Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

In this study, writing and reading workshops are viewed as sites for the employment of tools, for learning what to do with concrete objects, where even material things with no language in them can make one smarter and able to do new things. This ethnographic study of a multi-age primary classroom in the USA (with children aged five to eight) yielded data that included field notes and videotape. Data were analyzed within a Vygotskian framework to determine the affordances, both intended and unintended, of the varied concrete tools the teacher placed in the classroom. Emphasis is placed upon the ways these tools are designed to mediate culturally-sanctioned states of mind. Complications arise when children import motives from other contexts and use the tools for interactions and activities not sanctioned by the teacher and school. Consistent with activity theory, tools are examined as being situated within actions, discourses, and activity systems.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bakhtin, M.M. (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press .

Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. San Francisco, CA: Chandler .

Bowker, G.C., and Star, S.L. (1999) Sorting Things Out: Classification and its Consequences Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .

Broström, S. (1999) ‘Drama Games with Six-year-old Children’, in Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen and R.-L. Punam‰ki (eds) Perspectives on Activity Theory, pp. 250–263. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

Calkins, L.M. (1994) The Art of Teaching Writing, 2nd edn. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann .

Cazden, C. (1988) Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann .

Cole, M. (1996) Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

Dewey, J. (1929) Experience and Nature. New York: Dover .

Engels, F. (1883) Dialectics of Nature, URL (consulted July 2003): http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/index.htm

10.

Glaser, B., and Strauss, A.L. (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine .

11.

Goldman-Segall, R. (1998) Points of Viewing Children’s Thinking. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum .

12.

Griffin, P. and Cole, M. (1984) ‘Current Activity for the Future: The Zo-ped’, in B. Rogoff and J.V. Wertsch (eds) Children’s Learning in the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’, pp. 45–64. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass .

13.

Hakkarainen, P. (1999) ‘Play and Motivation’, in Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen and R.-L. Punam‰ki (eds) Perspectives on Activity Theory, pp. 231–249. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

14.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1975) Learning How to Mean: Explorations in the Development of Language London: Edward Arnold .

15.

Holland, D. and Cole, M. (1995) ‘Between Discourse and Schema: Reformulating a Cultural-historical Approach to Culture and Mind’ , Anthropology and Education Quarterly 26(4): 478–489 .

16.

Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D. and Cain, C. (1998) Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

17.

Ilyenkov, E. (1977) Problems of Dialectical Materialism, trans Andy Blunden. Moscow: Progress Publishers .

18.

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press .

19.

Leontiev, A.N. (1977) Activity and Consciousness, Philosophy in the USSR, Problems of Dialectical Materialism. Moscow: Progress Publishers .

20.

Leontiev, A.N. (1981) Problems of the Development of the Mind. Moscow: Progress .

21.

Norman, D.A. (1993) Things that Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine. Reading, MA: Perseus Books .

22.

Ricoeur, P. (1976) Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press .

23.

Salomon, G., ed. (1993) Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

24.

Selfe, C.L. (1999) Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-first Century: The Importance of Paying Attention. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press .

25.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

26.

Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .

27.

Wertsch, J.V. (1991) Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

28.

Wertsch, J.V. (1998) Mind As Action. New York: Oxford University Press .

Things That Make Kids Smart: A Vygotskian Perspective on Concrete Tool Use in Primary Literacy Classroomsa

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References