Opening Dialogue: Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Learning in the English Classroom (Language and Literacy Series (Teachers College Pr)) (Southern Biography) [Paperback]

Martin Nystrand (Author)

Book Description

Series: Southern Biography | Publication Date: October 1, 1996

"Opening Dialogue: Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Learning in the English Classroom" promises to reorient our thinking about how younger adolescents and their teachers, talking together, compose shared understandings that contribute to individual students' learning. Presenting a new conceptual framework, Nystrand and his colleagues argue that people learn not merely by being spoken (or written) to, but by participating in communicative exchanges. Dozens of schools and thousands of students participated in the study reported here, under the auspices of the National Centre on Effective Secondary Schools. Its audience will include graduate education courses in language, literature, and literacy, teaching methods, quantitative research, teacher research, and educational psychology, as well as researchers, teachers and policymakers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 141 pages
• Publisher: Teachers College Press (October 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807735736
• ISBN-13: 978-0807735732
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,862,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Miscellaneous Editorial Reviews, January 25, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Opening Dialogue: Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Learning in the English Classroom (Series on School Reform) (Hardcover)

"I would not be surprised if this volume eventually earned the status of a classic in its field . . . . [It] remind[s] us that, given the freedom and generative uncertainty of open-ended conversation, learning is often built on surprises" (Robert Gundlach, from the Foreword)

"Sophisticated in design, powerfully framed in theory, and unique in its scope" (Arthur Applebee, publisher's review)

"Opening Dialogue provides a kind of grounding that I think is extremely important at this point in the course of inquiry for a sociocultural perspective" (James Wertsch, Washington University, publisher's review).

"Opening Dialogue should strongly influence the way educators think about classrooms and learning. . . . The study has much to say to teachers, as well as to researchers and theorists" (Melanie Sperling, publisher's review).

"This little book should have a very big impact. It gives the results of the `largest ever study of classroom discourse and its effects on learning'-112 eighth- and ninth-grade language arts and English classes comprising 1,100 students for each of two years. . . . [Nystrand's] book makes a very big contribution to our understanding of classroom discourse, and to English curriculum. It should be widely read and pondered and heeded by teachers, researchers, curriculum-makers, and teacher educators. That US students should endure another century or two of the English teaching Nystrand found so pervasive is a frightening possibility" (David R. Russell. (1998). Journal of Curriculum Studies, 30, 490-493).

"This study is noteworthy not only for its rich and detailed descriptive findings, but for actually linking the variables of classroom discourse to student learning" (Jo & Susan Sprague, Communication Education, 47, 1998, p. 300).