Classroom Order as Practical Action: the making and un‐making of a quiet reproach

Abstract

This paper details the interactional work and resources of a high school teacher and student engaged in a brief sequence of reproach. Across their several turns of talk and gesture, as teacher and student press and deflect the object of the reproach, we gain access to a basic structure of classroom accountability: how teachers tie their remarks to the behaviors that prompt them. The sequential analysis of their scene shows the interactional competence that both parties bring to their exchange, the orderly structures they produce and orient to, and the potential for discovery about classroom order and management practices that lies in the observable detail of everyday scenes.