Emotion Discourse as Mediator of Adolescent Peer-Group Classroom Discussions

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Adolescent Language Processes

Abstract

In this paper, we examine one small group of fifth-grade students’ interactions during monthly collaborative math activities across a school year in order to explore how emotions mediated interactional positioning of knowing and doing. Specifically, we analyze emotion episodes in order to understand how emotion co-mediated activity alongside a recurrent activity structure⎯formative, structured evaluations of their group discussions in relation to their ongoing arc of participation across the monthly sessions. We argue that emotion episodes are an analytic lever by which to organize a temporally unfolding understanding of how these students positioned accountability over the course of the school year through this recurring activity structure in which participation, and knowing are valued and explicitly called into question.

Authors

• David Isaac Hernandez-Saca, Arizona State University

• Kate T. Anderson, Arizona State University