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AUTHOR Duran, Richard P.; Szymanski, Margaret H.TITLE Construction of Learning and Interaction of Language

Minority Children in Cooperative Learning. Report No.45.

INSTITUTION Center for Research on Effective Schooling forDisadvantaged Students, Baltimore, MD.

SPONS AGENCY Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED),Washington, DC.

PUB DATE Oct 93CONTRACT R117R90002NOTE 21p.

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EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Bilingual Education; Classroom Environment;

Classroom Techniques; *Cooperative Learning;Elementary School Students; *English (SecondLanguage); Grade 3; *Interaction; Literacy; PrimaryEducation; Skill Development; Spanish Speaking;Writing Instruction

IDENTIFIERS *Language Minorities

ABSTRACTThis report analyzes the moment-by-moment

construction of interaction by language minority children in acooperative lear ng activity. The interaction occurred amongstudents in a Spanish-English bilingual 3rd grade classroom as partof a cooperative learning curriculum known as Cooperative IntegratedReading and Composition (CIRC), which was especially adapted for usein bilingual classrooms by language minority students. The analysisof interaction reveals that under supportive social circumstances,children are very active in probing and questioning their ownknowledge and they rely on their shared expertise to attaininstructional goals and supplemental goals that are related to theirown expertise and concerns. The report supports the importance ofpromoting learning as a constructive process wherein studentsactively develop new knowledge through manipulation and questioningof their existing knowledge. (Author)

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Construction of Learning

And Interaction of Language Minority Children

In Cooperative Learning

Richard P. DuránMargaret H. Szymanski

University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara

Report No. 45

October 1993

CENTER FORMISEARCH ON EFFECTIVE SCHOOLINGFOR DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS

BEST COPY UM 2

National Advisory Panel

Beatriz Arias, College of Education, Arizona State University

Mary Frances Berry, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania

Anthony S. Bryk, Department of FAlucation, University of Chicago

Michael Charleston, Department of Education,University of Colorado at Denver

Constance E. Clayton, Superintendent. Philadelphia Public Schools

Edmund Gordon (Chair), Department of Psychology, Yale University

Ronald D. Henderson, National Education Association

Vinetta Jones. Executive Director, EQUITY MX), College Board

Arturo Madrid, Director. Tomas Rivera Center

lernan LaFontaine, Administration and Supervision, Southern ConnecticutState University

William Julius Wilson, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago

Center Liaison

Harold Him= !fart), Office of Educational Research and Improvement

BEST COPY AVAILABLE3

Construction of Learning

And Interaction of Language Minority Children

In Cooperative Learning

Richard P. DuránMargaret H. Szynianski

University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara

Report No. 45

October 1993

Published by the Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students,supported as a national research and development center by funds from the Office ofEducational Research and Improvement (OERI), United States Department of Education(R117R90002). The opinions expressed in this publication do not reflect the position orpolicy of OERI, and no official endorsement should be inferred.

Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged StudentsThe Johns Hopkins University

3505 North Charles StreetBaltimore, Maryland 21218

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The Center

The mission of the Center for Research on Effective Schooling for DisadvantagedStudents (CDS) is to significantly improve the education of disadvantaged students at eachlevel of schooling through new krowledge and practices produced by thorough scientificstudy and evaluation. The Center conducts its research in four program areas: The Early andElementary Education Program, The Middle Grades and High Schools Program, theLanguage Minority Program, and the School. Family, and Community Connections Program.

The Early and Elementary Education Program

This program is working to develop, evaluate, and disseminate instructional programscapable of bringing disadvantaged students to high levels of achievement, particularly in thefundamental areas of reading, writing, and mathematics. The goal is to expand the range ofeffective alternatives which schools may use under Chapter 1 and other compensatoryeducation funding and to study issues of direct relevance to federal, state, and local policy

on education of disadvantaged students.

The Middle Grades and High Schools Program

This program is conducting research syntheses, survey analyses, and field studies in

middle and high schools. The three types of projects move from basic research to useful

practice. Syntheses compile and analyze existing knowledge about effective education ofdisadvantaged students. Sur ey analyses identify and describe current programs, practices,and trends in middle and hig:i schools, and allow studies of their effects. Field studies areconducted in collaboration w; ch school staffs to develop and evaluate effective programs and

practices.

The Language Minority Program

This program represents a collaborative effort. The University of California at SantaBarbara and the University of Texas at El Paso are focusing on the education of Mexican-A-merican students in California and Texas; studies of dropout among children of recentimmigrants have been conducted in San Diego and Miami by Johns Hopkins, and evaluationsof learning strategies in schools serving Navajo Indians have been conducted by theUniversity of Northern Arizona. The goal of the program is to identify, develop, andevaluate effective programs for disadvantaged Hispanic, American Indian, Southeast Asian,

and other language minority children.

