Teacher-Student Mediation of Content Area Texts

Author(s): Donna E. Alvermann

Source: Theory into Practice, Vol. 28, No. 2, Learning through Text (Spring, 1989), pp. 142-
147
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1477001
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Donna E. Alvermann
Teacher-Student Mediation
of Content Area Texts
Sitting in classrooms observing how teachers teach
and students learn from their content area texts
has been a focus of researchers for some time
(Mathews & Toepfer, 1936; McCallister,1930). Not
until Durkin's (1978-79) study of reading compre-
hension instruction during basal reading and ele-
mentary social studies lessons, however, have
researchers begun to concentrate on verbal inter-
actions between teachers and students engaged in
textbook learning. Studies at the secondary level
that deal with textbook related teacher-student in-
teractions are still fairlyfew in number (Alvermann,
1987; Barr, 1987; Bloome, 1981; Davidson, 1987;
Dillon, 1985; Padak, 1986; Risko, Sweetland, &
Alvarez, 1987).
The purpose of this article is to interpret a
major finding from a larger study (Alvermann,
O'Brien, & Dillon, 1988) in which textbook related
discussions in 24 content area teachers' classrooms
were observed and analyzed. The finding-that most
teachers' operationalized definitions of discussion
looked more like recitation than discussion-is in-
terpreted in light of how texts were mediated in
three eighth-grade science teachers' classrooms.
The Role of Text in Instruction
The concept of text as a participantin instruc-
tion (Bernhardt, 1987) is central to understanding
how teachers and students mediate content area
texts. Accordingto Bernhardt,texts may be viewed
as authoritative objects, unbending in their repre-
DonnaE. Alvermann is associate professorof education
at the Universityof Georgia.
sentation of knowledge, or they may be viewed as
"dynamicforces that can change and grow in con-
cert with their readers" (p. 32).
The authoritativeview of text typically results
in instructionthat assumes meaning resides in the
text. Teachers and students unknowinglyacknowl-
edge their tacit acceptance of this view when they
engage in recitation. In fact, Olson (1981) equated
the recitation method with the authoritativeview of
text. Classroom recitations-those brief,factuallevel
question and answer dialogues over previously as-
signed reading-dominate most teacher-student in-
teractions related to text (Stodolsky, Ferguson, &
Wimpelberg, 1981). They also hold students re-
sponsible for reproducing the contents of a text,
leaving little or no room for interpretivelearning.
To view the text as a participant in content
reading instruction is to acknowledge that the in-
formation it contains is not "truth per se, but raw
materialfor buildingor constructing understanding"
(Bernhardt, 1987, p. 33). This perspective of text
takes into account the interactivenature of reading.
The assumption here is that readers use their back-
ground of experiences and priorknowledge to con-
struct meaning from the text. Because readers vary
in the amount and type of informationthey bring
to a text, the constructed meaning of the text varies
from one reader to the next. It is this variation in
constructed meaning that gives rise to Bernhardt's
view of text as changing and growing with the
reader.
The Role of Discussion in Mediated Learning
Analyzing teachers' and students' oral discus-
sions of content area texts is one way to make
the mediation process public. In an analysis of
eighth graders' introspections of discussions in sci-
ence and social studies lessons, Davidson (1985)
found that text mediated through teacher-student
generated lessons looked very different from that
mediated through manual driven lessons. In the
teacher-student generated lessons, students were
actively involved in the "directed reading-thinking
activity" (Stauffer, 1980). They set their own pur-
poses for reading, made predications about what
they expected to find out as a result of reading the
text, and then read to verify, modify, or reject their
predictions.
In the manual driven lesson, the teacher set
the purpose for reading and students were engaged
in feeding back bits of informationfrom the text to
the teacher. This authoritative view of the text
resulted in what Bloome (1983) had described as
proceduraldisplay. That is, students responded to
text by treating readingas a procedurethat involved
merely looking up answers to questions that the
teacher posed. Students in the teacher-student gen-
erated lesson, on the other hand, responded to text
as though it were malleable and capable of being
influenced by their own thinking. They were con-
cerned with making sense of the concepts pre-
sented in the text rather than with feeding back
bits of informationto the teacher.
Furtherwork by Davidson and her colleagues
(Davidson, 1987; Padak, 1986; Wilkerson,1986) has
strengthened the case for mediating text through
teacher-student discussions. Text mediated simply
by teacher generated questions or by questions
taken straight from the teacher's manual gives rise
to rote learning, or at best, learning that is de-
pendent on the teacher's presence. Learning that
results from text mediated solely by student gen-
erated strategies may also fall short of its potential.
