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Teacher-Student Mediation of Content Area TextsAuthor(s): Donna E. AlvermannSource: Theory into Practice, Vol. 28, No. 2, Learning through Text (Spring, 1989), pp. 142-147Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1477001

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Donna E. AlvermannTeacher-Studentediationo f Content A r e a T e x t s

Sitting inclassrooms observinghow teachers teachand students learn from their content area textshas been a focus of researchers for some time(Mathews &Toepfer, 1936; McCallister,1930). Notuntil Durkin's(1978-79) study of reading compre-hension instruction during basal reading and ele-mentary social studies lessons, however, haveresearchers begun to concentrate on verbal inter-actions between teachers and students engaged intextbook learning. Studies at the secondary levelthat 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 amajor finding from a larger study (Alvermann,O'Brien, & Dillon, 1988) in which textbook relateddiscussions in 24 content area teachers' classroomswere observed and analyzed.The finding-that mostteachers' operationalized definitions of discussionlooked more like recitation than discussion-is in-terpreted in light of how texts were mediated inthree eighth-grade science teachers' classrooms.The Role of Text in Instruction

The concept of text as a participant n instruc-tion (Bernhardt, 1987) is central to understandinghow teachers and students mediate content areatexts. According o Bernhardt, exts may be viewedas authoritativeobjects, unbending in their repre-DonnaE. Alvermanns associateprofessorof educationat the Universityf 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 authoritative view of text typically resultsin instruction that assumes meaning resides in thetext. Teachers and students unknowinglyacknowl-edge their tacit acceptance of this view when theyengage in recitation. In fact, Olson (1981) equatedthe recitation method with the authoritativeview oftext. Classroomrecitations-those brief, actual evelquestion and answer dialogues over previouslyas-signed reading-dominate most teacher-student in-teractions related to text (Stodolsky, Ferguson, &Wimpelberg, 1981). They also hold students re-sponsible for reproducingthe contents of a text,leaving little or no room for interpretive earning.To view the text as a participant in contentreading instruction is to acknowledge that the in-formation it contains is not "truthper se, but rawmaterial or buildingor constructingunderstanding"(Bernhardt,1987, p. 33). This perspective of texttakes into account the interactivenatureof reading.The assumption here is that readers use their back-groundof experiences and priorknowledge to con-struct meaningfrom the text. Because readers varyin the amount and type of informationthey bringto a text, the constructed meaningof the text variesfrom one reader to the next. It is this variation inconstructed meaning that gives rise to Bernhardt'sview of text as changing and growing with thereader.


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The Role of Discussion in Mediated LearningAnalyzingteachers' and students' oral discus-sions of content area texts is one way to makethe mediation process public. In an analysis ofeighth 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 thatmediated through manual driven lessons. In theteacher-student generated lessons, students wereactively involved in the "directed reading-thinkingactivity" (Stauffer, 1980). They set their own pur-poses for reading, made predications about whatthey expected to find out as a result of readingthetext, and then read to verify, modify,or reject theirpredictions.In the manual driven lesson, the teacher setthe purpose for readingand students were engagedin feeding back bits of information rom the text tothe teacher. This authoritative view of the textresulted in what Bloome (1983) had described asproceduraldisplay. That is, students responded totext by treatingreadingas a procedurethat involvedmerely looking up answers to questions that theteacher posed. Students inthe teacher-student gen-erated lesson, on the other hand, responded to textas though it were malleable and capable of beinginfluenced by their own thinking. They were con-cerned with making sense of the concepts pre-sented in the text rather than with feeding backbits of information o the teacher.

