: over 60% of the discussion time.
Na-unh. The manner of topic introduction was also different.
That'sshu [Severalvoices overlapto say In January,topics seemed to be "announced"by stu-
the same thing.] dents and lacked connection to what came before. In
June, the boundariesbetween topics were often blurred,
T: Just a minute, please. You've and it was sometimes difficult to determine the
?: That'sstones. moment when a new topic was introduced. In fact, two
of the students' topics were characterizedby multiple
T: got too many people talking at one time. and recursivelinkages and elaborations;that is, several
Lee*: Um. students introduced and returnedto the topics afterthe
T: Just a minute please, you have too many conversation had moved on to other topics. They bro-
people talking at one time. Dean does keredthe topics that were importantto them and main-
not think it's sugar. tained the group's attention to those topics. Instead of
In this segment, Ms. Travis assumed a managerial pursuing many different topical options without partic-
role, stepping in to police students' overlapping talk ular depth or involvement, the students sustained the
and to handle the conversational flow. It is understand- conversation to develop their interests and questions,
able that Ms. Travis felt compelled to manage the con- even ignoring off-topic comments and efforts to subvert
versational flow so that all speakers would have a the topic of interest. In short, whereas the teacher
chance to be heard. However, contrasted with the tenor orchestrated the conversation in January, by June, the
of the January discussion, what prompted this response students had become highly invested in the conversa-
is a positive development. That is, students participated tion and had assumed greater regulatory control of what
spontaneously in the conversation without waiting to got talked about and by whom.

Coherence within topics. Intratopic coherence was son at a time so we can all hear your
also more developed in June. Although phase three, the ideas.
discussion phase, was 13 minutes long, one topic filled Dean*: There's no such thing 'n no brown lake.
8 minutes of that time. The topic that held the interest [inaudible] a lake it blue.
of the group for so long was a debate over whether or Lee*: Um, um, this book reminds me of um
not the crystals referred to in the story represented this one movie // I can't remember the
stones or sugar. One student was convinced the crystals name of it //
were made of stone, while others just as determinedly Dean*: The character could have made that he
argued the crystals were, in fact, sugar. We will charac- probably was thinking about ants was in
terize intratopic coherence during the June discussion / ants was outside and it made a big hole
using the following 8-minute segment. Although the in the cream it was in a hole in a in a
entire 8-minute transcript is too long to reproduce drink and don' go in his house and bring
here, the segments below, presented together to retain crystals to the queen ant.
a sense of the "flow" of the conversation, represent the Rita: It's not, they're not uh crystals because I
essence of the discussion and illustrations of intratopic a saw a when the other ants were leaving
coherence.
Rita: The crystals were sugar.
T: Hm. Crystals were sugar. Does somebody
agree with Rita or do you disagree? What T: Let's look at that picture that Rita's
do you think? talking about.
Rita: [Leaning forward into the circle toward
the teacher and looking at the book.]
That's right.
Dean: They're stone. T: Right here, Rita?
Katie*: They AREsugar, and they think that Katie*: How do you know it said sugar ???
they're crystals. doesn't have all the words?
Dean: No, stone. T: It doesn't have all the letters, but I think
T: How do you know, though? what Rita saying is kind of interesting.
Nola: Because, because they're sweet. Rita: 'Cause it says 'gr.'
Katie*: Because that guy was puttin' 'em in his T: [Sit back] so everybody can see. I'll hold
coffee. it up.
T: Because what? Rita: It says 'gr.'
Katie*: 'Cause that guy was puttin' 'em in his T: What Rita's noticing when the two ants
coffee or tea. were hiding is that she saw the end of
T: Nobody mentioned coffee. the word 'sugar.' What made you think
Rita: Well, um, I watched it on the Magic this was sugar then?
School Bus. Rita: 'Gr' because it gots 'gr.'
T: ... Let's think about the book. How do
we know if you said that he put it in his
coffee or his tea? They said it was a
brown lake. Katie*: They were stone. The ants wouldn't be
Katie*: Coffee and tea are brown, and it's in a able to bite them, because stone is too
cup. hard.
Dean*: A brown, there ain't a brown, there ain't Gr: [Overlapping voices]
no such thing 'n a brown lake. T: Sssh. Stop please.
Lee*: They thought um it was a brown lake, Dean*: 'Cause sugar little tiny and is and is not
only, shaped like that. And those is kind of
T: Well, let's go back to our book discus- big. I think those.
sion rule of one person talking at a time. T: Let's reread. Do you think it would be
I heard three or four of you right there, helpful if we reread? Because Katie
and it's hard to unders[stand]. thinks ... if it was a stone the ants
Dean*: There's no such thing as, couldn't eat it. Dean thinks it's a stone
T: Dean, you're talking while I'm talking. because of the way that it's shaped.
Just give it a second. We need one per- Listen, and let's see if it helps us at all.