The School, Family, and Community Connections Program

This program is focusing on the key connections between schools and families andbetween schools and communities to build better ,xlucalional programs for disadvantaged

children and youth. Initial work is seeking to provide a research base concerning the mosteffective ways for schools to interact with and assist parents of disadvantaged students andinteract with the community to produce effective community involvement.

Abstract

This report analyzes the moment-by-moment construction of interaction bylanguage minority children in a cooperative learning activity. The interactionoccurred among students in a Spanish-English bilingual 3rd-grade classroom as partof a cooperative learning curriculum known as Cooperative integrated Reading andComposition (CIRC), which was especially adapted for use in bilingual classroomsby language minority students. The analysis of interaction reveals that undersupportive social circumstances, children are very active in probing and questioningtheir own knowledge and they rely on their shared expertise to attain instructionalgoals and supplemental goals that are related to their own expertise and concerns.The report supports the importance of promoting learning as a constructive processwher,in students actively develop new knowledge through manipulation andquestioning of their existing knowledge.

Acknowledgments

A revised version of this report will appear in a special issue of the journal DiscourseProcesses on literacy among language minority persons, to be published in January

1994.

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Introduction

Educational Reform and LanguageMinority Students

The movement toward restructuringeducation in the U.S. is now over 10 yearsold and shows few signs of diminishing as aparamount public policy issue. Although themovement is characterized in recent yearsby increased attention to the questionablebenefits of localized school management andparental choice of schools, the movementhas consistently emphasized accountabilityof schools through increased use of tests tomonitor the learning progress of studentsand the qualifications of teachers.

Cummins (1986) has argued that thepedagogical models underlying mostinstruction and testing of students, andlanguage minority children in particular,assumes a "transmission" model of learningand assessment. This model emphasizesteachers' whole group presentation oflearning material and students' passivereceipt of such knowledge, followed byisolated question-answer problem solving,and testing of knowledge acquisition. Incontrast to a "transmission" model,Cummins describes a "reciprocal" accountof teaching, learning, and assessment inwhich students participate more actively inthe construction of their own learning and inwhich assessments are used to empower thiscapacity to learn.

A similar criticism of the instructionprovided language minority students isexpressed by Tharp and Gallimore (1988).Their criticism is aimed primarily at theprevalence of an especially ineffectiveversion of the "recitation script" followed byteachers and students in whole-groupteacher-led instruction. This script has beeninvestigated extensively (Mehan, 1979) andinvolves a three-part coordination ofcommunication between the teacher andstudents. In its prototypical occurrence, ateacher reviews a lesson with a class byraising questions and then solicits and

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evaluates responses to questions by students.Although the recitation script appears toinvolve more than a teacher's broadcastingof facts and knowledge to students, itspotential for reciprocity is attenuated by theway it is carried out. Tharp and Gallimoreargue that students will benefit frominteracting with a teacher to the extent thatthe teacher is engaged in an authenticacademic conversation with students aconversation in which the teacher'sparticipation enables the students to know,understand, and apply knowledge that wouldotherwise be impossible if students wereworking on their own.

In ineffective versions of the recitationscript, teachers call only on students whovolunteer to answer questions, and if astudent's reply to a question is inappropriate,the teacher calls on another student toprovide a "correct" answer. Individualstudents, accordingly, may not receiveadequate attention to their own immediatelearning needs, given that the questions areasked by the teacher. Enactment ofinstructionally effective versions of therecitation script would entail moreresponsive feedback and learning assistanceby the teacher to individual students calledupon and attention to students who did notvolunteer to answer questions.

Accounts of more effective instructionshare much in common with emergingtrends in educational research often labeledas "social constructivist" or "socialconstructionist" accounts of teaching andlearning. Although the two terms are oftentreated synonymously, they reflect at leasttwo distinguishable and sometimes non-complementary perspectives. On eperspective stems directly from Piagetiandevelopmental theory. For example, Perret-Clermont et al., (1991) describe"constructivism" in terms of cognitiveresolution of conceptual conflict mediatedsimultaneously through cognitive maturationand through social processes introducing and

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elaborating the occurrence of conflict. Fromthis perspective, once children have acquiredcertain cognitive prerequisites they then areready for "new mental organizations [that]make the subject capable of new socialinteractions which, in turn, foster newmental organizations" (Perret-Clermont etal., 1991, p 46.).