Further work by Davidson and her colleagues(Davidson,1987; Padak, 1986; Wilkerson,1986) hasstrengthened the case for mediating text throughteacher-student discussions. Text mediated simplyby teacher generated questions or by questionstaken straight from the teacher's manualgives riseto rote learning, or at best, learning that is de-pendent on the teacher's presence. Learningthatresults from text mediated solely by student gen-erated strategies may also fall short of its potential.Althoughstudent generated learningis desirable, ifthe strategies students use are concerned primarilywith literal level learning (e.g., read/reread), thenstudents might benefit from teacher guidance anddirection nthe use of higher evel thinking trategies.The position taken here is that using discussionto mediate text offers insights into the teaching-learning process that have direct implications forclassroom practice. The first perspective describedillustrates the type of teaching and learning thatoccur when the text is viewed as the authoritybythe teacher. The second perspective also focuses

on the authority of the text but differs from thefirst in that the teacher embellishes the conceptswithexamples fromthe students' own environment.Finally, he thirdperspective exemplifies the teach-ing and learning that occur when teachers andstudents interactwith each other to mediatecontentarea texts.Text as Sole Authority

The class in which the text was viewed as thesole authority by the teacher included 32 students.They learned about science primarilyby reading.Althoughthe room was equipped with excellent labfacilities, they were rarely used. The teacher, whoprided herself on being task oriented, reiteratedseveral times in a number of interviews that shepromotedstudents' learningby dispensing textbookinformationdirectly to the students. She recalledthat she had lost control of her classes as a newteacher 2 years ago, and that students had failedto learn as a result of her inadequate managementskills. In her own mind, she had linked runningatight ship with following the textbook exactly.Recitation was the method used in going overthe previous day's reading assignment. Frequently,large portions of a recitation period were devotedto clarifyinga point that had little relevance to thescience concept under study. For example, in thetranscriptthat follows,' the concept of motion wasovershadowed by the attention given to the mean-ing of the word sir.T: Who knows the name of a man who did a lotof studies in motion? Somebody I believe wementioned before. ..Ron: Newton.T: Newton. That is correct [writingNewton's nameon the board]. Sir Isaac Newton to be exact.He's famous for his discovery about motion andhis studies of motion. His studies are so famous

they are grouped intothree basic laws of motion.We'll be talking about them in detail. Look atmore informationabout the man himself. Doesanybody have a guess about what country SirIsaac Newton was born, raised, and died in?Sue: Russia?T: Russia. No, no. Sir is the key word.Tim: England?T: Englandhas sirs [writing "England"on board].Andthis man lived and didhis workinthe 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. Forexample, in the 1600s

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we were just discovering that the sun is thecenter of our solar system, not the Earth.It wasbelieved up until this time period that the Earthwas the center of the solar system. The Earthdidn't move. I mean, after all, do you feel likeyou're moving, that you're twirlingaround in acircle?At about a thousand kilometersan hour?One thousand kilometers-that's how fast you'removing on the surface of the Earth about rightnow. That doesn't take into account that you'removing forward when you're going around thesun. So Newton thought about motion, and par-ticularly he worked with the planets. Why dothey call him a sir? What does it mean to be asir?Ron: A man.T: Well, a man . .. although there are, well that'strue. But it's still what kind of man?Ron: Famous.T: Famous and he receives honors. A sir receiveshonors from the throne, the royalfamily.There'sSir Alec Guinness; he was Obi Wan Kanobi inStar Wars. When he got his "sir," it means hewas knighted, like a Knightof the Round Table.Okay, let's continue on now with our discussionof motion. [Note: This marked the teacher'sreturnto the topic.]The teacher's use of the word discussion inthe last segment of the transcript is of particularinterest. In a subsequent interview, she said shethought of a discussion as something the teacher

does to pointout the importantparts of a textbook.Students did not figure into either her verbal or heroperational definition of a discussion. They simplywere not part of the text mediatingprocess in thisinstance.This teacher's acceptance of the text as thesole authority on matters related to eighth gradescience may have influenced her notion of a dis-cussion. She may have consciously or uncon-sciously dismissed students' contributionsas beingunworthy of serious consideration. There is alsothe possibility that her acceptance of the text'sauthority broughtwith it a reluctance to distinguishimportantfrom unimportantinformation.Althoughall text was not created equal in the chapter onmotion, the teacher treated it as if it were. Thismight explain her lengthy digression concerningNewton's title.Embellished Text

