Language Arts - Volume 83, Issue 3, 2006

This manuscript describes ways that conversations constituted ethnographic research for students and teachers in Kazakstan. Through dialogues with local community members, students worked as researchers to develop knowledge about cultural patterns and social life. Ethnographic research and writing provided valuable language and research experiences that supported learning and teaching.

This article examines the curricular possibilities within critical inquiry-based primary classrooms. The children in this first through third grade multi-age, multi-lingual classroom participated in a two-year critical and collaborative inquiry around issues of segregation and the Jim Crow laws. A touchstone text, Freedom Summer (Wiles, 2001) and a critical reading strategy (Christensen, 2004) offered students opportunities to interrogate the cultural models that underpin the picture book, their interpretations of the book, and their social worlds. Findings from this study indicate that pivotal moments are key to learning and that read-aloud events go beyond community building. The study also examines the use of touchstone texts and positions critical reading strategies as tools for thinking. The findings from this article contribute to the growing body of research demonstrating the engagement of very young children in critical literacy and inquiry.

“Reggio Emilia” is a remarkable, interdisciplinary inquiry-based approach typically found in preschools. What happens when elementary teachers confined by curricular mandates embrace key features of this learner-centered philosophy? This article provides compelling evidence that when multiple literacies are harnessed in support of inquiry, the benefits are noteworthy for children and teachers alike.

The article examines third graders who use reading, speaking, writing, gestures, and visual representation strategically in their inquiry research and to share what they learn. Examples of their speaking, writing and drawing shows their developing skill in choosing semiotic meaning-making systems appropriately for the purpose of developing their understandings. Three case histories capture language and drawing in the inquiry work of a charismatic and creative young leader, a struggling writer who thrives in an inquiry partnership, and a successful student labeled both vision-impaired and gifted/talented. Inquiry study offers both individualized pacing and social learning that are valuable to the students.

This article begins with a “snapshot” of a fifth grade writing workshop and its study of op-ed writing to show an inquiry in action. The framework for this inquiry involves immersing students in reading multiple examples of the kind of text the teacher would like them to write, studying closely how the texts are crafted, and writing their own finished pieces under the influence of this study. Then, after a brief explanation of how this inquiry approach to teaching writing differs from other approaches, the reasons for an inquiry stance in the teaching of writing are discussed: it teaches students to read like writers, it keeps the content of the teaching grounded, it expands the teacher’s knowledge base, it helps students write with vision, it requires a different understanding of teacher modeling, and it emerges from very purposeful planning.

A classroom environment that supports learner-generated inquiries gives Han, a Vietnamese kindergartner, the self-confidence to inquire freely into a second language and culture. Her inquiries enable her to develop her oral and written English language as she negotiates the cultural boundaries between home and school.