Frame and Footing as Pedagogical Tool: Interactional Scaffolding in Elementary Literacy Conferences

• In Event: 34.097 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Four - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 34.097-5 - Intertextuality, Frame, and Footing: Exploring Linguistic Performance

Abstract

While scaffolding has received significant attention from the field of literacy research, additional research is needed on the interactional and contingent dimensions of scaffolding. Drawing from an ethnographic case study of literacy instruction across three elementary classrooms, this analysis uses Goffman’s theorizing of frame and footing to illustrate how teachers interactionally scaffolded students’ literacy practice. From a discourse analysis 48 reading and writing conferences between six teacher-student dyads, it reports descriptive statistics on how teachers and students made and responded to bids to reframe their interaction. Focal conferences are used to illustrate three ways teachers engaged with reframing as an interactional scaffold, thus adding to an emerging body of literature emphasizing the dialogic nature of scaffolding.

Author

• Laura A Taylor, Rhodes College