Wells (1999) suggests that statements such as "Are sugar. She offered the explanation that the book con-
you agreeingor disagreeing?"help students learn about tained a picturewith part of the word "sugar"exposed -
discourseby providing an apprenticeshipinto a partic- specifically "gar" - and her personal experience of
ular type of speech register.Ms. Travis'first question to phonics, in conjunction with her earlier reasoning,
the group: "Does somebody agree with Rita or do you likely suggestedto her that the word might be "sugar."
disagree?What do you think?"establishedRita'sutter- This segment suggests students' growing authority
ances as materialfor debate,a situation that encouraged over the conversation, including the speakersand the
critical reflection and evaluation by peers. Two flow of topics. Students independently preserved
responses came immediately. Dean disagreed,"They're intratopical coherence, as indicated by their conversa-
stone," but Katie supportedRita:"They are sugar, and tions and hypotheses about the "brown substance."
they think they are crystals."While the teacher had to When the teacher tried to interrupttheir conversation
prompt and animate students as position holders in to remind them about the rule of one speakertalking at
January,in the June discussion the students were more a time, she herself was interrupted by Dean, who
independent in initiating and communicating their attempted to resume the conversation about the
positions relative to other speakersin the sugar versus "brownlake." Later,Lee also tried to change the topic,
stone debate. but Dean and the other students effectively moved to
The students also demonstrateda growing ability to sustain the conversation about the crystals. In fact,
employ interpretativestrategiesto maintain the topic Rita, Katie, and Dean were so intent on convincing
coherence. In offeringevidence in supportof their opin- each other of the viability of their points of view and
ions in the controversy,Katie'sreferenceto the coffee or arguments that they continued their conversation as
tea alluded to by the picturesin the story was an exam- though they had not been interruptedby Lee.Unlike in
ple of text-basedevidence;she expanded on this idea by January, students continued their conversation with-
linking it to her priorknowledge, "Coffeeand tea are in out the teacher's intervention, and even more telling,
a cup" (Duran& Szymansi,1995). Further,Ritadrew an in spite of the teacher's intervention.
intertextual link to support her argument, "I watched Personal experience was one type of interpretative
it on the Magic SchoolBus." In this manner, students response that was self-initiatedand applied by students
were beginning to employ the multiple sources of to support their opinions and discussion. However,
evidence that supportedand validatedtheir opinions, a Ms. Traviscontinued to try to shape and scaffold their
process that had been prompted by the teacher in the understanding of the other interpretative strategies as
Januarydiscussion. tools for sense-making. At one point, the teacher
The discussion regardingthe alphabetletters "G"and directed students' attention to the additional evidence
"R"representedanother elaborationof the crystal/stone offered by the text to clarify their understanding of a
debate. Katie's teacher-like question ("How do you crucial point in the story (e.g., what were the ants tak-
know?")might be seen as a peer evaluation or informa- ing back to the queen ant). Once the group members
tion gathering.In eithercase, her question paralleledthe considered the evidence from the story - "We can stay
requestfor evidentiaryknowledge that the teacher had here and eat this tiny treasureevery day forever" - even
modeled in January.Its emergence in Katie'stalk sug- Dean, the dissenter, conceded the point that the crys-
gests the students had begun to acquireand execute the tals might be sugar. Had the teacher not encouraged
cognitive and linguistic facets supportedby the teacher the use of this interpretative response as part of the
in prior conversations. By fulfilling these rhetorical problem-solving process, the students might never
moves, students had begun to extend the conversation have clearly understood the story, experienced closure
by stepping into a scaffolding relationship with their to the controversy, or, worse, begun a competition of
peers as potential coaches and facilitatorswho could "Is,too!"/"Is,not!" or lost focus altogether.
prompt and extend the thinking of their peers through In conversational discourse, it is not enough simply
questions and requests. They were applying the techni- to take a position; an interlocutor must be able to sup-
cal tools previously introduced by the teacher as intel- port the point of view and to employ some kind of cri-
lectual devices for influencing the minds and behaviors teria in evaluating the positions taken by others. The
of others (Daniels, 2001). What is remarkable is that June discussion differed from the January discussion in
Katie, a student with LLD, who had to be instructed in terms of the provision of evidence and interpretations
how to talk in January, by June was extending the talk and the sharper alignments and oppositions drawn by
of others by requesting clarification and by scaffolding students, as shown in the analysis of the talk in Figure
their participation in a progressive discourse about 3. Indeed, more complex social, linguistic and cogni-
meaning. In turn, Rita was prompted by Katie to use the tive facets had begun to appear (see Figure 1). By using
text to support her contention that the crystals were students' assertions as opportunities for the teacher to