The contents of some texts were so impov-erished that teachers searched for ways to connect144 Theory ntoPractice

bits and pieces of information to their students'lives. Sometimes the search for meaningful con-nections resulted in a teacher embellishing he con-tents of a text. When the embellishment includedinaccurate information,as was sometimes the case(see example below), students typically acceptedthe informationas "truth."Inthis example, 35 students were assigned toread a chapter on biomes from their eighth gradegeneral science text. The section of the text onwhich the dialogue is based presented a few basicfacts about the temperate hardwood forest. It de-scribed hardwoodor deciduous trees as trees withbroad leaves that are shed in the fall.In the recitationperiod that followed this read-ing assignment, the teacher attempted to elaborateon the concept of deciduous trees. Note that theteacher'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 theleaves?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 completelyduring the winter. There is a reason for thatwhich we really haven't discussed. Uh, it's sothat when they uh-during the winter when thelimbs freeze and they get water on 'em andsnow, then they'd be too heavy if they still hadleaves on there, and the limbs break. That'sone of the reasons why they (trees) lose theirleaves. Okay, question No. 3. Anyone?

Although the teacher could be criticized forgiving false information,2 ne might also credit himfor moving beyond the authority of the text andelaborating upon what he perceived to be impov-erished text. Until recently (cf. Clark & Peterson,1986), research has indicated that these types ofteachers' interactive or "inflight"decisions weremade primarily n response to students' attendingbehavior. A growing body of research (e.g., Alver-mann, 1987; Conley, 1986; Hinchman,1985), how-ever, suggests thatcontent area teachers' interactivedecisions are also cued by their desire to maketext meaningfulfor their students.Perhapseven moreproblematichanthe teachergiving incorrect informationwas the students' un-questioning acceptance of that information. Therecitation format left no room for student reaction.Inthe 18-page transcript,most students' responses


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were one or two words in length. The teacher's"Okay, question No. 3. Anyone?" was a signal tothe class that it was time to move on. Withoutopportunities to engage verbally in the mediationprocess, students remain passive learners, and inthis instance, recipients of incorrect information.Discussion-Mediated Text

The third teacher taught general science to agroup 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 usediscussion to mediate assigned readings, althoughseveral interviewswith this teacher suggested oth-erwise. Teacher-student interactions were valuedby this teacher because he saw them as oppor-tunities to clarifymisunderstandings.He also valueddiscussion as a means of motivating students' in-terest in science.

Frequently,discussions of textbook readingas-signments centered on the large fish tank that oc-cupied one corner of the room. For example, in alesson on ecosystems, the teacher used the fishtank to build interest and understanding in themeaning 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 thetank.Danny: So does the suckerfish. They both do.T: [writingon board]They're in what we call directcompetition. 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 thetank.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 apond. They weren't born in captivity.Danny: Ifthey're from LakeOconee, 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 fishis under.Betsy: My dad, he knows a man-he catched thisbig ol' eel [gesturingwith her hands and arms],and he told me he put that fish in a tank andit quit eatin' for 2 whole weeks.T: Okay. Well, that particular fish-it probablywould take him that long to adjust to living incaptivity.

Danny: I wonder how long it will take that catfishin there [peering into tank] to adjust to thatwater.Betsy: The catfish is a tough fish.T: [walkingback to the chalkboardaway from thefish tank] So, we see the crayfish and thesuckerfish are competing for food and space.What happens when the suckerfish finds thecrayfish at the bottom?

The teacher's attemptto refocus the discussionon the concept of direct competition was success-ful. Unlikethe digression concerning the title "sir"in the first teacher's class, the digression here wasinstigated by two students (Betsy and Danny),notthe teacher, and it consumed considerably lessclass time. In addition, Betsy, who rarely contrib-uted to class discussions based on textbook read-ing assignments, found a way to participate inclassroom learning.

