Discourse Diversity: Principles for Authentic Talk and Literacy InstructionAuthor(s): John G. BarnitzSource: Journal of Reading, Vol. 37, No. 7, Classroom Talk about Text (Apr., 1994), pp. 586-591Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20172360 .

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John G. Barnitz

Discourse diversity:

Principles for

authentic talk and

literacy instruction

This article reviews selected

studies on cultural

variation of discourse with

recommendations for

authentic literacy instruction in culturally

diverse schools.

We have become aware that each classroom

is a community, and that discourse is at its heart.

It is discourse that connects people, that enables

them to negotiate meaning in a situation or from

a text, that enables a teacher to lead a class in

new directions. Since discourse always involves

more than one person, each brings to the

encounter his or her own patterns of discourse,

learned in the family and community, and further

expanded by every exchange. The teacher, then,

makes use of this resource, helping learners to

meld and build upon their learned discourse pat terns and to develop a fuller command of the Ian

guage being used in the class

room in preparation for later use

in the wider world.

Classroom communities in

today's linguistically diverse

schools reflect culturally rich

societies. For teachers this means

learning to make use of a perhaps

unexpected abundance?what

learners bring to classrooms with

their culturally unique knowledge and discourse that teachers can

use in effective learning situa

tions.

What helps the teacher most in

such a class is an awareness of

authentic sociolinguistic diversi

ty, of different forms and uses of

language that reflect cultural

background. A teacher's positive attitude toward

each student's diversity supports the student in

further learning. Student success in acquiring and

using literacy grows out of culturally authentic talk

surrounding literacy events at home and at

school.

This article is designed to help teachers develop an awareness of discourse diversity in classroom

talk, create authentic literacy lessons based on

principles of instruction involving classroom talk,

and become acquainted with many useful refer

ences for expanding their professional knowledge

about sociolinguistic variation and its role in

teaching reading. This article first reviews selected

586 JOUrnal Of Reading 37:7 April 1994 International Reading Association

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studies on classroom discourse diversity, then

summarizes principles for authentic talk in literacy

instruction.

Discourse variation in cultural contexts

Oral discourse, which is socially constructed, has

important properties: It is functional (speakers use

language to accomplish things), meaningfully

organized (with patterns of idea networks), and

unified (shows cohesion, coherence). Literacy, too,

is socially constructed (Cook-Gumperz, 1986;

Halliday, 1975; Vygotsky, 1978), which is why nat

ural talking is a critical aspect of literacy activities

for culturally diverse learners.

Cultural variation in talking can have a strong

influence on literacy learning, as Au and Mason

(1981) showed when they described how Hawaiian

minority children used their own culturally accept able conversational styles in literacy lessons. The

Hawaiian learners improved their reading abilities

only when teachers allowed collaborative and con

versational discourse in reading lessons?authen

tic discussions about ideas in texts?rather than

the traditional recitation and repetition of impor tant information (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988).

However, while collaborative, conversational lit

eracy lessons were successful with Hawaiian chil

dren, they were not successful with Navajo chil

dren learning to read (Vogt, Jordan, & Tharp, 1987).

Classroom talk that is natural in one sociocultural

context may not be natural in other contexts.

Learners use their natural discourse styles in

their home talk and in classroom talk. When

Michaels (1981) examined the narratives that

urban children produced during sharing time in

their classroom, she found differences in organiza

tion of ideas: African-American children construct

ed their talk in terms of ideas associated with the

topic, but European-American children shared

ideas centered more directly on the topic. (Other researchers, such as Hyon and Sulzby, 1991, have

reported that African-American children used both

narrative frameworks in story retellings.) Oral dis

course styles and patterns also transfer to the

written texts children and teenagers produce, as

Horowitz (in press, b) found in African-, Jewish-,

and Hispanic-American communities.

This persistence of discourse style suggests that

learners need to construct meaning in their own

natural way in transition to acquiring the fullest

range of literate discourse that English or any lan

guage has to offer. Teachers must recognize differ

ences as manifestations of cultural discourse

which can be expanded rather than interrupted or

suppressed.

McCollum (1991) found striking differences

when she made cross-cultural comparisons of dis

course patterns in a third-grade classroom in the

United States and one in Puerto Rico. The pre

dominant discourse in the U.S. classroom

involved turn taking controlled by the teacher, who

called on each student to respond. In the Puerto

Rican classroom, the teacher allowed students

more opportunities to express themselves in

lessons involving "instructional conversations,"

consistent with a model of teaching as "assisting

literacy performance" (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988).

The teacher incorporated more collaborative feed

back and modeling, language expansion and elab

orations of student responses, and more function

al questioning?all of which supported learning more effectively than traditional question-recita

tion routines.