model and scaffold how to provide evidence, particu- responding to each other, as suggestedby Katie'sevalu-
ation of Rita's contention ("How do you know it said
larlythe use of text to validate or illustratea claim, Ms.
Travis worked students' thinking toward the type of sugar?"),as well as by the contingent interactions of
evidence-basedresponses and warrantsthat character- Katie, Dean, and Lee (see above). These students
ize a more critical discourse. In addition to the above revoiced concepts and ideas (e.g., crystals,brown lake)
occurrence, she referenced the text on several other from speakerto speaker,and used their practical prior
occasions during this discussion. knowledge to supportthe negotiation of meaning (e.g.,
T: Let'slook at that picture that Rita's Dean made the case that "A lake is blue"; and Katie
talking about. stated that "Coffee and tea are brown, and it's in a
cup"). These types of communicative moves were
T: Okay. Was there any part of the book beyond the competence levels of most students with
that helped you decide that? LLDin the Januarydiscussion.
In addition to initiating topics and responding to
T: I
I've been wondering as was reading, peers, the special education students also took posi-
and as I'm looking at these pictures.Do tions and offered support or reasons for holding those
you think this story is real or make positions. Two of the students who exerted the greatest
believe? authority over the management of the discussion and
This segment suggests that Ms. Travis had become students' participation in it were Dean and Katie, two
more skillful in scaffolding students' assertions. She students with LLD. For example, the crystal contro-
referredstudents to the text as an important source of versy was initiated and sustained by Dean. However,
evidence, bringing in the text as a "voice" in the dis- Katie was equally strong in opposing Dean's opinion,
cussion. She seems to have increased her ability to and provided supported reasoning for her view. Katie
"[align] students ... with the content of the academic expertly based her argument on perspective ("They
work while simultaneously socializing them into par- think that they're crystals"), everyday experience
ticular ways of speaking and thinking" (O'Connor & ("Becausethat guy was puttin' 'em in his coffee"), and
Michaels, 1996, p. 65). She was helping them consider scientific knowledge ("If they were crystals, the ants
texts as tools of thought and as a means of expressing, wouldn't be able to eat 'em"). Students with LLD
in
transforming and elaborating on their own ideas had grown increasingly successful taking positions,
(Daniels, 2001). aligning themselves with other speakers and ideas,
and supporting their opinions with evidence and
Extent of Involvement of Students with reasons.
Disabilities
What was especially notable about both book discus- DISCUSSION
sions was the intense involvement of special education Literacy is the masterful control of secondary dis-
students in regulating and influencing the conversa- courses (e.g., the discoursesof socially sanctioned insti-
tion. In January,all of the students in the group who tutions, like schools), including the pragmatics of
were identified as special education students (N=6) par- social interaction. Teaching is the process of language
ticipated at some level. Four(66%)both initiated topic socialization, socialization that is directed to bringing
changes and spoke voluntarily in the general discus- children into school-based intellectual practices mani-
sion. ByJune, the number of special education students fested in mature ways of talking and interacting
in the group had increased(N=7),6 of whom (86%)par- (O'Connor& Michaels, 1996). In the best of all worlds,
ticipatedin some way in the discussion.Threeboth ini- special education would provide students with disabil-
tiated topics and voluntarilycontributedto the general ities alternativeways to participatein those discourses,
discussion (43% of the special education students in the allowing them to experience a greaterdegree of success
group), compared with 2 general education students and to move them toward full participation in the
(29% of the general education students in the group). community's practices. Accordingly, teaching practices
Thus, students who might be expected to be more pas- should be adapted to meet the needs of these students
sive and unengaged in group activity were implicated so that they can master at least some of the "discourse
in every aspect of the conversation. practices, tools, and beliefs valued by the general edu-
Examination of the specific moves of special educa- cation community" (Forman & McCormick, 1995, p.
tion students suggested they were becoming successful 154). The goal is to create discursive spaces for the pre-
in implementing the specific linguistic, communica- viously silenced (Reid, Robinson & Bunsen, 1995) and
tive, cognitive, metacognitive, and social aspects of to build an understanding of students' knowledge from
good discussions. For example, they were listening and the students' point of view rather than from the

