Inventing Graphing: Meta- Representational Expertise in Children

We examine a cooperative activity of a sixth-grade class. The activity took place over 5 days and focused on inventing adequate static representations of motion. In generating, critiquing, and refining numerous representations, we find indications of strong metarepresentational competence. In addition to conceptual and design competence, we focus on the structure of activities and find in them an intricate blend of (I) the children's conceptual and interactional skills, (2) their interest in, and sense of ownership over, the inventions, and (3) the teacher's initiation and organization of activities, which is delicately balanced with her letting the activities evolve according to student-set directions.

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