Language Arts in Multilingual/Multicultural Education || Classroom Interaction Patterns: Reflections of a Stratified Society

Classroom Interaction Patterns: Reflections of a Stratified SocietyAuthor(s): Cathy M. RollerSource: Language Arts, Vol. 66, No. 5, Language Arts in Multilingual/Multicultural Education(September 1989), pp. 492-500Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41411482 .

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Classroom Interaction Patterns:

Reflections of a Stratified Society

Cathy M. Roller

The focus of this special issue of Language Arts is the rapid demographic change that is transforming the face of developed countries. Relatively homogeneous majority populations are being replaced by heterogeneous col- lections of racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. The question posed by this issue is, "What is the role of language arts instruction in the face of such change?" To answer this question we need to assess the role of language arts instruction in the relatively homogeneous societies of recent decades as a basis for determining what kinds of changes the pluralistic societies of the future will require. Because I am from the United States, I will speak mainly of that society, focusing on reading instruction as it has been imple- mented in our schools in recent decades.

First, I would like to argue that present reading instructional technology in the U.S. - the basal reader systems used so ubiquitously in our schools - has by some measures served society exceptionally well. Shan- non (1985) noted that public schools in the United States have traditionally served two functions: to instruct youths in academic subjects and to devel- op good citizens for the republic. Since the midnineteenth century, the task of producing good citizens for the republic has required that those citizens be differentiated. With the closing of the frontiers and the increase in popu- lation through immigration that came with industrialization, expansionist attitudes were replaced by protectionist ones. The perception that our society required different classes of people to do different sorts of tasks began to grow. Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1909:

Let us go back and distinguish between two things that we want to do; for we want to do two things in modern society. We want a class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific manual tasks. You cannot train them for both in the time you have at your disposal. They must make a selection and you must make a selection. (Kozol 1985, p. 89)

The selection process then, as now, seems to have been heavily influ- enced by class and racial criteria. We have only to look to the rates of un- employment, poverty, infant mortality, and illiteracy among minority groups to recognize that there has been something insidious operating in America. Our commitment to equal opportunity seems to have been under-

492 Language Arts , Volume 66, Number 5, September 1989



Classroom Interaction Patterns : Reflections of a Stratified Society 493

mined, if it ever existed at all. The selection process has not meant a wide variety of opportunity for everyone. Rather, it has encouraged the creation of class barriers based on the racial and ethnic differences that could (or should) be a source of richness and vitality in our public life.

That schools are instrumental in this process of class creation is un- arguable; whether it has been intentional or not is open to question. It is in- teresting to note that since the beginning of public schooling in this country in the nineteenth century, literacy rates have actually gone down (Cook- Gumperz 1986). Scollon (1988) has reported that:

One of the arguments in support of schooling given then [middle of the nineteenth century] was that literacy was getting to be too widespread among the working classes. They were getting too many dangerous ideas. Public schooling could be used to limit students' access to this literate conversation. It would keep them out of the picture by carefully controlling what they read and how they read it. (p. 30)

I argue, as Shannon (1985) and Fraatz (1987) have that reading instruction as presently delivered has, probably unintentionally, been instrumental in perpetuating and maintaining our class- and race-stratified society.

One Reading Lesson as Microcosm

The aspect of reading instruction that I will explore in depth is the communication patterns that occur in typical basal reader instruction. Specifically I will focus on how these patterns contribute to the sorting and stratification process. I first became aware of the nature of these patterns when I taught a demonstration classroom in a rural Zimbabwean primary school. I taught third grade students their English reading lessons. This assignment was part of a national effort, Project Zimread, to improve language instruction. I took part in the project from May 1985 through August 1986 while serving as a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Zinbabwe. I set up my demonstration classroom using the methods and techniques I had been teaching for a number of years to teachers-in-training at the University of Iowa. I divided the children into three reading groups instructed from basal-like readers at the primer, 1-2, and 2-2 levels. The three-day instructional cycle included a series of activities completed Before, During, and After the children read their stories. Each group did two seatwork activities and met with me daily. Because of paper shortages and the un- availability of duplicating equipment, I presented the seatwork on workcards. I made two workcards for each table and put them on stands. The children wrote their answers to the activities in an exercise book. At thirty- minute intervals the children rotated to their assigned activities.