Although student generated learning is desirable, if
the strategies students use are concerned primarily
with literal level learning (e.g., read/reread), then
students might benefit from teacher guidance and
directionin the use of higherlevel thinkingstrategies.
The position taken here is that using discussion
to mediate text offers insights into the teaching-
learning process that have direct implications for
classroom practice. The first perspective described
illustrates the type of teaching and learning that
occur when the text is viewed as the authority by
the teacher. The second perspective also focuses
on the authority of the text but differs from the
first in that the teacher embellishes the concepts
with examples from the students' own environment.
Finally,the third perspective exemplifies the teach-
ing and learning that occur when teachers and
students interactwith each other to mediate content
area texts.
Text as Sole Authority
The class in which the text was viewed as the
sole authorityby the teacher included 32 students.
They learned about science primarilyby reading.
Althoughthe room was equipped with excellent lab
facilities, they were rarely used. The teacher, who
prided herself on being task oriented, reiterated
several times in a number of interviews that she
promoted students' learningby dispensing textbook
informationdirectly to the students. She recalled
that she had lost control of her classes as a new
teacher 2 years ago, and that students had failed
to learn as a result of her inadequate management
skills. In her own mind, she had linked running a
tight ship with following the textbook exactly.
Recitation was the method used in going over
the previous day's reading assignment. Frequently,
large portions of a recitation period were devoted
to clarifyinga point that had little relevance to the
science concept under study. For example, in the
transcriptthat follows,' the concept of motion was
overshadowed by the attention given to the mean-
ing of the word sir.
T: Who knows the name of a man who did a lot
of studies in motion? Somebody I believe we
mentioned before. ..
Ron: Newton.
T: Newton. That is correct [writingNewton's name
on the board]. Sir Isaac Newton to be exact.
He's famous for his discovery about motion and
his studies of motion. His studies are so famous
they are grouped into three basic laws of motion.
We'll be talking about them in detail. Look at
more informationabout the man himself. Does
anybody have a guess about what country Sir
Isaac Newton was born, raised, and died in?
Sue: Russia?
T: Russia. No, no. Sir is the key word.
Tim: England?
T: England has sirs [writing "England"on board].
And this man lived and did his work in the 1600s,
which is the 17th century. And in the 1600s,
science as we know it was not nearly as ad-
vanced as it is today. For example, in the 1600s
VolumeXXVIII,Number2 143
 we were just discovering that the sun is the
center of our solar system, not the Earth. It was
believed up until this time period that the Earth
was the center of the solar system. The Earth
didn't move. I mean, after all, do you feel like
you're moving, that you're twirlingaround in a
circle? At about a thousand kilometers an hour?
One thousand kilometers-that's how fast you're
moving on the surface of the Earth about right
now. That doesn't take into account that you're
moving forward when you're going around the
sun. So Newton thought about motion, and par-
ticularly he worked with the planets. Why do
they call him a sir? What does it mean to be a
sir?
Ron: A man.
T: Well, a man . .. although there are, well that's
true. But it's still what kind of man?
Ron: Famous.
T: Famous and he receives honors. A sir receives
honors from the throne, the royal family.There's
Sir Alec Guinness; he was Obi Wan Kanobi in
Star Wars. When he got his "sir," it means he
was knighted, like a Knightof the Round Table.
Okay, let's continue on now with our discussion
of motion. [Note: This marked the teacher's
return to the topic.]
The teacher's use of the word discussion in
the last segment of the transcript is of particular
interest. In a subsequent interview, she said she
thought of a discussion as something the teacher
does to point out the importantparts of a textbook.
Students did not figure into either her verbal or her
operational definition of a discussion. They simply
were not part of the text mediating process in this
instance.
This teacher's acceptance of the text as the
sole authority on matters related to eighth grade
science may have influenced her notion of a dis-
cussion. She may have consciously or uncon-
sciously dismissed students' contributionsas being
unworthy of serious consideration. There is also
the possibility that her acceptance of the text's
authoritybrought with it a reluctance to distinguish
important from unimportant information.Although
all text was not created equal in the chapter on
motion, the teacher treated it as if it were. This
might explain her lengthy digression concerning
Newton's title.
