Recentering the middle school classroom as a vibrant learning community: Students, literacy, and technology intersect Recentering the middle school classroom as a vibrant learning community: Students, literacy, and technology intersect

Technology reshapes our thinking about learning in multiple ways. This article proposes that middle school students can use asynchronous online discussions to improve their responses to literature, increase their engagement with the classroom community, and recenter the classroom around student voices. Working in small groups, students read the same novel. They are prompted to post their responses to the young adult literature in a closed, egalitarian online network. The authors examined online transcripts, interviewed students, and observed lesson sequences in eighth-grade humanities classrooms over three years. They found that threaded discussions helped these middle school students to • Engage with and learn new literacies • Examine literature through a more critical lens • Socially construct knowledge to create a more authentic community of learners The authors also found that the role of the teacher is transformed by technology to scaffold instruction through participation in online conversations.

[1]  L. Vygotsky.  Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes: Harvard University Press , 1978 .

[2]  Eric C. Newburger,et al.  Home computers and Internet use in the United States, August 2000 , 2001 .

[3]  R. Christensen.  Effects of Technology Integration Education on the Attitudes of Teachers and Students , 2002 .

[4]  Harvey Daniels,et al.  Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Student-Centered Classroom , 1994 .

[5]  William Glasser,et al.  Control theory in the classroom , 1986 .

[6]  M. Apple.  The hidden curriculum and the nature of conflict , 1971, Ideology and Curriculum.

[7]  P. David Pearson.  Handbook of reading research. , 1990 .

[8]  H. Borko.  Professional Development and Teacher Learning: Mapping the Terrain , 2004 .

[9]  M. Craven.  I Heard the Owl Call My Name , 1967 .

[10]  James V. Wertsch,et al.  Culture, communication, and cognition : Vygotskian perspectives , 1987 .

[11]  H. Mehan,et al.  Learning Lessons, Social Organization in the Classroom , 1979 .

[12]  Dana L. Grisham,et al.  Improving Writing: Comparing the Responses of Eighth-Graders, Preservice Teachers and Experienced Teachers , 2005 .

[13]  James Paul Gee,et al.  What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy , 2007, CIE.

[14]  Lorraine Sherry.  The Nature and Purpose of Online Discourse: A Brief Synthesis of Current Research as related to The WEB Project , 2000 .

[15]  Karen Broaddus.  “Just Plain Reading”: A Survey of What Makes Students Want to Read in Middle School Classrooms , 2001 .

[16]  Harry Singer,et al.  Theoretical models and processes of reading , 1976 .

[17]  Cathy Brighton,et al.  Rules of the road. , 2003, Rehab management.

[18]  Maximino Aldana-Gonzalez,et al.  Linked: The New Science of Networks , 2003 .

[19]  Misty Bernall.  She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall , 1999 .

[20]  Michael C. McKenna,et al.  Handbook of Literacy and Technology : Transformations in A Post-typographic World , 1998 .

[21]  Harvey Daniels,et al.  Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups , 2002 .

[22]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience , 1990 .

[23]  B. Street.  Social Literacies: Critical Approaches to Literacy in Development, Ethnography and Education , 1995 .

[24]  J. Goodlad.  A Place Called School , 1984 .

[25]  Julie Coiro,et al.  Toward a Theory of New Literacies Emerging From the Internet and Other Information and Communication Technologies , 2008 .

[26]  J. T. Dillon.  The Practice Of Questioning , 1990 .

[27]  Lori Norton-Meier,et al.  A Technology User's Bill of Rights: Lessons Learned in Chat Rooms. , 2004 .