Althoughthe text was not viewed as the soleauthority in this teacher's general science class,neitherwas it ignored. Majorconcepts were drawnfrom the text and were elaborated on in class. Theteacher also demonstrated a willingness to makechoices about what he would emphasize from theassigned readings. Students were held accountableonly for the emphasized material.When text was elaborated on, chances for in-correct information eing conveyed to students wererare in this teacher's classroom. Students werelearning to think for themselves and to ask ques-tions. By using discussion to mediate text, theteacher encouraged students to share their per-sonal experiences and backgroundknowledgeabouttopics that might otherwise have been of little in-terest to them.Instructional ImplicationsSeveral instructional implications may be de-rived from exploring opportunities for teacher-stu-dent mediationof content area texts from the threeperspectives presented here. The first perspective,in which the teacher accepted the text as the soleauthority, llustrates the problemof givingtoo muchcredibility o the text. Rather than select particularconcepts to emphasize, as did the third teacher,this teacher allowed herself to be distracted byinformationwithin the text that was tangential tothe major concepts. She treated every section ofthe text equally, and as a result saved no time forstudents to interact or ask questions.Infailingto emphasize the importantconcepts,the first teacher also made it more difficult for

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students to learn from their science texts. Havinggrown accustomed to being quizzed on some ofthe minute details of a passage, many of the stu-dents concentrated on learning these at the ex-pense of focusingon the majorconcepts. Informationgained from interviewswith this teacher suggestedthat she used the text to preventdisciplineproblemsfrom occurring. By keeping students' attention onthe text at all times, no matter how inconsequentialthat text might be, she reduced the risk of havingthem speak out and cause a disturbance. In short,the process of mediatingtext was reserved for theteacher.Conditionsdescribed in the second perspectivedemonstrate that good intentions do not compen-sate for a lack of competence in one's teachingfield. Although the teacher rightfullyattempted toelaborate on an impoverishedtext to explain a keyconcept, he did so without the backgroundknowl-edge and expertise required. The dispensing ofincorrect information s an especially serious flawin classroom teaching when students have not beenschooled to question and challenge what they hearand read. Students in this instance were accus-tomed to answering the teacher's questions in asfew words as possible, in true recitationform,with-out ever giving thought to raisingquestions of theirown. To their way of thinking,the teacher and thetext were the authorities in matters related to gen-eral science.The third teacher's classroom provided nu-merousopportunities ormediating ext. Thisteacherread 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 studentsthe value of questioning and taking an active rolein their own learning. When students strayed toofar from the topic of discussion, he tactfullyfoundways to refocus their attention. He also knew thevalue of getting theirattention in the first place. Byusing the fish tank as an attention focuser, he wasable to interest students in scientific concepts thatwould otherwise have seemed abstract and boring.Once he had their attention, he skillfullyfocusedon a few key concepts and built on students' de-velopihg understandings of those concepts to in-troduce additional ones. In sum, he created apartnership in mediating text through classroomdiscussion. As one of the partners, he providedthemotivation and guidance for learning from sciencetext. As the other partner,the students collectivelyresponded by reading and showing their interestthrough active participation n classroom activities.146 TheoryInto Practice

ConclusionThe three perspectives presented suggest thatteaching is a complex process. Also, certainteacherdecisions influencewhat students have the oppor-tunity to learn, what students attend to, what theycan do, and how they learn in particularways.These teacher decisions directly affect how themeaning of text is mediated.