When I met with a group on a "Before" day, I worked mainly with vo-

cabulary introduction (Heimlich and Pittelman 1986) and prior knowledge



494 Language Arts

(Hansen 1981). However, discussion was difficult since I could handle Shona, the children's first language, only at about a first grade level and their English was rudimentary. For the "During" sessions, I checked oral reading accuracy and taught simple question-answering techniques (Raphael 1986). "After" lessons began with the children drawing a picture summary of the story; I then worked with them until they could produce a brief oral summary of the story (Spiegel and Fitzgerald 1986).

The instruction was remarkably "successful," particularly with the top group. Within two weeks, the children, particularly those in the top two groups, learned the seatwork routines and could do their exercises inde- pendently. They knew what was expected in the reading circle and they could play the vocabulary games, respond to questions, and provide brief oral summaries of the stories they read. At the end of the five weeks I presented a demonstration lesson to the teachers of the five-school cluster of which this school was a part. The teachers were impressed with the lesson and were amazed that these third-grade children, particularly those in the top group, could perform so well in English.

In many ways I was quite proud of what the children and I had accom- plished. However, even as the teachers applauded, I felt dissatisfied and unhappy with what we had done. While I was relatively successful, the teaching was very difficult. My primary recollection of the experience is of how hard I worked and how little I enjoyed the teaching. It seemed that every bit of my attention went into explaining directions, overseeing tasks, and working toward accurate performance. The low group required con- stant monitoring. There was little joy in that classroom. But the fact that the teaching was difficult was not the only source of my discomfort.

What was so deeply disturbing was that I was able to teach those children their English reading lessons when I couldn't really communicate with the children at all. The lack of communication was painfully clear on several occasions. The first day of class, I asked one child where the books were. He responded, "My name is Tonderai. I come from Chikore vil- lage." I got similar responses several times. The children responded to an English question with the English they knew. That same day when I dis- missed them, the children raced for the door. During the lesson several children had asked for permission to go to the toilet, but I hadn't under- stood the Shona for "toilet."

We developed a "lesson language" that followed the Initiate-Respond- Evaluate (IRE) pattern documented in several classroom discourse studies (Barnes 1976; Bellack 1966; Mehan 1979; Wells 1986). I questioned; they answered; I evaluated. The pattern got us through the lesson and allowed us to achieve our goals - pronouncing vocabulary words, answering questions, and summarizing stories. But there was no authentic communication occurring. I asked children questions that I knew the answers to, and they knew that I knew the answers. The lessons were an exercise in assessment,



Classroom Interaction Patterns: Reflections of a Stratified Society 495

not communication. Although I knew their names, could move them around the classroom, could even "teach" them, I knew almost nothing about their lives. We never really established contact with one another. We did not connect.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised at our lack of authentic communication, given the levels of our language skills and the nature of the demonstration project. What was surprising was that this classroom didn't look or sound much different from the ones I was familiar with at home. At home, too, reading lessons are conducted in "lesson language." At home, too, teachers initiate, children respond, and teachers evaluate.

In Zimbabwe I learned that the methods I was using, quite common ones in the United States, accommodated noncommunication. The liguistic barriers which separated the children and me forced me to notice and to acknowledge the superficiality of the teaching methods I was using. The experience made me look with fresh eyes at the classrooms I was familiar with at home. The similarity between my Zimbabwean classroom and the classrooms I had observed at home was startling. How much authentic communication occurs around reading predetermined stories, answering predetermined questions, and filling in worksheets? Probably very little. Teachers in U.S. classrooms could conduct lessons and know little more about their children than I knew of the Zimbabwean ones.