Teachers do need to be aware of the influence of

their students' culture. Robisheaux (1993) described how Hispanic students who have suc

cessfully completed a program in English as a

Second Language can fail in the regular classroom

not because of a language barrier but because

their non-Hispanic teachers were not aware of

important cultural differences.

Teachers can expand their own sociolinguistic awareness by studying some of the published

research on cultural variations of family narratives,

question-answer and bedtime story routines, and

other language-learning child-rearing practices of

urban and rural communities (Heath, 1983;

Kochman, 1981; Labov, 1972; Ward, 1971). English

speaking teachers can also benefit from exposure

to English discourse variation around the world

(Kachru, 1992). Both teachers and teenagers need

Discourse diversity: Principles for authentic talk and literacy instruction 587

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to become aware of the complexities of discourse

in relationships at school and home (see Cazden,

1988; Heath, 1983; Horowitz, in press, a; Tannen,

1986). With an understanding of cultural diversity in discourse, teachers can design authentic litera

cy events.

Principles for using authentic talk and

literacy instruction

According to Edelsky (1986, p. 170) authentic liter

acy events must meet several conditions: Learners

must construct meaning through transactions with

natural texts. They must use all language systems

(graphic, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic) in pro

cessing texts. They must use predicting and con

firming strategies in reading as well as composing

strategies in writing.

In essence, authentic assignments and literacy

strategies must allow students to use meaningful

functional oral and written language. This lan

guage must be supported by other thinkers and

talkers in the classroom reflecting the sociocultur

al context (Freeman & Freeman, 1992; Kucer, 1991;

Myers, 1992).

With authenticity in mind, what are some princi

ples for incorporating talk into literacy instruction

in culturally diverse classrooms?

1. Build classroom communities in which func

tional discourse is encouraged.

Developing communicative competence in class

room communities requires managing the physi

cal and social environment so that four types of

authentic discourse may occur: thought discourse,

fact discourse, sharing discourse, and fun dis

course (Enright & McCloskey, 1988). Literacy events are authentic when teachers capitalize on

discourse interaction in community-structured

classrooms in which literacy is functional.

Teachers can encourage functional dialogue

through dialogue journals. These are written con

versations between teachers and students or stu

dents and students. The journals should facilitate

the language growth of native and nonnative

English speakers (Peyton & Reed, 1990; Staton,

Shuy, Peyton, & Reed, 1988).

Lindfors (1989) reported a wide range of com

municative functions represented in the dialogue

journal writing of adolescent Zulu-English speak ers in South Africa. These young adults used writ

ing to teach, inquire, joke, inform, scold, offer,

seek clarification, compliment, apologize, explain,

express opinions, make conversational comments,

express thanks, comfort, reflect.

Through dialogue, classroom participants can

build social relationships, model good oral and written discourse strategies, expand background

knowledge, and lead each other to elaborate on

ideas, rather than focus only on specific reading

and writing skills. Literacy functions and skills can

be acquired naturally through the social dialogue process in classroom communities.

2. Use authentic texts from the students' cultur

al environment.

Teachers may use various creative texts to devel

op students' knowledge of culture and language.

Cross-cultural literature is a rich source of

authentic reading for developing students' multi

cultural awareness and authentic discourse litera

cy (Au, 1993). Good literature leads in a variety of

ways to natural social interaction that encourages

talk about text. For example, teachers can use lit

erature for Readers Theater, role playing, creative

dramatics, or choral speaking for real audiences in

social classroom events. Learner-centered conver

sations about interesting ideas in literature facili

tate continued literacy advancement. Engaging

students in talking about literature promotes

acquisition of school language and discourse

(Allen, 1989; Tompkins & McGee, 1981). In addition to literature, a wide variety of materi

als from everyday living can be used in literacy activities. Menus from ethnic restaurants can be

used for learning about ethnic foods as well as the social interchanges involved in ordering meals.

Health care discourse can be learned while using brochures from hospitals and clinics. Discourse

about buying and selling cars can be learned by

role-playing business transactions based on

knowledge gained from reading brochures from auto dealerships. Students learning to fill out all

types of forms should be supported by the social

588 journal of Reading 37:7 April 1994

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talk that accompanies interpreting and processing forms.

Newspapers can also be a varied source for talk

ing about the world, national, state, and local

events and human interest features.

3. Use instructional strategies that incorporate

authentic talk in the reading/writing process.

Immigrants and other students whose first lan

guage is not that of the classroom are able to

compose and comprehend even though they do not have full control of the target language's struc

tures (Goodman & Goodman, 1978; Hudelson,

1989). Both first and second language learners can

acquire literacy when instructional strategies focus

on process rather than on language structures

alone. Many effective instructional strategies use

culturally diverse authentic talk to support litera

cy: the Experience-Text-Relationship Method (Au,

1979), Language Experience Approach (well

explained by Rigg, 1989), and reciprocal teaching and other collaborative learning strategies

(Palincsar & David, 1991).