A second perspective, "constructionism,"does not focus on cognitive maturation, andinstead, emphasizes the social constructionof knowledge, mind, and culture. In therealm of education this orientation isreflected in works of Jerome Bruner (1986,1990), Wertsch (1991), Lave (1991), andMoll (1990), who call attention to thesociohistorical or Vygotskian account ofdevelopment, as well as the socialorganization of knowledge construction. Inthe present context, it is especiallyworthwhile to cite Bruner's (1986)conception of the role of language andcommunication in creating culture and theirconnection to how education fostersstudents' self-identity. The three quotesbelow capture these insights:

Once one takes the view that a cultureitself comprises an ambiguous text thatis constantly in need of interpretation bythose who participate in it, then theconstitutive role of language in creatingsocial reality becomes a topic ofpractical concern. [p. 122]

The most general implication is thatculture is constantly in process of beingrecreated as it is interpreted andrenegotiated by its members. [p. 123]

Education is (or should be) one of theprincipal forums for performing thisfunction -- though it is often timid indoing so. [p. 123]

Although constructivist and constructionistaccounts are not universally held, they arebeginning to affect the school reformmovement as educators and the publicperceive the lack of progress towardeducational goals attained by exclusive useof standardized tests and superficialrestructuring of existing teacher-led whole-group-oriented instruction. The newapproaches maintain that students learn byactively building upon what they alreadyknow. That is, knowledge cannot beeffectively acquired by passive reading of orlistening to new information. Instead,learners must actively integrate newinformation or knowledge so that itdisplaces or extends existing knowledge andskills. Researchers in the area of "situatedcognition" consistent with Bruner (1986)further argue that acquisition of newknowledge is fully effective only whenlearners situate the new knowledge ineveryday sociocultural contexts relevant toapplication and use of that knowledge.

Previous Research

Efforts to pursue a restructuring ofinstruction for language minority studentsconsistent with these perspectives havebegun to emerge. One of the best knowneducational interventions for languageminority students stressing students'management of their classroom learning anduse of out of school cultural knowledge isthe Karnehameha Early Education Program(Calfee, et. al, 1981). The KEEP programwas designed to help at-risk Hawaiianelementary school children to acquireadvanced reading comprehension andreasoning skills. One of the key findings to

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emerge from research on KEEP is thatstudents' reading skills are significantlyfacilitated when small groups of children areencouraged to actively explore the meaninga story may have to children given their outof school experiences (Au, 1980). KEEPchildren's small group interaction waseffective because it allowed children to usetheir peers and family and communityexperiences as resources to guide theiranalyses of story meaning and ways fortalking about a story. While many KEEPactivities emphasized students' hands-onmanipulation of learning materials, the

program did not focus as such on studentsdo:ng their own active research projects.

Finding Out/Descubrimiento is an inquiryintervention for monolingual Spanish andbilingual Latino children which helpsstudents in cooperative groups learn aboutscience through the medium of hands-onresearch activities in the classroom (Cohen,De Avila, and Initi, 1981). Anecdotalobservations of children in the programsuggest that the program works well inmixed language groups and that children'scognitive development is facilitated byteaching them basic principles ofexperimental inquiry tied to such notions asthe nature of a science problem or question,a hypothesis and data, and the need for aprocedure to analyze data in order to answera problem. As with KEEP, FindingOut/Descubrimiento draws on materials andproblems occurring within the boundaries ofthe classroom.

In more recent years, intervention projectsinvolving language minority studentsconducting inquiry have begur to explore amore deliberate connection between the out-of-school everyday world and activities inthe classroom. Mercado (1990), incollaboration with a 6th grade teacher,describes an intervention in a majornortheastern city training Latino students toconduct qualitative research outside of theclassroom to inform topics and issues ofinterest to students. Topics and issuesidentified by students as worthwhileincluded: How can we the citizens get moremoney for food and housing for the poor andhomeless?; How can we stop drug abuse?;and How can we prevent murders, rapes, androbberies. Students were taught how toconduct interviews and ethnographicobservation, to do archival research inlibraries on topics and issues of interest, touse diaries to record their progress inresearch, and how to write reports.Mercado also arranged for students to dopresentations on their research findings at anannual meeting of the National Associationof Bilingual Educators.

Moll, Velez, and Greenberg (1990) areconducting an ongoing intervention project

involving Latino school students andfamilies, and teacher-collaborators inTucson Arizona. Teachers are trained to doethnographic observation while conductingvisits to the children's family households.Then, teachers mee, as a group to discussprominent "funds of knowledge" available tostudents in their home and communityenvironments. Funds of knowledge areimportant kinds of skills and. knowledge thatmeet the everyday survival needs and thatcreate the everyday cultural and socialexperiences of community members.Examples of funds of knowledge includewhat children and families know aboutnutrition and cooking, health care, jobs andjob training, cultural celebrations, and so on.

