Stories, Silences, and Inclusion as Social Process: Talk About Reading in a Fourth-Grade Classroom

• In Event: Languages, Literacies, and Social Processes

Abstract

While classrooms and schools labeled as “inclusive” become more common (Moroff, 2010), and an increasing number of teachers therefore must teach reading to groups of students with diverse abilities and needs, there is a need for examples of the teaching of reading in purportedly inclusive settings. This paper presents data from an ethnographic case study of a teacher and five focal students’ talk about reading in a fourth grade classroom labeled as inclusive. This study, focused on classroom talk, highlights the localized particularities of reading instruction that occurred when a teacher worked to construct opportunities for all students’ membership and participation as capable readers. This study used D/discourse analysis (Gee, 1999) to examine how language was recruited to discuss reading.

Author

• Mary Coakley-Fields, Teachers College, Columbia University