Researching children's language and literacy practices in school

Directed at postgraduate students and supervisors, this chapter reflects on identifying research questions, constructing a theoretical and methodological framework and collecting and analysing data in research focusing on children's language and literacy practices in school. Using the author's own research as a case study, she explains how ideas from Vygotskian theory, anthropological ethnographies of talk and Bakhtinian literature are brought together to create an appropriate framing for research on children's language experience in different settings across the school day. Three examples of data analysis are used to illustrate the potential of this theoretical and methodological framing for addressing the ways in which children switch between conversational frames, use narrative and create intertextual connections in the course of their meaning-making.