After conducting a survey of importantfunds of knowledge of value to households,teachers initiate thematic research projectsthat students then carry out in the classroom.For example, students involved in a thematicunit on "construction of buildings" did out-of-school library research on this topic, hadclassroom visits by community housingconstruction workers who explained theircraft and its connection to school subjectssuch as mathematics and reading, anddesigned and constructed buildings in theclassroom out of toothpicks and othermaterials.

Moll, Velez, and Greenbergs' (1990) andMercado's (1990) research explicitly drawon sociohistorical psychology as atheoretical rationale for the construction ofinterventions. The sociohistorical (orVygotskian) school posits that all thinkingand culture arise from social experience andthat children's advancement in schoolingrests on this institution's capacity to create"zones of proximal development" whichallows students to acquire new skills andknowledge through social interaction (Moll,1990). An important corollary of theapproach is that it literally suggests thatlearning is not just learning "what" or even"how to do something" -- it involveslearning how to "become" someone who isan expert in a given fund of knowledge.

Warren and Rosebery (1990) are conductinga project known as "Cheche Konnen" a

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Haitian Creole term meaning "search forknowledge" in English. Cheche Konnen isbeing implemented in a large Northeasternurban community and involves Haitianimmigrant and Puerto Rican students. In thecurriculum, 3vidents experience hands-onscience lesson; in biology and other areasthat involve a combination of out-of-schooldata gathering and in-classroom analysis anddiscussion of the scientific method, data andfindings, and science report development.Research topics have included the ecosystemand pollution of a community pond, andreproductive cycles of garden animals. Oneof the most interesting areas of research onCheche Konnen involves ethnographic anddiscourse analysis of students' classroomdiscussions of research projects. Theanalyses suggest that students are not justlearning facts and scientific principles, butthat they are constructing self-identities as"scientists."

Gutierrez (in preparation) has examinedways in which learning activities ofLatino and other ethnically diverse students

construct students' social identities asstudents within classrooms Oewed asdiscourse communities. Students' identitieswithin classroom discourse communities areliterally constructed by how students talkand use language in academic activities.The work of investigators on learninginterventions cited to this point all lead tothe creation of classroom discoursecommunities in which intersubjectiveexperiences among students fosteracquisition of a self-identity as learners,thinkers, and knowledge explorers in a waythat can help prepare students for advancedacademic training. One of Gutierrez's keyfindings is that the teacher's organization ofclassroom communication is critical.Students are most involved and active inlearning when they are given an opportunityto decide topics that might be initiated andexplored in learning activities. It is notenough for a teacher to solicit students'initiation of topics students benefit whenthey take greater control of how to steertheir mutual sense-making out of what is tobe learned.

Analysis of Interaction in aCIRC Story Related Writing Activity

In this section, we present an example ofmoment-to-moment construction ofinteraction by language minority children incooperative learning activity in our ownresearch (Durán and Szymanski, 1992).This example illustrates many of the pointsraised in other constructivist studies oflearning cited above. The interaction arosein an implementation of a cooperativelearning curriculum known as CooperativeIntegrated Reading and Composition (CIRC)in a Spanish-English bilingual 3rd gradeclassroom. The CIRC curriculum wasespecially adapted for use in bilingualclassrooms with language minority students(Caldera, 1989; Caldera, Hertz-Lazarowitz, & Tinajero, 1991).

CIRC is intended to assist students inacquiring a range of oral expression,reading, and writing skills within a set ofstructured activities organized around the

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notion of a "Treasure Hunt" unit built upon astory text. Key Treasure Hunt activitiesinclude:

Teams or "families" of studentsdiscussing target vocabulary words andpredicting the events in a story beforereading it

Pairs of students within teams silentlyreading and then orally reading in pairsthe first part of a story

Pairs or the entire team/family thendiscussing and answering questionsbased on the first part of a story,including a prediction question on whatwill happen in the second part of thestory

Repetition of the foregoing to activitieswith the second part of a spry. (Noprediction question is necessarily builtin to the second part questions.)

Pairs or the entire team/familydiscussing and completing a story-related writing assignment

Enactment of each of the activities outlinedabove develops socially and intra-individually over time in the classroom.Ethnographic observation of the activitiessuggests that conduct of each activitybecomes framed or scripted i.e., anorderliness appears in the ways studentsinterpret and participate in an activity as if ithad a "plot" with certain actions andconditions for action that guide students'judgment about how to organize theirinteraction and task intersubjectivity. Theoccurrence of an activity as a concreteinteractional event remains constitutive -- aninteractional accomplishment, unique in its

occurrence and based on students' situatedjudgments about what is occurring in thepresent, given what has occurred in the past,and what needs attention next.