teacher'sown cultureor from the official school culture (Gutierrez& Stone, 1997). Transformingthe structureof
(Wansart, 1995). For all teachers, the challenge is to the social practicesof the activity allowed more oppor-
enable students to participate in a range of conversa- tunities for students to gain entry into roles that
tions, and especially, to promote the opportunity for allowed them to serve as competent learners, leaders,
students to hold positions of expertisewithin the group and discursive agents (Gutierrez& Stone). Finally, the
(Gergen, 1995). participationstructureseemed to furtherthe self-regula-
The Benefits and Challenges of Book Discussions tion and metacognitive abilities of students with dis-
Book discussions are beneficial for developing crucial abilities, areas of known difficulty in literacy (Deshler,
literacy and social skills. However, providing these Schumaker,Lenz, & Ellis, 1984a, 1984b; Wong, 1980;
benefits for students presents teachers with particular Wong & Wilson, 1984; Wong, Wong, & Blenkinsop,
challenges in equipping and positioning students to 1989).
In addition, the study suggested that students with
manage their own learning. disabilities developed in the language and cognitive
Benefits for students. Book discussions constitute areasin which they had seemed to be deficient or pas-
conversational opportunities (Goatley et al., 1995;
McMahon & Raphael, 1997a; Raphael, 1994) and offer sive. They displayed an increasing ability to coordinate
literacy spaces where students with disabilities can topics and to extend preceding ideas in ways that were
become active thinkersand participantsin a criticaldis- useful to the exchange (Gergen, 1995). They avoided
actions that terminatedthe conversation and were able
course. Even in the primarygrades, it was possible for
to furnish or request information to maintain the topi-
studentswith LLDto develop their linguistic, cognitive,
cal floor. Instead of listening to suppositions in a sub-
social and communicative abilities within social inter-
missive fashion, they took an active stance toward
actions and conversations about books. From a cogni-
others' ideas by questioning, challenging and extending
tive perspective, book discussions seemed to allow
students to develop and display their intellectualcapac- them, and by incorporating them into their own
utterances (Shotter, 1995). Priorutterances, thus, were
ities in ways that differed from typically favored con-
treated as "thinking devices" rather than as self-
ventional representations of verbal ability, reading enclosed messages (Shotter; Wells, 1999; Wertsch &
fluency, and achievement (Gardner,1985). Divergent Toma, 1995), allowing students to deepen their in-
thought and criticalliteracycould be modeled and prac- volvement in ways that were engaging to themselves
ticed, allowing students with disabilitiesto expresstheir and thought-provoking to others. In short, they had
perspectivesin book discussions, as well as to commu- developed as speakers,listeners,and thinkerswho could
nicate their experiences and voices in ways that could
employ critical literacy practices to talk about, reflect
be listened to by others and that might blur the distinc-
on, juxtapose, and contest ideas (Luke & Freebody,
tions between those who were "disabled"and those
1997).
who were "nondisabled."Through the transformation
Although book discussionsseemed to offer a potential
of their participation in the discourse, students with site where students could develop voice and autonomy,
LLD had improved their aptitude to share ideas, it must be recognized that book discussions are not a
respond to others, and assume responsibility for their panacea for the reading problems experienced by stu-
own thinking (McMahon& Raphael,1997b). dents with disabilities. Students with mild disabilities
An especially striking result of this study was the require explicit and balanced instruction in decoding,
extent to which many studentswith disabilitiesstepped word recognition and basic skills, as well as frequent
into positions of power and authority. Farfrom being opportunities to read easy books in order to develop
passive players in the discourse, students with disabili- readingfacility.What book discussionscan add to a bal-
ties had become passionately involved in its construc- anced literacy program is an instructional context for
tion and negotiation. The fact that they assumed roles teaching social skills, discourse processes, literature
associated with leadership and self-agency suggests the response, communication skills, critical thought
potential of book discussion formats for creating processes, and the literary aspects of literature. Often
enabling constructs of ability that challenge concep- teachers in classrooms read books aloud. By adding a
tions of disability. For these reasons, book discussions dimension that permits book discussions with assisted
should be considered as a vehicle for reinventing the participation and feedback, teachers can address some
roles of learners with disabilities in inclusion contexts. of the cognitive and communicative needs of students
Changing the nature of participation through book dis- with mild disabilities, as well as offer advanced instruc-
cussions seemed to offer a space for less proficient learn- tion in higher-order thinking and literary criticism -
ers to develop academic competence, to expand their two areas that complement the skills and meaning
range of roles and mastery of interactional acts emphases of the reading curriculum.