Embellished Text
The contents of some texts were so impov-
erished that teachers searched for ways to connect
144 TheoryIntoPractice
bits and pieces of information to their students'
lives. Sometimes the search for meaningful con-
nections resulted in a teacher embellishingthe con-
tents of a text. When the embellishment included
inaccurate information,as was sometimes the case
(see example below), students typically accepted
the informationas "truth."
In this example, 35 students were assigned to
read a chapter on biomes from their eighth grade
general science text. The section of the text on
which the dialogue is based presented a few basic
facts about the temperate hardwood forest. It de-
scribed hardwood or deciduous trees as trees with
broad leaves that are shed in the fall.
In the recitation period that followed this read-
ing assignment, the teacher attempted to elaborate
on the concept of deciduous trees. Note that the
teacher's questioning style left little room for ques-
tions about the accuracy of the embellished text.
T: And the leaves do what? What happens to the
leaves?
Ed: They change color?
T: Okay, not only do they change color, but they-
What, Vera?
Vera: Fall off?
T: That's right, they lose their leaves completely
during the winter. There is a reason for that
which we really haven't discussed. Uh, it's so
that when they uh-during the winter when the
limbs freeze and they get water on 'em and
snow, then they'd be too heavy if they still had
leaves on there, and the limbs break. That's
one of the reasons why they (trees) lose their
leaves. Okay, question No. 3. Anyone?
Although the teacher could be criticized for
giving false information,2one might also credit him
for moving beyond the authority of the text and
elaborating upon what he perceived to be impov-
erished text. Until recently (cf. Clark & Peterson,
1986), research has indicated that these types of
teachers' interactive or "inflight" decisions were
made primarilyin response to students' attending
behavior. A growing body of research (e.g., Alver-
mann, 1987; Conley, 1986; Hinchman,1985), how-
ever, suggests that content area teachers' interactive
decisions are also cued by their desire to make
text meaningfulfor their students.
Perhaps even more problematicthan the teacher
giving incorrect informationwas the students' un-
questioning acceptance of that information. The
recitation format left no room for student reaction.
Inthe 18-page transcript,most students' responses
were one or two words in length. The teacher's
"Okay, question No. 3. Anyone?" was a signal to
the class that it was time to move on. Without
opportunities to engage verbally in the mediation
process, students remain passive learners, and in
this instance, recipients of incorrect information.
Discussion-Mediated Text
The third teacher taught general science to a
group of approximately15 students. His class size,
which was roughly half the size of the other two,
may have been a factor in his decision to use
discussion to mediate assigned readings, although
several interviews with this teacher suggested oth-
erwise. Teacher-student interactions were valued
by this teacher because he saw them as oppor-
tunities to clarifymisunderstandings.He also valued
discussion as a means of motivating students' in-
terest in science.
Frequently,discussions of textbook reading as-
signments centered on the large fish tank that oc-
cupied one corner of the room. For example, in a
lesson on ecosystems, the teacher used the fish
tank to build interest and understanding in the
meaning of the concept, direct competition:
T: Where is the crayfish hiding?
Kate: In the corner of the tank.
T: What's the crayfish's job?
Dee: It hunts for its food on the bottom of the
tank.
Danny: So does the suckerfish. They both do.
T: [writingon board] They're in what we call direct
competition. They're competing for food.
Kate: You got a new fish in there?
Gwen: The gold one?
T: All right, this morning I added a catfish to the
tank.
Danny: Willthey get big like the ones in the wild?
Gwen: Where are they from?
T: They're from Lake Oconee, I believe, or from a
pond. They weren't born in captivity.
Danny: If they're from Lake Oconee, they'll get big.
Betsy: Don't it take about 2 weeks before a fish
will start eating in a tank?
T: Now that depends on how much shock a fish
is under.
Betsy: My dad, he knows a man-he catched this
big ol' eel [gesturing with her hands and arms],
and he told me he put that fish in a tank and
it quit eatin' for 2 whole weeks.
T: Okay. Well, that particular fish-it probably
would take him that long to adjust to living in
captivity.
Danny: I wonder how long it will take that catfish
in there [peering into tank] to adjust to that
water.
Betsy: The catfish is a tough fish.
T: [walking back to the chalkboardaway from the
fish tank] So, we see the crayfish and the
suckerfish are competing for food and space.
What happens when the suckerfish finds the
crayfish at the bottom?