The social and cognitive operations enactedby the students utilize communication andlinguistic strategies as tools for guiding theircollective attention and for accomplishingspecific kinds of interactional andcognitive/academic work. Extendedethnographic observation of studentssuggests that these strategies develop a tool-like mediating capacity within activities.Students acquire a repertoire of ways ofspeaking and signaling intention thatbecome available as resources foraccomplishing an activity. Theserepertoires for communicating andaccomplishing work resemble the notion ofa "social language" alluded to by activitytheorists -- a style of talk and languageusage characterizing participation in acommunity of practice (Wertsch, 1991).

Analysis of Story Related Writing Interaction

In the data and analysis that follows, weidentify different kinds of coordinated workaccomplished by students during a story-related writing activity that is part of theCIRC curriculum. Our examination ofdifferent kinds of coordinated action amongstudents reveals evidence of communicativeconventions adopted collectively andindividually by students to realize theirlearning and teaching of each other.

This analysis focuses on the coordinatedaction of four native Spanish-speaking thirdgraders who are working on a Story RelatedWriting activity. The Story Related Writingis one of the last activities in the CIRCTreasure Hunt cycle. It occurs after studentshave read a story and answered questionsbased on the story. The activity emphasizesthe story's theme, because it requires thestudents to relate an experience of their ownto that of the story's protagonist.

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The students under investigation have justtransitioned from reading in Spanish toreading in English in the CIRC curriculum;this is their 6th day of CIRC instruction inEnglish. Prior to their transition in April,the children conducted CIRC in Spanish.The students had worked with the CIRCcurriculum for seven months.

In the specific story-related writing incidentto be analyzed, the teacher had directed thestudents to describe to the other groupmembers what they proposed to write inresponse to the theme: What you would doif you were big? Upon completion of theshared discussion, the teacher distributedpaper for them to begin the actual writing.The transcript begins after all the familymembers except Leticia have shared theirproposed story with the rest of the groin).

Our analysis focuses on several aspects ofthe cooperative learning group's language

and interaction that have implications forunderstanding how students guide their ownteaching and learning in CIRC activities as acommunity of practice. Leticia's storystructuring is coordinated around her listingof the events prompted by the openingsentence frame for her narrative: "If I werebig...." The linguistic framing invitesaccompanying framing of further interaction

Leticia is expected to generate a list thingsshe would do if she were big, and the otherparticipants interpret this occasion as onewhere they may react to Leticia's talk andcontribute to the completion of the list.

The interactional possibilities are furtherextended, as additional imbedded sub-activities arise at the initiative of the otherparticipants. These added activities involveassessments and feedback regardinglanguage form and task progress, anddiscussion about specific aspects of the storystructure. The imbedded activities arespontaneously raised as relevant by the othergroup members and resolved collectively bythe group.

Four aspects of this co-constructed storystructuring activity will be considered indetail: 1) structuring the story world, 2)assessing and correcting language forms, 3)assessing the story world's content, and 4)extending the story world text. (Please referto the appendix for the complete transcriptand transcription conventions.)

Structuring the Story World

As Leticia tells the group what she would doif she were big, she is structtcring a storyworld. This is a fictive, projetted "other"world created by unfolding narrative eventsand details in response to the teacher'sprompt: What would you do if you werebig? Leticia's oral listing of story eventsprovides an activity framework for the othergroup members. In communicating herstory content to the others, she affords themthe interactional opportunity to participate inits creation. In fact, one might go so far asto say that the story world structure is co-produced through the interaction of all theparticipants.

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The entire story construction activity frameis clearly marked as beginning and ending ina co-produced fashion. Vanessa allocatesthe turn on line 1 after commenting onAlberto's narrative which has just ended.Leticia accepts the turn on line 2 with"okay" and proceeds to begin her own storystructuring by using an "if" clause totemporally place the narrative events in aconditional future. The "if' constructioncreates a syntactic frame that affordsconstruction of a list of descriptionsallowing envisionment of the story worldunder development.

I V: .huh (don't say you'll) buy a car then,go Leticia

2 L. okay. .hif I wus big, I could like (.2)uh-hm buy a ca:r, get

3 my li- my license, a:nd (.) like goCHOPpi[ng, work]

Leticia's list of "if I were big" events ischaracterized by her repeated use of thesyntactic structure "I could + verb." Onlines 2 and 3, the "I could" construction isused in a three part list: she could buy a car,get her license, and go shopping. The onlydeviation from this syntactic pattern is onlines 11 and 12 when Leticia quotes herselftelling her mom that she is not going towork, because Leti will work for her.