Notes1. This and the other classroom excerpts are taken fromAlvermann,O'Brien,and Dillon 1988). The level of studentreading ability was comparable across the threeclassrooms.2. The teacher's explanationthat leaves fall off the treesso that ice storms will not cause the limbs to break isincorrect.The correct explanationis that duringthe fall,the shorter days and cooler nights cause the chlorophyllin deciduous leaves to break down. When this occurs,the leaves can no longer get nourishment and they dieand drop off (WorldBook, 1989).ReferencesAlvermann,D.E.(1987). The role of the textbook inteach-ers' interactive decision making. Reading Researchand Instruction,26, 115-127.Alvermann,D.E.,O'Brien,D.G.,&Dillon,D.R.(1988). Whatteachers do when they say they're having a discus-sion. Unpublishedmanuscript,Universityof Georgia,Athens.Barr,R. (1987). Classroom interactionand curricular on-tent. In D. Bloome (Ed.), Literacyand schooling (pp.150-168). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Bernhardt,E.B. (1987). The text as a participant n in-struction. TheoryInto Practice, 26, 32-37.Bloome, D. (1981). An ethnographicapproachto thestudyof reading among Blackjunior high school students.Unpublisheddoctoral dissertation, Kent State Uni-versity, Kent, OH.Bloome,D. (1983). Classroomreading nstruction:A socio-communicativeanalysis of time on task. InJ.A. Niles& L.A.Harris Eds.),Searches formeaninginreading/language processing and instruction(pp. 275-281).Rochester, NY:NationalReading Conference.Clark,C.M., & Peterson, P.L. (1986). Teachers' thoughtprocesses. In M.C. Wittrock Ed.), Handbookof re-search on teaching(3rd ed.) (pp. 255-296). New York:Macmillan.Conley, M.W.(1986). The influence of trainingon threeteachers' comprehension questions during content

area lessons. The ElementarySchool Journal, 87,17-27.Davidson,J.L. (1985). What you thinkis going on, isn't:Eighth-grade tudents' introspectionsof discussionsin science and social studies lessons. In J.A. Niles& R.V. Lalik(Eds.), Issues in literacy:A researchperspective (pp. 238-242). Rochester, NY: NationalReading Conference.Davidson,J.L. (1987, April).Therelationshipbetween theinstructional context of reading and discussion ineighth grade English, science, and social studiesclasses. Paper presented at the annual meeting of


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the American Educational Research Association,Washington,DC.Dillon,D.R. (1985). Toward a partial theory of teachingstyle: A microethnographyof a secondary teacherworking with students having low reading ability.Unpublisheddoctoraldissertation,Universityof Geor-gia, Athens.Durkin,D. (1978-79). What classroom observations revealabout reading comprehension instruction. ReadingResearch Quarterly,14, 481-533.Hinchman,K.(1985, December). Themeaningof the text-book for three content-area teachers. Paper pre-sented at the annualmeetingof the NationalReadingConference, San Diego, CA.Mathews, C.O., & Toepfer, N. (1936). Comparison ofprinciplesand practicesof study. TheSchool Review,54, 184-192.McCallister,J.M. (1930). Reading difficultiesin studyingcontentsubjects. ElementarySchool Journal,31, 191-201.Olson, D. (1981). Writing:The divorce of the authorfromthe text. In B.M. Kroll& R.J. Vann (Eds.), Exploringspeaking-writing elationships:Connections and con-trasts (pp. 99-110). Urbana, IL:National Council ofTeachers of English.

Padak,N.D.(1986). Teachers'verbal behaviors:A windowto the teaching process. In J.A. Niles & R.V. Lalik(Eds.), Solving problemsin literacy:Learners,teach-ers, and researchers (pp. 185-191). Rochester, NY:NationalReading Conference.Risko, V.J., Sweetland, J., & Alvarez, M.C.(1987, April).Enhancingstudents' readingcomprehension throughteachers' use of discussion strategies and concep-tually organizedlessons. Paper presented at the an-nual meeting of the AmericanEducationalResearchAssociation, Washington,DC.Stauffer,R.G. (1980). The language experience approachin the teachingof reading 2nd ed.). New York:Harper& Row.

Stodolsky, S.S., Ferguson,T.L.,&Wimpelberg,K.(1981).The recitationpersists, but what does it look like?Journalof Curriculum tudies, 13, 121-130.Wilkerson,B.C. (1986). Inferences:A window to compre-hension. In J.A. Niles & R.V. Lalik(Eds.), Solvingproblems in literacy: Learners, teachers, and re-searchers (pp. 192-198). Rochester, NY: NationalReadingConference.WorldBook Encyclopedia,The. (1989). s.v. "leaves." Chi-cago, IL:World Book Inc.

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