Distributing Data: A Critical Account of Sharing Classroom Transcripts With Fourth Graders

• In Event: Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Participatory Research With Children in Studies of Language and Literacy

Abstract

Purpose
In this paper I am narratively reconstruct and examine a sequence of classroom decisions I made while teaching fourth graders about the concept of genre. This paper addresses the following questions: what were some of the decisions I made around data analysis as I reckoned simultaneously with in situ questions of instructional design and student activity during a multi-year literacy unit designed to teach the concept of genre? Specifically, in what context did I share a typed, analytic transcript of a prior classroom interaction with fourth-grade students? What happened when I did?

Theoretical Framework
This paper draws upon the theories and methods of action research (Zuber-Skerritt, 1996) and Critical Discourse Analysis in education (Rogers, 2011) in the context of building knowledge in settings alongside children (Clark, Dyson, Meagher, Robson, & Wooton, 2001; Coad & Evans, 2008; Hill 2006; Save the Children, 2000). With respect to the representation of findings, my narrative approach is grounded in the work of Phelan & Rabinowitz (2012) and Bruner (1991).

Methods and Data
As a writer-in-residence at a public, urban elementary public school, I was teaching an enrichment writing classes to second, third, and fourth graders. Data included audio transcripts of classroom talk, teacher journals and observations, and student writing.
Findings
While sharing data and soliciting student analyses was a worthwhile and generally ethical move in the progression to a deeper understanding of what was happening in my classroom, certain procedures and decisions were ineffectual with respect to instruction in the moment and perhaps even unethical in the sense of not adequately preparing my students to understand what, exactly, they were up to.

Scholarly Significance
This paper makes claims about positioning young children as data analysts in the context of teacher action research, and examines the role of children as co-researchers. As Coad and Evans (2008) suggest, adults can plan and take primary responsibility for data collection while still involving children as stakeholding consultants who can help to verify or contest a teacher-researcher’s understandings. The paper offers approaches to distributing data that respect the roles, identities, and needs of both teacher-as-researcher and young children.

Author

• Inda Schaenen, Normandy School District