The teacher's attempt to refocus the discussion
on the concept of direct competition was success-
ful. Unlike the digression concerning the title "sir"
in the first teacher's class, the digression here was
instigated by two students (Betsy and Danny), not
the teacher, and it consumed considerably less
class time. In addition, Betsy, who rarely contrib-
uted to class discussions based on textbook read-
ing assignments, found a way to participate in
classroom learning.
Although the text was not viewed as the sole
authority in this teacher's general science class,
neither was it ignored. Majorconcepts were drawn
from the text and were elaborated on in class. The
teacher also demonstrated a willingness to make
choices about what he would emphasize from the
assigned readings. Students were held accountable
only for the emphasized material.
When text was elaborated on, chances for in-
correct informationbeing conveyed to students were
rare in this teacher's classroom. Students were
learning to think for themselves and to ask ques-
tions. By using discussion to mediate text, the
teacher encouraged students to share their per-
sonal experiences and backgroundknowledge about
topics that might otherwise have been of little in-
terest to them.
Instructional Implications
Several instructional implications may be de-
rived from exploring opportunities for teacher-stu-
dent mediationof content area texts from the three
perspectives presented here. The first perspective,
in which the teacher accepted the text as the sole
authority,illustrates the problemof giving too much
credibilityto the text. Rather than select particular
concepts to emphasize, as did the third teacher,
this teacher allowed herself to be distracted by
informationwithin the text that was tangential to
the major concepts. She treated every section of
the text equally, and as a result saved no time for
students to interact or ask questions.
In failingto emphasize the importantconcepts,
the first teacher also made it more difficult for
VolumeXXVIII,Number2 145
students to learn from their science texts. Having
grown accustomed to being quizzed on some of
the minute details of a passage, many of the stu-
dents concentrated on learning these at the ex-
pense of focusing on the majorconcepts. Information
gained from interviews with this teacher suggested
that she used the text to prevent disciplineproblems
from occurring. By keeping students' attention on
the text at all times, no matter how inconsequential
that text might be, she reduced the risk of having
them speak out and cause a disturbance. In short,
the process of mediating text was reserved for the
teacher.
Conditions described in the second perspective
demonstrate that good intentions do not compen-
sate for a lack of competence in one's teaching
field. Although the teacher rightfullyattempted to
elaborate on an impoverished text to explain a key
concept, he did so without the background knowl-
edge and expertise required. The dispensing of
incorrect informationis an especially serious flaw
in classroom teaching when students have not been
schooled to question and challenge what they hear
and read. Students in this instance were accus-
tomed to answering the teacher's questions in as
few words as possible, in true recitationform, with-
out ever giving thought to raising questions of their
own. To their way of thinking,the teacher and the
text were the authorities in matters related to gen-
eral science.
The third teacher's classroom provided nu-
merous opportunitiesfor mediatingtext. This teacher
read widely in his field and was capable of sup-
plementing and/or modifying the text, as the oc-
casion demanded. He also had taught his students
the value of questioning and taking an active role
in their own learning. When students strayed too
far from the topic of discussion, he tactfully found
ways to refocus their attention. He also knew the
value of getting their attention in the first place. By
using the fish tank as an attention focuser, he was
able to interest students in scientific concepts that
would otherwise have seemed abstract and boring.
Once he had their attention, he skillfullyfocused
on a few key concepts and built on students' de-
velopihg understandings of those concepts to in-
troduce additional ones. In sum, he created a
partnership in mediating text through classroom
discussion. As one of the partners, he providedthe
motivation and guidance for learning from science
text. As the other partner, the students collectively
responded by reading and showing their interest
through active participationin classroom activities.
146 Theory Into Practice
Conclusion
The three perspectives presented suggest that
teaching is a complex process. Also, certain teacher
decisions influence what students have the oppor-
tunity to learn, what students attend to, what they
can do, and how they learn in particular ways.
These teacher decisions directly affect how the
meaning of text is mediated.
Notes
1. This and the other classroom excerpts are taken from
Alvermann,O'Brien,and Dillon(1988). The level of student
reading ability was comparable across the three
classrooms.
2. The teacher's explanation that leaves fall off the trees
so that ice storms will not cause the limbs to break is
incorrect. The correct explanation is that during the fall,
the shorter days and cooler nights cause the chlorophyll
in deciduous leaves to break down. When this occurs,
the leaves can no longer get nourishment and they die
and drop off (WorldBook, 1989).
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