Challenges for teachers. The change in teacher and ically positioned her as the most prominent speaker
studentroles fromJanuaryto June suggeststhe use of an whose decisions counted most in initiating turns and
apprenticeshipmodel of teaching and learning (Lave, topics. She made visible procedural metaknowledge
1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Engaging in thoughtful related to the ground rules for conversationalmanage-
conversationsabout books for the purposesof thinking ment in orderto help students acquirethese skills, and
and communicating was not a spontaneous process. modeled how to establish personal warrantsthat mark
Studentswith disabilitieswould not have progressedin information as worthy of consideration by others
taking authority over topics and the instructionalcon- (Heritage, 1997). Important, she arrangedan appren-
versation without the scaffolding and apprenticeship ticeship where children's positions could be expressed,
providedby the teacher.In fact, the change in book dis- juxtaposed, challenged, validated, and transformed
cussions reflected several featuresof an apprenticeship through the technical tools and processes associated
process insofar as the discussion evolved from heavily with argumentation and reasoning (Pontecorvo &
promptedand guided participationtowardgrowingstu- Sterponi, 2002). In turn, students with LLD became
dent autonomy, and then to the increasinglyfluent par- more metacognitive and self-regulatingin shaping the
ticipation of students in using the interpretativeand course of their conversation and their dialogic involve-
social strategiesassociatedwith literaryresponse. ment with topics, opinions and speakers.
The teacher accomplished these goals by posting the
Implications and Instructional Dilemmas
interpretativestrategies,modeling and supporting par-
ticular forms of talk, prompting the social interaction Implementingbook discussionsthat promote conver-
sational engagement and competence as well as depth
among the various participants,and questioning stu- of response to literaturefor young students with learn-
dents. Simultaneously,teachersand learnersnegotiated
a delicate balance of participation.As learners gained ing and language difficulties is both demanding and
expertise and control over the cognitive and commu- complex.
nicative processes involved, the teacher relinquished Developing conversational competency takes sus-
her authorityover the discussion."Changingthe nature tained time and effort. For researchersand teachers,
of participation in learning activity simultaneously certain instructional dilemmas must be considered
makes space for less-experienced learners to replace when implementing book discussions. First, the find-
those who take the place of the more expert others ings suggested that students seemed to demonstrate
before them" (Gutierrez & Stone, 1997, p. 124). increasing skill and self-assurancein interacting with
each other around text. The teacherin this study found
Ultimately, for optimal learning to occur, the interac-
tional roles had to be reversed,so students with LLD that the gradualtransformationof student participation
could learn to ask questions as well as answer them, (Lave & Wenger, 1991) was initially frustrating,but it
and give direction as well as follow (Biemiller & seemed productive over time. In her reflections on the
Meichenbaum, 1998; Roth, 1993). discussions, Ms. Travisstated: "[Thesetwo book discus-
In addition to the challenges of blurringteacher and sions] show the growth process,... because once they'd
student roles for curricularpurposes, this teacher also learned how the book discussion goes, they all want to
addressed critical institutional asymmetries (Heritage, talk. I mean, they're all confident in giving their
1997) as she pursued her goal of equipping students thoughts." Students decreasedtheir dependence on the
from "marginaland subordinate"environments (Shor, teacher to create and maintain alignments and opposi-
1996, p. 14) to participatein a world characterizedby tions in their discussion, and they showed they were
privilege and power. She believed that the ability to capable of providing evidence and explanations to sup-
participate in acts of reasoning and argumentation port arguments, requesting clarification from other
were fundamental to lifelong learning. In Ms. Travis's speakers,and making personal connections with text.
words: If the teacher had based her evaluation of book dis-
I think generally in life and as they get older,... cussions on the January discussion, which at times
they're going to have to be able to communicate sounded dysfluent, messy, and awkward, she may have
their needs, their wants, and what they agree with concluded that the discussion format was ineffective
and what they disagree with,... be confident in and discontinued its implementation.
what [they] say, defend it. Good conversations take time to develop, and forma-
To accomplish her goal, Ms. Travis persisted through tive evaluations of book conversations should be con-
the initial breakdowns in conversational fluency and sidered as an important basis for informing, guiding,
continually strived to transform her own role, substitut- and adapting the instructional program in the short run
ing "contingent responsiveness" (Wells & Chang-Wells, to achieve long-term outcomes. Too often, teachers pre-
1992, p. 97) for the institutional privilege that automat- clude implementing a discourse-laden activity because

