Academic Discussions: An Analysis of Instructional Discourse and an Argument for an Integrative Assessment Framework

Abstract

This article describes the structure of academic discussions during the implementation of a literacy curriculum in the upper elementary grades. The authors examine the quality of academic discussion, using existing discourse analysis frameworks designed to evaluate varying attributes of classroom discourse. To integrate the overlapping qualities of these models with researchers’ descriptions of effective discussion into a single instrument, the authors propose a matrix that (1) moves from a present/absent analytic tendency to a continuum-based model and (2) captures both social and cognitive facets of quality academic discourse. The authors conclude with a discussion of how this matrix could serve to align teachers’ and researchers’ identification of quality academic discussion and the process by which users could measure improvement in students’ discourse skills over time.