Typical Teacher-Learner Interaction

Surely language arts lessons that accommodate the learning of a communication skill without communication do not teach children communication skills! A look at the interaction patterns in typical reading lessons leads me to the dismaying conclusion that perhaps in many lessons communication is not even a goal. The transcript that follows comes from a demonstration lesson by one of my finest masters' degree students. For many years, I used this transcript as exemplary in training reading teachers.

The lesson was based on a story from a well-known basal reading series. The story explored the idea of cheating. The main charactr, Maria, re- ceives help from another child in preparing a project for a science fair. Ma- ria eventually wins a prize and feels quite guilty about not acknowledging the help she received. In the part of the prereading interaction reproduced here, the teacher is exploring feelings of competition in science fair participants:

T: The first question I'd like to ask you about today is whether or not you've participated in a science fair or some kind of contest where you had to make something. Think for a minute. How did you feel when you were entering this contest? Give me a low signal when you're ready to tell about your past experience. OK, CI.

CI: When I was in Cub Scouts we had to make a robot out of boards, bottle



496 Language Arts

caps, and ( unintelligible ). At first I thought I was going to win, but when I got to the judging I saw other things that were a lot better than mine.

T: While you were constructing your robot you thought you probably would win. Were you nervous?

CI: No. T : Not too nervous. Who else has been in a contest like that? C2: I was in the same thing. I wasn't, I got it done. I knew I wouldn't win

anything. T: Uh, huh. C2 : Turned out I was sick that night so I never got to take it in. T: You never got to take it in. C3, have you ever entered a contest or some-

thing like that? Some other kind of competition maybe, where you're up against other people and they're doing the same kind of thing you're doing? C4?

C4 : In fourth grade where we had a Valentine party. We had to make these boxes. When I first made it, I didn't think I was going to win at all because I just got some old things and put it together so.

T: What kind of box was it? C4: Just a Valentine's box in fourth grade where we used to put our enve-

lopes into. T : Uh, huh. I can remember doing that in school too. C5? Have you ever

entered a competition? C5 : There was a Halloween where you had to color a picture in or draw it. I

entered it but I didn't win anything. T : How did you feel? C5 : I didn't really care. T: You didn't care whether you won or not. Well, in the story today is a girl

named Maria, and she's entering a science fair, so she has to have a pret- ty elaborate project. How do you think she feels? Just think about it a minute. The importance of the project. C3?

C3 : I think she feels really nervous. T: Nervous. C4, how about you? C4: She's anxious. T: OK. Let me get some of these words down. I like these words. Nervous,

anxious ( writing on board). Anybody else? CI. CI: Scared. T : Scared. C5, do you agree with those? C5: Uh, huh. T: Is that what you think she probably will be feeling? OK.

Notice how the teacher dominates the exchange. She has thoroughly planned the lesson. She had determined several critical ideas for under- standing the story as she interpreted it, and in this transcript she pursued one of these relentlessly with each child. Note the turn-taking pattern here. The teacher initiated the discussion, directed the turns, and, after each child's response, commented. I originally liked this interaction for pre- cisely these reasons. The teacher had given the lesson adequate prepara-




tion. She had identified concepts that I, too, thought were important. She had specific objectives on which she focused. She gave attention to the children's prior knowledge and helped them make connections between their own experience and the story.

What strikes me now about this lesson is that it is dominated by the IRE interaction pattern. The teacher Initiated by asking a question, the child Responded by answering, and the teacher Evaluated. Even though many of the questions were directed at the children's experience, it is clear that the teacher was controlling the parameters of the communication and that only certain communications, determined by the teacher, were appropriate. Es- sentially the children could communicate only what the teacher wanted to hear. It was the teacher's meaning that dominated.