9 L: go: to work and I could help mymo:m, and tell her that no, she

10 is not going to work, I'm going towork fo:r he:r, and=

11 V: ..h*oh=12 L: =I could clean the hou:se for her, I

could do anything in13 the hou:se, and (.) 1 could take her to

Ne:w Yo:rk,uh ha uh n14 other places=

The story structuring ends as it had begun,as a co-produced activity. Leticia begins toend her story structuring on line 36 whenshe asks the rest of the group: "so that'sall?". Just as she had accepted the turn withan "okay" signal, she relinquishes her storystructuring role with the same response.

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33 L: oh:. like this? ((points to her lapelmic)) okay. (.3)

34 V. okay. (.)35 G: now let's [(call so she can bring us)]

paper36 L: [so that's all? okay]

Assessing and CorrectingLanguage Forms

Leticia's production of the story structureprovides for the imbedded activity ofassessing and correcting language forms.The oral production of the story structuremakes available to its recipients theparticular grammatical form of theanticipated written story. The studentsperceive this oral discussion of the story-related writing task to be an opportunity forthe correction of an oral form as it is beingpreviewed for the written task.

Shopping-choppingOne such assessing and correcting oflanguage form occurs because of amispronunciation. On line 4, Leticiapronounces -the word shopping as"chopping." This triggers Vanessa'smodeling of the correct pronunciation on thefollowing line.

2 L: okay. .hif 1 was big, I could like (.2)uh-hm buy a ca:r, get

3 my li- my license, a:nd (.) like goCHOPpi[ng, work]

4 V: [SH:]0:Pping, noCHOpping, sho:pping

5 L: chopping?6 (( all laugh))7 L: what[ever], I can't <say it right>.

and [I could] (.)8 V. ['shopping] [shopping]9 L: go: to work and I could help my

rno:m, and tell her that no, she10 is not going to work, I'm going to

work fo:r he:r, and=

It is interesting to note that Vanessa does thecorrection in Spanish evidenced by her useof 'no' in "no chopping" instead of theEnglish 'not'. Her language choice seems tofurther emphasize her repair motive; it is notan error of lexical choice, but rather, one ofpronunciation. In effect, when Leticia's

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attempted self-repair of "chopping" on line 5results in her repetition of the trouble source,she announces on line 7, "whatever, I can'tsay it right," showing her understanding thatthe correction is motivated by an error in herpronunciation and that it is time to move onin her script for the activity. Since thepronunciation error is detected and resolvedto the extent immediately possible, and sincethere is no lexical or semantic issue at handbetween the actions 'shopping' and'chopping', she decides to continue her storystructuring.

Policeman-policegirlVanessa assesses another language formlater in Leticia's production of the storystructure; this time the issue is theappropriateness of a lexical category. Online 19, Leticia says she wants to be apoliceman. Vanessa corrects Leticia on line20 by inserting "girl" for the gender elementof the compound word policeman. Leticiaproceeds to correct herser in her subsequentturn.

16 L: [she wanted to-] to go. (.) and (.)me:::, I could buy a house

17 for melmi, for (.) my family, (.) and(.) hah I could

18 C: she's going to [be Rich.]19 L: [wo:rk] (as) a

\policema:n20 V: poli:cegirl [((laughs))]21 L: [police girl] a::nd (.1)

maybe a TEAcher,o:r another thi:ng=

The issue here is one of both gender andlanguage form. The most prominentcategorical gender distinction for thesechildren is between boy and girl. Vanessaapplies her conventional knowledge ofcompound words and adds the specificcategory 'girl' to the base word "police."

Assessing Story Structure Content

The recipients of the story text use it notonly to collaborate in the production of itsform, but also to comment on its content.Assessments are made by the listeners thatevaluate the story events based on theirreflection and cultural interpretation of whathas been said in the story structuring. In

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doing so, assessment provides the narrator,Leticia, with a resource: it guides herproduction of future speech.

She'll be old, huh-She's going to be richOn line 15, Vanessa assess what Leticia hassaid so far when she interjects "she'll be old,huh." This comment makes hearable toLeticia what has been understood thus farfrom her listing of future events. Vanessa'suse of the 3rd person singular pronoun "she"leaves its referent ambiguous, however;"she" could conceivably refer to Leticia whowill be "big" (grown up) or Leticia's mom.Evidence of the utility that assessingcomments have to producing story structureis Leticia's topicalization in line 16: "andme:::, I could" giving emphasis to the activesubject in her story events, herself.

