Arthur N. Applebee

Discussion-Based Approaches to Developing Understanding: Classroom Instruction and Student Performance in Middle and High School English

This study examines the relationships between student literacy performance and discussion-based approaches to the development of understanding in 64 middle and high school English classrooms. A series of hierarchical linear models indicated that discussion-based approaches were significantly related to spring performance, controlling for fall performance and other background variables. These approaches were effective across a range of situations and for low-achieving as well as high-achieving students, although interpretations are complicated because instruction is unequally distributed across tracks. Overall, the results suggest that students whose classroom literacy experiences emphasize discussion-based approaches in the context of high academic demands internalize the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in challenging literacy tasks on their own.

Reading and Writing Instruction: Toward a Theory of Teaching and Learning

Reading and writing development are individual processes which reflect the evolving skills of the individual language learner. Instruction, on the other hand, is a social process, rooted in the interaction between teacher and student. Through the intersection of development and instruction, individual learners gain the power to use language to understand their world and to act within it. Reflecting the split between individual and social, most research in the field of reading and writing has concerned itself either with charting the course of individual development, or with delineating the characteristics of effective instruction. Although both traditions have been valuable, we will argue here that they should be integrated through a more general theory that systematically relates individual development to the social processes that surround it. From such a theory, we will emerge with more effective principles for instruction, as well as with a better explanation for the patterns of development that have been described in previous studies. In doing so, we will also clarify our understanding of the deeply related but functionally different activities of reading, writing, and speaking. The need for a more encompassing theory is evident whether we start independently with either development or instruction. If we start with development, it is quite clear that the skills that individuals learn are constrained (or fostered) by the particular cultural and educational contexts within which the individuals grow up (Au, 1980; Heath, 1983; McDermott, 1977; Scribner