A second characteristic of the exchange that now catches my attention is the "pedagogical register" that dominates it. The tape clearly presents a teaching situation. No one would mistake it for a conversation. Heath (1978) describes this pedagogical register as characterized by the use of high pitch, exaggerated intonation contours, and carefuly enunciated speech. The register proclaims not that 4 4 we are talking together," but that "I am teaching you."

A third troubling characteristic of typical reading lessons, one which is not evident in this transcript, is the extensive use of worksheets. Barnes (1976) has noted that worksheets use language as an instrument of control. Upon reflection, I decided that the workcards I used in Zimbabwe were very much an extension of the kind of dominance I exercised in discussion through the IRE interaction pattern. Even when I was not with the children, it was my language and my meanings as presented on the workcards that set the parameters of communication. The workcards, even more than the IRE sessions, provided children with specified blanks to be filled in. Once again the purpose of a communication task - writing - was not actually communication but assessment.

"Success" as defined by the IRE pattern and its extension in worksheets is for the children to match the teacher's meanings. Teachers do not really listen to the children's meanings; rather they determine whether there is a match between their own meanings and the children's. Since teachers are usually a part of the dominant culture, children from the dominant culture have a distinct advantage. They find it easier to match the teacher's meanings because they are more likely to share them. Thus, the reading lessons sort children on cultural and racial characteristics at the level of the smallest interaction. The children who play the "match game" successfully, those who share the teacher's culture or quickly adapt to it, stay with the teacher and move along with him or her as they travel through the curriculum. Those who are unsuccessful at the match game be- come mystified by the schooling process and inevitably fall behind or tune the teacher out.



498 Language Arts

Barnes (1976) suggests that the IRE pattern ultimately dehumanizes all the participants in the game - teachers and successful students as well as the unsuccessful players. The pattern teaches students that their purposes, their knowledge, and their reality are insignificant. Knowledge and truth are controlled by the teacher. The sorting that is done through the question- answer routines essentially places students in a competition for approval. The students who match the teacher's meanings come to think of themselves as "better than" those who are unsuccessful. Those who continually miss the teacher's meanings come to think of themselves as 4 'less than" others. Since student's own meanings and contributions have been barred from the schooling process, all learners, whether successful or unsuccessful, are dehumanized. Instead of looking at one another as unique and richly variable human beings, they learn to measure themselves against the teacher's meanings. They exit from our schools believing that the class markers which have been highlighted and exaggerated by the schooling system are just, fair, and inevitable.

It is not only the excessive use of the IRE pattern and worksheets (Dur- kin 1978-79) that is of concern. Very early in the game the children are placed in low, middle, and high reading groups. Shannon (1985) has shown that this division into groups is related to class and race. Class and race may influence the assignment to groups through the interaction patterns discussed above. There is also evidence, however, that once the assignment to groups has occurred, the interaction patterns of teachers and children within these groups may further widen the achievement gap between the groups (Shannon 1985; Stanovich 1986). Specifically, Allington (1983) has found that in top reading groups teachers tend to focus on meaning and interrupt students infrequently, while in bottom groups they focus on de- coding and interrupt often. Teachers ask more questions in low-ability groups (Hoetker and Ahlbrand 1969), and the instruction of lower groups is also characterized by a more pedagogical register (McDermott 1985). Chil- dren in the lower groups spend proportionately more time than those in the upper groups in the teacher-dominated interaction patterns that seem to facilitate sorting at the expense of learning.

Whether we lay the blame at the feet of IRE patterns, ability grouping, or both, the important point to be made here is that children who have passed through our reading lessons may well have learned that literacy is not used for authentic communication. They do not experience literacy as a tool for exploring, building, and negotiating corporate meanings in the classroom. Instead they come to know literacy as an evaluation instrument. Is it any wonder, then, that large segments of our society reject literacy? The point of reading lessons as currently delivered is not communication and literacy. It is the sorting of children by the extent to which they match their teacher's meanings. This sorting and grouping process serves to turn racial and ethnic diversity into rigid class divisions.