Language skills can be learned in the context of

talk about revision of student texts in writing con

ferences (Farr & Daniels, 1986; Hudelson, 1989) and talk about ideas in reading conferences

(Gunderson, 1991). Linguistic structures can be

taught in the context of process-oriented strategies.

For more on theory and practice in second lan

guage reading, see Barnitz (1985), Bernhardt

(1991), and Carrell, Devine, and Eskey (1988). 4. Incorporate cross-cultural discourse schema

ta into authentic literacy instruction.

Cultural variation in background knowledge influences reading performance and must be con

sidered in literacy instruction. Those who read

texts that are not culturally familiar often read

slower, miscomprehend, have more irrelevant

intrusions, and make fewer elaborations than

those who read culturally familiar texts (Barnitz, 1986; Carrell et al., 1988; Steffensen, 1987). While learners bring their culturally diverse talk

to learning to read and write, they also bring their

culturally specific written styles and forms

(Kaplan, 1987; Leki, 1991), which must not be overlooked in reading theory and instruction (see

Barnitz, 1986). English prose tends to be linear

and hierarchical, but prose in other languages and

cultures may be more tolerant of circularity of dis cussion as well as digressions (Kaplan, 1987).

Instructional strategies, such as the Experience

Text-Relationship Method and the Language

Experience Approach, are particularly sensitive to

students' cultural schemata in aiding learners to

connect their cultural worlds with the texts.

Through much conversation about the ideas in the

students' minds and those represented in the text,

teachers guide learners in composing and compre

hending written discourse.

5. Encourage cross-age interaction in schools,

families, and community organizations.

Current literacy programs sometimes involve

talking across ages in schools and families. Heath

and Mangiola (1991) described a cross-age project in which fifth-grade ESL children tutored first

graders. The older children also met with each

other and team leaders to reflect and talk about their field notes and observations. These "children of promise" developed "literate behaviors" and

discourse competence which contributed to their academic success.

Juel (1991) reported a program in which university athletes tutored at-risk children. Using self-selected

novels, talk, and extensive writing in response jour

nals, the children developed their literacy. Quintero and Huerta-Macias (1990) described a

program which enhanced literacy and biliteracy of

both parents and children. Bilingual family literacy was strengthened by parent involvement, code

switching between two languages, and whole-lan

guage-oriented strategies. Edwards (1989) was

successful in teaching parents in a lower socioeco

nomic rural community to develop their children's

literacy with literature and talking about books.

In addition, community agencies offer abundant

opportunities for language and literacy growth because agency activities involve authentic talk

(see Heath, 1993; Horowitz, in progress).

6. Assess literacy with authentic literacy tasks and texts.

Assessment of literacy performance and ability is more accurate if the tasks are authentic and

Discourse diversity: Principles for authentic talk and literacy instruction 589

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conform to nontest contexts (Bachman, 1992). In a

culturally diverse society, Garcia and Pearson

(1991) support authentic literacy assessment

based on several criteria including: (a) Literacy assessment must include constructive reading and

writing tasks that demonstrate learners' actual

performance, (b) Assessment should emphasize what students can and cannot do alone and with

assistance from adults and peers on a variety of

tasks reflecting students' interests and background

knowledge, (c) Variations in students' interpreta

tions need to be acknowledged?cultural diversity is an advantage, rather than a disadvantage to be

penalized, (d) Members of the school and home

community should be involved in literacy assess

ment.

In essence, discourse diversity and authentic

talk must be considered in literacy assessment.

Conclusion Authentic discourse, however diverse, can be sup

portive of literacy development. Learners cannot

use or activate what they know about language

and cultural knowledge if there is little social con

text. People in the real world interact socially in

most literacy events. Authentic talk supports liter

acy because learners use the verbal cues from the

entire text and situational context to assist them

in constructing meaning.

Authenticity is a necessary condition for learners

to be successful in developing literacy, but

authenticity alone does not necessarily guarantee

acquisition of literacy. Many learners will need

specific language and literacy skill instruction, which can be embedded in authentic literacy activ

ities.

With a solid knowledge base of sociolinguistic variation as represented in many of the references

provided here, and with positive attitudes toward

culturally diverse students, teachers can make

decisions to design authentic literacy events in

their multicultural classrooms. When teachers

develop authentic literacy activities in their class

rooms, there is a greater probability that all learn

ers will acquire the widest range of discourse for

literacy.

Barnitz is an applied linguist among the literacy education

faculty of the University of New Orleans in Louisiana, where he serves as chair of the Department of Curriculum

and Instruction (340 Education Building, University of New Orleans, New Orleans LA 70148, USA).

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