of the language challenges it imposes on students with Collaborative discourse is crucial for student learn-
LLD,and ultimately, on teachersto make it work. ing. The third dilemma for teachersis to create a "con-
The issue is how teachers can evaluate the possible struction zone" where the teacher can guide
benefits of a literacy activity that emphasizes higher- participation,but also distributeresponsibilitiesso that
order thinking and reasoning in the early grades. We students can serve as resources for each other (Roth,
recommend that audiotapesand videotapes be used to 1993). Teacherscan model and coach students in the
analyze the discussion over time from several perspec- use of interpretativeand communication strategies,but
tives, including: How are topics selected? To what students must have opportunities to apply those prac-
extent is talk contingently related? What cognitive, tices in collaborativeactivity where they can pool their
linguistic, social, or interpretiveresponse strategiesare resources and where their progressive talk can serve
being employed? To determine how to support indi- up ideas that are catalystsfor deeper thought and intel-
vidual students, questions to addressinclude: How do lectual activity (Roth). In these collaborations,students
individual students contribute to the book discussion? must learn to engage in negotiation, disagreement,
What is the role of the teacher in the discussions? and agreement as fundamental processes associated
Maintaining a focus on these questions can help with thinking, learning, and knowledge building in a
researchersand teacherssupportdiscussionsin develop- community (Wells, 1999). The collaborativeand medi-
mentally appropriateways. ational processes associated with instructional con-
Providingcontingent instruction in book discussions versations must be directly taught to students, and
is a complex enterprise. A second dilemma is the provisions must be made for helping students under-
instructional challenge to develop the type of instruc- stand that challenging ideas and texts are the substance
tional conversationsthat can lead intellectual develop- and outcomes of learning. Students must be given fre-
ment. To provide an apprenticeship that positions quent opportunities to express their opinions and
students to assume the targeted intellectual roles beliefs, to calibratetheir ideas with peers, to challenge
through the complementaryprocessesof guided partic- proposals,and to change their opinions in light of per-
ipation and participatoryappropriationrequires great suasive argument (Wells).Students must not only learn
sophisticationon the partof teachers(Rogoff,1993). An from talk, they must learn to talk with other indi-
apprenticeship model requires that teachers make viduals who bring together multiple sources of infor-
moment-to-moment decisions about individual stu- mation (Daniels, 2001). Talkingone's way into a deeper
dents' linguistic, cognitive, and social needs. This is a understandingby tapping into and contributing to the
highly complex process because the content of what expertiseof a community is fundamental to knowledge
students learn is not always defined in advance, strate- acquisition. This type of involvement is best accom-
gies must be introduced and individualizedfor specific plished in social settings where students have opportu-
students or texts, students must engage in an unfamil- nities to engage in activities that are meaningful to
iar communicative process, and responsibilitymust be them, over which they feel ownership, and where they
shifted to students for directingthe process.In addition, have a sense of determination over their activities
teachersmust maintain attention to the flux of ongoing (Roth,2002). Book discussions might fulfill these teach-
talk, assess current states of knowledge on an ongoing ing objectives in a synergisticfashion by setting up an
basis, follow the children'sleads and contributions,and authentic situation where students have opportunities
respond in a contingent fashion based on those assess- to pool their resources and to refine their knowledge
ments. Although several researchers have recom- through collective thought and action (Roth).
mended the role of interactive dialogues within an In summary, replacing a traditional classroom dis-
apprenticeshipmodel of teaching and learning (Butler, course pattern with a less familiar,more conversational
1998; Stone, 1998), only a handful of literacy studies model, is a complex task. Students need guided oppor-
have examined this issue by examining teacher-student tunities to learn and practicesocial and communicative
dialogues (Echevarria & McDonough, 1995; Englert & behaviors that result in effective conversations where
Dunsmore, 2002; Englert & Mariage, 1996; Goatley et students listen to one another and build on one
al., 1995; Palinscar, 1986). More research needs to focus another's ideas so that topics are well developed, dia-
on the role of teachers and learners within an appren- logue flows naturally, and literacy learning takes
ticeship model and the manner in which a complex place in the context of social interactions. With such
and dynamic instructional process that is efficacious guided participation, students with LLD in the primary
for students with disabilities can be achieved. In this grades can exhibit greater mastery of the rhetorical
regard, book discussions might offer a rich terrain for practices that reflect their improved abilities to develop
studying the interactive dialogues of teachers and topics, to articulate reasons, and to challenge the
students (Goatley, 1997; Palincsar; Stone). ideas of others.