Challenges We Face

What shall we do? If what we want is to maintain our class-oriented society, we should change nothing. As our society becomes more pluralistic we teachers who are currently part of the dominant majority should simply in- tensify what we are doing. More basais, more worksheets, more question- answer sessions, more sorting. Indeed, if maintaining our privileged posi- tion for ourselves and for our children is our objective, we could probably pursue it even more effectively if we were open and honest about our agen- da. A number of societies, for instance prerevolutionary Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), have been quite successful in using the schools to promote racial segregation. However, if a society divided along race and class lines and alienated from itself is not our intent, then we must change.

We need classroom structures and organizations that accommodate and, in fact, insist that language be used for constructing meaning rather than as a club to enforce the meanings of a stratified and stultified society. If language arts instruction is to be a positive force in achieving the humanistic, pluralistic society we seek, then it must occur in school settings where language is actually used for communication and learning and is not wielded as an instrument that leaves students silent and dehumanized.

References

Allington, Richard L. "The Reading Instruction Provided Readers of Differing Abilities." The Elementary School Journal , 83 (1983): 548-559.

Barnes, Douglas. From Communication to Curriculum. Middlesex, England: Pen- guin Books, Ltd., 1976.

Bellack, Alan. The Language of the Classroom. New York: Teachers College Press, 1966.

Cook-Gumperz, Jenny. The Social Construction of Literacy. New York: Cam- bridge University Press, 1986.

Durkin, Dolores. "What Classroom Observations Reveal About Reading Com- prehension Instruction." Reading Research Quarterly , 14 (1978-1979): 481-533.

Fraatz, Jo Michelle Beld. The Politics of Reading : Power , Opportunity and Pros- pects for Change in America's Public Schools. New York: Teachers College Press, 1987.

Hansen, Jane. "An Inferential Comprehension Strategy for Use with Primary Grade Children." The Reading Teacher , 39 (1981): 665-669.

Heath, Shirley Brice. Teacher Talk: Language in the Classroom. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1978.

Heimlich, John E., and Susan D. Pittelman. Semantic Mapping: Classroom Ap- plication. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 1986.

Hoetker, James, and W. P. Ahlbrand. "The Persistence of the Recitation." Ameri- can Educational Research Journal , 6 (1969): 145-166.

Kozol, Jonathan. Illiterate America. New York: New American Library, 1985.



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Cathy M. Roller teaches in the College of Education at the University of Iowa.

McDermott, R. P. "Achieving School Failure: An Anthropological Approach to Il- literacy and Social Stratification." In Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading , edited by Harry Singer and Robert Rudeli. Newark, DE: Interna- tional Reading Association, pp. 558-594, 1985.

Mehan, H. Learning Lessons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. Raphael, Taffy, E. "Teaching Question-answer Relationships Revisited." The

Reading Teacher , 39 (1986): 516-522. Scollon, Ron. "Storytelling, Reading, and the Micropolitics of Literacy." In Di-

alogues in Literacy Research , edited by John E. Readance and R. Scott Bald- win. Chicago, IL: National Reading Conference, 1988.

Shannon, Patrick. "Reading Instruction and Social Class." Language Arts, 62 (1985): 604-613.

Spiegel, Dixie Lee, and Jill Fitzgerald. "Improving Reading Comprehension through Instruction about Story Parts." The Reading Teacher, 39 (1986): 676-682.

Stanovich, Keith E. "Matthew Effects in Reading: Some Consequences of Individ- ual Differences in the Acquisition of Literacy." Reading Research Quarterly, 21 (1986): 360-407.

Wells, Gordon. The Meaning Makers: Children Learning Language and Using Language to Learn. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1986.



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Language Arts in Multilingual/Multicultural Education || Classroom Interaction Patterns: Reflections of a Stratified Society