Reading notes for 11/19: Discourse, continued

Carol Lee's article provides an example of a cognitive apprenticeship in high school English which draws on the existing expertise (prior knowledge) of her African-American students to teach formal literary analysis skills. What do you think about this example? What questions does it raise in your mind?

What do you think of cognitive apprenticeship as a way to teach the "language of power" Delpit talks about?

What about teaching the language of power in your own discipline? Could cognitive apprenticeship help your future students? In your subject area, see if you can specify some of the domain knowledge, heuristic strategies, control strategies, and learning strategies that are needed for competent functioning. Once you have that list, can you think of a way to teaching these things via an apprenticeship model where students' relevant prior knowledge is used as a scaffolding device? How might you build in ways for students to become increasingly more responsible for using this new knowledge to solve problems and do other tasks?

The last three articles address conducting large-group discussions of controversial issues. The first two of these provide somewhat different views of the "how-tos" of being a discussion leader. The last is a case study of a real history teacher when one such discussion spins out of control.

What is the place of controversial discussions in your own teaching? Do they have a place? Are they worth the risk?

In your field, what are the controversial issues? Try to make a list of issues that people in your field would consider to be controversial, or over which there is disagreement between "experts" and the lay public. What would students bring or need to bring to such discussions in order to make them educationally worthwhile?

What should Mr. Stinson do on Thursday?