Conversation-basedformats for engaging in analyti- utility for the field of learning disabilities." Journalof Learning
cal processes and employing interpretative tools can Disabilities 31, 365-369.
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text. In W. Damon, D. Kuhn, & R. S. Siegler (Eds.),Handbookof
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Future research needs to be conducted to determine Brinton, B., & Fujiki, M. (1989). Conversationalmanagementwith
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B., Fujiki, M., & Powell, J. M. (1997). The ability of chil-
for students with LLD,as well as the enhancement of Brinton,
dren with language impairment to manipulate topic in a struc-
their criticalthinking and comprehension abilities. tured task. Language,Speech& HearingServicesin the Schools,28,
3-11.
Bryan, T., Donahue, M., Pearl, R., & Sturm, C. (1981). Learning
APPENDIX disabled children's conversational skills: The "TVTalk-show."
Transcription Conventions Used LearningDisability Quarterly,1, 70-79.
Elongated sound Bryan, T., & Pflaum, S. (1978). Social interactions of learning dis-
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< > Indicates very soft (barely audible) speech
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Cook, B. G. (2002). Inclusive attitudes, strengths, and weaknesses
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Stone, C. A. (2002). Promises and pitfalls of scaffolded instruction AUTHOR NOTES
for students with language learning disabilities. In K. G. Butler This research was part of a larger project entitled "The develop-
& E. R. Silliman (Eds.), Speaking,readingand writingin children ment and evaluation of an early intervention program for non-
with languagelearningdisabilities:New paradigmsin researchand readers and nonwriters: Literacy environments for accelerated
practice(pp. 175-198). Mahwah, NJ:LawrenceErlbaum. progress" (LEAP) funded by a grant from the United States
Tannen, D. (1984). Conversationalstyle: Analyzing talk among Department of Education and the Office of Special Education
friends.Norwood, NJ:Ablex. Programs(No. H023C950089). The opinions expressedin this arti-
ten Have, P. (1998). Doing conversationanalysis:A practicalguide. cle do not necessarily reflect the position, policy, or endorsement
London: Sage. of the U.S. Department of Education. Earlierversions of this article
van Allsburg,C. (1988). Two bad ants. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. were presented at the annual meetings of the Ethnography in
Vaughn, S., Gersten, R., & Chard, D. J. (2000). The underlying Education Research Forum, March 1998, and the American
message in LD intervention research: Findings from research EducationalResearchAssociation, April 1998.
syntheses. ExceptionalChildren,67, 99-114. The authors wish to express their appreciation to Dr. Troy Mariage
Vogel, S. (1974). Syntactic abilities in normal and dyslexic chil- for his insightful comments and careful review of an earlier draft
dren. Journalof LearningDisabilities,7, 35-43.
of the manuscript.
Wansart,W. L. (1995). Teaching as a way of knowing: Observing
and responding to students' abilities. Remedial and Special As always, the authors are deeply indebted to the project teachers
Education,16, 166-177. who opened their classroom doors and minds to the possibilities
Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic inquiry:Towarda socioculturalpractice of educational inquiry. Without their willing participation, this
and theoryof education.New York:CambridgeUniversity Press. researchwould not have been possible.
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together:Classroomsas centersof inquiryand literacy.Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann.
Wells, G., & Wells, J. (1984). Learningto talk and talking to learn. Requests for reprints should be addressed to: Ruth Wiebe Berry,
TheoryInto Practice,23, 190-197. 505 Baldy Hall, SUNY,Buffalo, NY 14260; raberry@buffalo.edu
DisabilityQuarterly 58
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Designing Conversation: Book Discussions in a Primary Inclusion Classroom

