Student Engagement: When Recitation Becomes Conversation.

This paper examines the nature of student engagement in the instructional activities of eighthand ninth-grade English classes and draws general conclusions applicable to instruction at all levels. It focuses on the teacher's pivotal role, showing that certain discourse practices elicit substantive (rather than procedural) student engagement, with teachers taking students seriously, and acknowledging and building on what they say. These practices involve: (1) asking authentic questions (which open the floor to what students have to say); (2) engaging in uptake (building on what students have sale.); and (3) high-level evaluation (which certifies new turns in the discussion occasioned by student answers). By contrast, the teacher-student interaction called "recitation" (in which the teacher asks a series of preplanned questions, initiates all the topics, and rarely interacts with the substance of students' answers except to evaluate them) is rarely more than procedurally engaging. Using examples from a study of eighthand ninth-grade English, the paper examines substantively engaging instruction, showing how students become most profitably engaged and learn most in classrooms characterized by extensive interaction between students and teacher. The paper is divided into the following sections: "Procedural versus Substantive Engagement"; "Quality of Instructional Discourse as an Indicator of Student Engagement" (an e...amination and discussion of three samples of c.Lassroom talk); "Implications for Writing"; "Student Engagement and Literature Achievement"; and a conclusion. Twenty-four references are attached. (SR) Reproductions suppl.Led by EDRS are the best t''at can be made from the original document.