12 L: =I could clean the hou:se for her, Icould do anything in the

13 hou:se, and (.) I could take her toNe:w Yo:rk, uh ha uh n

14 other places=15 V. 1= <she'll be old>, huh.]((nods))16 L: [she wanted to-] to go. (.) and (.)

me:::, I could buy a house17 for melmi, for (.) my family, (.) and

(.) hah I could18 G: she's going to [be Rich.]19 L: [wo:rk] (as) a policema:n

On line 18, Gilberto follows his partner'slead. He uses similar syntax to evaluatewhat it means for Leticia to buy a house forher family: "she's going to be rich." In thiscase, the pronoun referent is unambiguous,because it is Leticia who will be rich.Consequently she doesn't explicitly addressthe comment.

I want to be a teacher-I don't wantto be a policemanTwo other assessments occur farther downon the transcript in a manner parallel to theones just talked about. On line 22, Vanessaassesses Leticia's statement, "I want to be ateacher" by ratifying the idea as a professionshe too would like to pursue. Gilberto againtakes the opportunity to parallel his partner'scomment, and he subsequently expresses hisopposition to Leticia's desire to become a

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policeman on line 25. To evaluate Leticia'sstory structure content, Vanessa andGilberto both jump out of the future storystructure mode and ground themselves in thepresent moment by using the indicative "I(don't) want to be ...." These assessmentshave value to Leticia in a similar manner asthe text-related evaluations above; she canuse the information to clarify anymisunderstanding about her previous talk.

17 L: for melmi, for (.) my family, (.) and(.) hah I could

18 G: she's going to [be Rich.]19 L: [wo:rk] (as) a policema:n20 V: poli:cegirl [((laughs))]21 L: [police girl] a::nd (.1) maybe a

TEAcher,o:r another thi:ng=22 V: =I want [to be] a teacher=23 L: [o:r]24 ?: =no( )25 G: I don't want to be a cop. they'll fight

you.

Both of these pairs of assessments, thosereflecting inferred understandings ofLeticia's talk and those making personalvalue judgments about her talk, areprojections of the individual student's worldinto that of the collective group. Eachutterance is created by previous talk, showsan understanding of the present state of theactivity, and anticipates the future directionof talk. The talk that is available for eachgroup member is a resource through whichpersonal views and ideas become collectivein their discussion. The result is a collectivegroup world which borrows from each of theindividual members to form a commongroup world.

Text Extension

Sometimes an assessment made on previoustalk is not just left as a resourceful commentto be used by the person sharing the story toclarify misunderstanding in previous talk.When a comment is taken up by the groupand pursued by the group's members as atopic in itself, the original text that gaveplace to the topic can be said to be"extended" in the topic's pursuit. This willbe referred to as "text extension."

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Gilberto's comment on line 25, "I don't wantto be a cop" elicits this kind of extendedpursuit of the policeman topic by Vanessa.First she aligns herself with Gilberto's pointof view by seconding his statement with anemphatic "I know." Her subsequentlanguage is oriented toward engaging Leticiain the discussion. To do this, Vanessarepeatedly uses the sound "eh" and thenLeti's name to prompt a response. Once shegets Leti's attention, she proceeds to foretellLeti's fate should she become a cop.

25 G: 1 don't want to be a cop. they'll fightyou.

26 V. I KNOW they could kill you. eh, eh,eh. (.) eh, (.) Leti.(.)

27 Leti. (.) Leti. (.2) if I was you 1wouldn't be a a cop, you know

28 why, 'cuz they could sho- shoot you,you would be dead.

29 L: if I wouldlwhat?

30 V: if you be a cop, [um] they- they shootyou.

31 L: [heh]32 G. you canlcould be dead.33 L: oh:. like this? ((points to her lapel

mic)) okay. (.3)34 V: okay. (.)35 G: now let's [(call so she can bring us)]

paper36 L: [so that's all? okay]

Vanessa's "okay" on line 34 marks the closeof the text extension and sets up therelevance for a closing to Leticia's biggerstory structuring event. Further evidence forVanessa's completion of the story structuringis Leticia's questioning on line 36, "so that'sall?"; this indicates not only her uncertaintyabout whether the other members of thegroup have finished her story structure butalso her understanding that indeed they mayhave already finished it.

Conclusion

Leticia's listing of events provides aframework for the story sharing activity thatallows the other members in the group theopportunity to participate in its production.In response, they take the opportunity torepair Leticia's language form and to sharecomments about each other's perception ofthe world in light of their own experiences.

