When discussions sputter or take flight: Comparing productive disciplinary engagement in two history classes

ABSTRACT

Background

Despite its numerous benefits, dialogic discussion seldom occurs in secondary history classrooms. To examine ways to promote it, this study compared two ninth-grade classes’ productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) in a whole-class discussion on the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Methods

The two class sections were comparable academically but had experienced slightly different implementations of the curriculum. Analytic codes tracked discursive moves within each discussion (e.g., authentic questioning), as well as shifts in discursive style (e.g., from monologic to dialogic).

Findings

Analysis suggests that both classes employed sound historical reasoning throughout, but that the third-period class grew more productively engaged. The disparity traces back to the days spent preparing students for discussion, which in third period served to construct a more compelling problem to explore, and to position students as more knowledgeable authorities. Yet even in that class, student dialogue emerged late in the discussion, after segments devoted to establishing textual evidence and answering student questions.

Contribution

Based on these findings, a model is presented for promoting PDE in historical discussions that emphasizes the distribution of intellectual authority and the provision of sufficient time and resources.

Acknowledgments

I thank Andria Thompson (pseudonym) for opening her classroom to me, Olivia Traina, Janessa Soucy, and Yen Vo for assistance with coding, and Diana Hess, Katie Harris, and five anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. That said, the ideas expressed are my own.

Supplementary material

The supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ Here and throughout, pseudonyms are used to protect anonymity.

² The Supplementary Online Material can be accessed at on the publishers website and includes the document set, source analysis worksheet, coding guide, and a fully coded transcript excerpt.

³ Contributions from those who declined participation factor into the quantitative analysis but are omitted from the excerpts below.

⁴ Transcripts have been edited for clarity, with turns skipped that veer off-topic, and superfluous words such as “like” or “okay” removed. Pertinent coding appears in curly brackets. Word counts and other quantitative analysis are based on the unedited, unabridged transcript. See the Supplementary Online Material for a fully coded, unedited except.

⁵ Using this speech from 1965 to ascertain LBJ’s motives a year earlier is anachronistic and potentially misleading. His August 4, 1964, speech would have been preferable.

⁶ Not all students reached the same conclusion. When Thompson asked for Chris’s opinion, given his skepticism the day before, he replied, “I didn’t really listen to the phone conversation much, just because […] you tell it the way you want to remember it more than the way it really happened” (turn 318).

⁷ These numbers do not account for speakers whose identity could not be ascertained in the recording. A few students may also have been absent the days the discussion occurred. Of those present, then, the portion who participated may have been slightly higher.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article was funded by fellowships from the Morgridge and Spencer Foundations.