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Ruth A. Wiebe Berry and Carol Sue Englert

Abstract. This study examined the nature of student talk and

RUTHA. WIEBEBERRY,Ph.D., is assistant professor, Universityat Buffalo, SUNY.

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Reading Grade in Speech

January book discussion

Hernan M Hispanic 0.7 2 LD - -

Jason M Caucasian 4.1 1 - - -

Jay M Other 0.0 2 EMI Yes /

Larry M African-American 0.0 1 EMI Yes

Tanya F African-American 0.0 1 EMI -

June book discussion

Dean M African-American - 1 LD Yes /

Jay M Other 0.0 2 EMI Yes 4

Larry M African-American 0.0 1 EMI Yes /

Rita F Caucasian 0.9 1 - - -

Tanya F African-American 0.0 1 EMI -

Tim M Caucasian 0.2 1 - - 4, RR

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RULES FOR A BOOK DISCUSSION

THINGS WE CAN TALK ABOUT

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Volume 28, Winter 2005 41

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STUDENT AGENT TOPIC ACTION OBJECT CAUSE-EFFECT

Sharon [clouds] [Moon]

Katie [wind blew] clouds over moon

Tanya clouds [covered up] the moon

Hernan The clouds [moved]

Larry Clouds cover moon so the bearcan sit still

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Katie [ants think] crystals are sugar interpretation

Dean [crystals] [are] stone

Nola [crystals] are sweet practical knowledge

Katie that guiy [crystals] putting in supporting details

Teacher nobody mentioned coffee brown lake

Katie coffee/tea brown practical knowledge

Dean brown lake no such thing practical knowledge

Lee they [ants] thought brown lake interpretation

Dean brown lake no such thing lakes practical knowledge

Lee this book reminds me of movie [scaffold/list]

Dean character[?] crystals supporting details

Rita I saw crystals [not] [the word] supporting details

Dean ants crystals eat them (reasoning unclear)

Lee [I never knew] ants liked sugar revisiting knowledge

Katie ants crystals not be able to eat them practical knowledge

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