The imbedded activities, assessing andcorrecting language forms, assessing taskprogress, assessing story content, andextending the story text build on thestorytelling script and enrich the students'teaching and learning opportunities in whatotherwise would be a sole-produced storyactivity -- if it had occurred as non-cooperative learning activity. The children'sability to participate in the cooperativeactivity given Leticia's story script shows thechildren's attendance and orientation tomultiple aspects of literacy production:grammatical features, lexical choice,semantic content, and their personal valuejudgments about story themes.

Moves to signal assessment and evaluativefeedback are central to conduct of theactivity described and have implications forviewing CIRC activities as a community ofpractice within a school setting. Educatorsand cognitive scientists are quick to point tothe importance of promoting learning as aconstructive process wherein studentsactively develop new knowledge throughmanipulation and questioning of theirexisting knowledge. Interaction of the sortdescribed in this paper reveals that undersupportive social circumstances, children arevery active in probing and questioning theirown knowledge and that they rely on theirshared expertise in attaining a teacher'sinstructional goals and, in addition,supplemental goals that make sense tochildren given their own expertise andconcerns.

The interaction shown by students andanalyzed in this paper exemplifies how themoment-to-moment regulation of attentionand effort on the part of students constructs

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their joint literate action (Green and Meyer,1991; Santa Barbara Classroom DiscourseGroup, 1992). Analysis of the interaction ofstudents directly makes visible what literacymay be taken to mean as coordinated actionsby students and ways in whichconversational mechanisms afford suchsense-making (Gumperz, 1986).

The fact that we observed the childrenextending comments on story themesconnected to their everyday lives is

important to note. It suggests that they areeager to connect their fuller cultural andsocial identities to the academic activitiesthat arise in classroom instmction (Goodman& Goodman, 1990). This possibility raisesthe issue of better ways in which to connectstudents' school-based communities ofpractice with other communities of practicebeyond school physical boundaries, and theimplications of fostering such connections inorder to strengthen children's schoolingsuccess.

Appendix

Transcription Conventions

H overlapping

( ) unsure hearing

(( )) transcriber's and analyst's comments

lengthened pronunciation

? final rising intonation

listing intonation (e.g. more is expected)

final falling intonation

0 micropause

(.2) two tenths of a second pause

MY stressed pronunciation

= latching of speaker's utterances

truncation (e.g. what ti- what time is it?)

would/what alternate hearings

°bye softly spoken

<goodbye> rapidly spoken in relation to surrounding talk

.h in breath

1 V: .huh (don't say you'll) buy a car then, go Leticia

2 L: okay. .hif I was big, I could like (.2) uh-hm buy a ca:r, get my li- my license, a:nd (.) like

3 go CHOPpi[ng, work]

4 V: [SH:]0:Pping, no CHOpping, sho:pping

5 L: chopping?

6 (( all laugh))

7 L: what[ever], I can't <say it right>. and [I could] (.)

8 V: ['shopping] [shopping]

9 L: go: to work and I could help my mo:m, and tell her that no, she is not going to work, I'm

1 0 going to work fo:r he:r, and=

1 1 V: ..h'oh=1 2 L: =I could clean the hou:se for her, I could do anything in the hou:se, and (.) I could take her

1 3 to Ne:w Yo:rk, uh ha uh n other places=

1 4 V: [=<she'll be old>, huh.]((nods))

1 5 L: [she wanted to-] to go. (.) and (.) me:::, I could buy a house for me/mi, for (.) my family, (.)

1 6 and (.) hah I could

17 G: she's going to [be RIch.]

1 8 L: [wo:rk] (as) a policema:n

1 9 V: poli:cegirl [((laughs))]

2 0 L: [police girl] a::nd (.1) maybe a TEAcher,o:r another thi:ng=

2 1 V: =I want [to be] a teacher=

2 2 L: [o:r]

2 3 ?: =no( )

2 4 G: I don't want to be a cop. they'll fight you.

2 5 V: I KNOW they could kill you. eh, eh, eh. (.) eh, (.) Leti.(.) Leti. (.) Leti. (.2) if I was you I

2 6 wouldn't be a a cop, you know why, 'cuz they could sho- shoot you, you would be dead.

2 7 L: if I would/what?

2 8 V: if you be a cop, [urn] they- they shoot you.

2 9 L: [heh]

3 0 G: you can/could be dead.

3 1 L: oh:. like this? ((points to her lapel mic)) okay. (.3)

3 2 V: okay. (.)

3 3 G: now let's [(call so she can bring us)] paper

3 4 L: [so that's all? okay]

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