The Specialized Registers of School

1. The Specialized Registers of School December 12, 2006 Kendra Winner

2. Agenda • Course Administration • Preparation for next week • Course party • Next week second set of essays and course evaluations • Some leaving early today • Solving problems in the real world and in school • Academic Registers • Classroom discourse • APA … one more time

3. For next week • Come prepared with your thoughts about at least two practical implications are for some of the concepts raised in Language and Culture. These can be implications for education, social or public policy, or other areas you believe to be important. Be prepared to site evidence for your claims.

4. Agenda • Course Administration • Preparation for next week • Course party • Next week second set of essays and course evaluations • Some leaving early today • Solving problems in the real world and in school • Academic registers • Classroom discourse

5. Academic Language reading and lecture objectives • Understand the principals of “situated cognition” and “problem space” and how these relation to academic participation • Be familiar with how language varies at a variety of levels in academic disciplines. • Understand the implications of today’s readings for classroom discourse, including student funds of knowledge (Moje, et al.), teacher strategies (Adler, Lemke), and disciplinary Discourses (Ball, et al)

6. This page has no print on it.

7. This page has no print on it. From Snow, Griffin & Burns (2005). Knowledge to Support the Teaching of Reading. Jossey-Bass; San Francisco, CA. pp. 22.

8. Conventions of text • Psychology Research Articles • In your experience, to what extent do the sentences and text in this genre rely completely on themselves? • What kind of relationship between the author and the reader is generally invoked? For example, you might think about the distance between the author and the reader.

9. Psychology Research Articles • Abstract • Literature Review • Methods • Discussion • Further research

10. School Math Two cars that are 375 miles apart and whose speeds differ by 5 miles per hour are moving toward each other. They will meet in 3 hours. What is the speed of each car?

11. What processes did you use to solve the problem? • What is the relationship between the “language” and the “math” of the problem? • How did the language support or challenge your efforts to solve the problem?

12. Solving Problems in the Real World • Sylvia Scribner (1985). Knowledge at work. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 16(3), pp. 199-206. • Supports the notion of a reciprocal relationship between knowledge and action. • Goal directed action guides selection of information and its organization for the task at hand

13. Real World Problems: Scribner, cont. • Conducted research at a milk processing plant (a dairy) • A “bounded social system” • Three groups of occupations • Office workers • Warehouse assemblers • Drivers • Utilizes order forms categorizing items by: • Kind (fluid milk, cheese, fruit drinks, etc…) • Size • Qualitative characteristics (flavor, fat content)

14. Real World Problems: Scribner, cont. • What you learn is related to what you have to do: • Consumers organize recall of dairy items by kind of product • Office workers use primarily kind as well as size on occasion. • Drivers and warehouse assemblers used several dimensions more frequently • Warehouse assemblers utilized kind, size, and location. • Individuals will engage in complex mental activities to organize their own actions: • Assemblers organize trips through the warehouse to accommodate distance and weight

15. Solving Problems in the Real World • Jean Lave (1985). Introduction: situationally specific practice. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 16(3), pp. 171-176. • Solutions occur in a particular context – the “problem space” • Hence, there is variation in: • What constitutes a problem • The procedures used to solve the problem • Success at problem solving by the same people in different contexts

16. Murtaugh, Michael • I just keep putting them in until I think there’s enough. There’s only about three or four at home, and I have four kids, so you figure at least two apiece in the next three days. These are the kinds of things I have to resupply. I only have a certain amount of storage space in the refrigerator, so I can’t load it up totally … Now that I’m home in the summertime, this is a good snack food. And I like an apple sometimes at lunchtime when I come home.

17. Tailor Apprenticeship Observation Practice Inductive method Formal Schooling Verbal Instructions Decontextualized presentation of materials Deductive method Lave, Jean

18. Lave, Jean

19. The language of math problem solving • Jim has three boxes. Each box has eight books in it. He wants to put his books on shelves. He can put ten books on a shelf. How many shelves does he need?

20. Mathematics Register • Syntax • comparatives greater than • prepositions divided into, divided by • passive voice x is defined to be … • word order the number A is five less than the number B • logical connectors if … then, given that, if and only if

21. Mathematics Register • Semantic features • lexicon binomial, coefficient, polynomial, • natural square, power, rational, irrational vocabulary • synonyms and, plus, combine, some, more than • symbols = > < () [] • strings least common denominator, negative exponent

22. Mathematics Register • Pragmatics • Conflict between real world knowledge and knowledge called up by the text problem • Degree of background knowledge

23. Lemke • Classroom discourse • Conflict in activity structure … social interaction in the classroom that pits teacher and students against one another. … and conflict between two opposed thematic systems. • Lemke also talks about the conflict between our commonsense ways of talking about topics and the specialized patterns of science talk.

24. Transcript Analysis • What inhibits the participation of girls? • What kinds of roles do male students take in the talk? • What big choices about lesson format favor participation by male students? • What micro-level moves by the teacher either sanction male student’s contributions or fail to invite contributions by girls?

25. Transcript Analysis • Utilizing the work of the authors you read for today, how do you re-write the interaction to make science talk a more inclusive phenomenon? • Moje, et al • Adler • Lemke • Ball, Dice & Bartholomae

26. APA … one more time • Whorf (as cited in Bowerman, 1996) concluded that, “language shapes children’s understanding of the world” (p. 146). • Bowerman’s (1996) work suggested that children’s spatial thought may be shaped by language specific principles of semantic categorization, “quote” (p. number).