This article is part of a series drawn from work in the Handbook of Reading Research: Volume III (Kamil, Mosenthal, Pearson, & Barr, 2000). It was also the focus of a threaded discussion in our Online Communities bulletin board. To read what others said about this topic, click here.

The Role of Text in Classroom Learning: Beginning an Online Dialogue

Suzanne E. Wade
Elizabeth Birr Moje


What images come to mind when you think of students using texts in classrooms? Do you picture students sitting at desks or in small groups, reading published texts such as basal readers or textbooks? Such images reflect traditional pedagogies that have been common in classrooms for generations. However, today many other types of text are being used in classrooms in different ways for a variety of purposes. For example, you could picture students working in collaborative groups, searching through trade books or on the Internet for answers to their research questions, or discussing a self-selected book in a peer-led book club.

In the chapter we wrote for The Handbook of Reading Research: Volume III (Wade & Moje, 2000), we reviewed research to answer two questions about the role of text in classroom learning:

  1. What counts as text in classrooms in the United States?
  2. How are texts used by both teachers and students for the purpose of learning?

In this article for Reading Online, we have summarized our findings. (For the sake of brevity, we have not included all the citations that we drew on for our review. Readers can access the full reference list by consulting the handbook chapter.) We have not, however, written a conclusion about what we see as the implications of our findings for practice. Instead, we hope to begin an online dialogue by posing some initial questions and inviting readers to respond to them, also adding their own questions and comments and responding to those of other readers. Readers can participate in the dialogue by joining the discussion thread in ROL’s Online Communities. [Note: The threaded discussion closed on February 28, 2002. A transcript of comments is available here.]

   Related Postings from the Archives

What Counts as Text? | How Are Texts Used? | Transmission Approaches | Participatory Approaches | Unacknowledged and Unsanctioned Texts | Questions for Practice | References | Discussion Transcript


What Counts as Text?

To analyze what counts as text in classrooms for the handbook chapter, we reviewed studies that represent multiple theoretical perspectives. This provided a broad view of text, similar to Bloome and Egan-Robertson’s (1993), which can be summarized as “organized networks [of meaning] that people generate or use to make meaning either for themselves or for others” (Wade & Moje, 2000, p. 610). Texts can be formalized and permanent, such as books, magazines, and other printed material sold as commodities. Or they can be informal and fleeting, such as lists and notes that are scribbled down and thrown away once they have served their purpose. Conversations and performances are also texts that may be fleeting unless they are written down, recorded by audio or video devices, or passed on orally to other people.

Different views of what counts as text lead to different views of what counts as learning with texts, which consequently expand or limit the opportunities students have to learn in classrooms. Thus, we broadened our review to focus not only on the written but also the oral texts used in classrooms. The written texts we examined included printed texts (e.g., basal readers, textbooks, trade books, magazines, and newspapers), texts that teachers prepare for students’ use (e.g., outlines of lecture notes, worksheets, and graphic organizers), texts authored by students (e.g., essays, stories, and lecture notes), and electronic texts used and generated by students. We also examined the role of teachers’ and students’ oral texts, such as lectures, recitations, discussions, and conversations. Finally, to understand how students might view text, we included studies of the unsanctioned texts written and read by students, such as notes to friends, comic books, popular magazines, and graffiti.

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How Are Texts Used in Classrooms?

The answer to this question is, of course, “It depends.” Teachers, students, classroom contexts, and personal and institutional histories are unique. Thus, different kinds of texts are used in different ways in different classrooms. Uses of texts depend on differences in pedagogical approach and purpose; subject area; grade level; academic track or reading-group level; systems of assessment and accountability; content and pedagogical knowledge of teachers; teachers’ and students’ beliefs about knowledge, the appropriate uses of literacy, and the purpose of schooling; teachers’ and students’ past school, home, and community experiences; and their cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Although each of these variables is critical in shaping how text is defined and used in classrooms, we framed our analysis around two general categories:

We recognize that these pedagogical approaches are neither the only possible approaches nor pure categories. Although one approach will usually predominate in a classroom, elements of others may be adapted to fit within any given approach. For example, explicit minilessons designed to transmit information or skills may be quite common in participatory classrooms. Although we do not want to present any one approach as the “best” way, we do see participatory approaches as taking a broad view of text and fostering constructivist or social-constructivist approaches to learning, which are beneficial for diverse groups of students in our increasingly technological and information-based world. Nevertheless, both participatory and transmission approaches have strengths and limitations, which we highlight in the sections that follow.

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Texts and Learning in Transmission Approaches, Briefly

You are probably familiar with a variety of transmission models from your own schooling experiences -- they were, and continue to be, the dominant pedagogical approach to teaching reading and subject area knowledge (Alvermann & Moore, 1991; Goodlad, 1984, 1994). The role of both text and teacher in this approach is to transmit a large body of authorized, “official” knowledge and discrete skills to students who, although often differentiated by ability, are otherwise thought of in generic terms, without attention to race, ethnicity, class, or gender (Apple, 1986; Shannon, 1990). Instruction tends to be teacher centered -- that is, the teacher is active and in control while engaged in activities such as lecturing, explaining, asking questions, demonstrating, giving assignments or instructions, monitoring behavior, providing feedback, and assessing students’ learning. Student participation consists of listening, responding, reading aloud or silently, working alone on independent seatwork, and taking tests.

The role of published texts in the transmission model. Just as knowledge in transmission classrooms is “official,” so are the texts that dominate teacher and student discourse. These texts prescribe what skills, topics, authors, and ideologies are considered legitimate -- that is, what counts as knowledge and as learning (Luke, de Castelle, & Luke, 1989).

For elementary reading instruction, basal reading series are usually the primary, official texts, although many teachers supplement instruction with trade books. In response to criticisms from a number of reading researchers (see, e.g., Goodman, 1989), basal series have shifted in recent years from a focus on the drill and practice of discrete, sequenced reading skills to the teaching of context-based decoding and comprehension strategies and the eliciting of reader response (Hoffman et al., 1994). In making this shift, basal authors have provided teachers with pedagogical recommendations that are said to be less directive and prescriptive than those included in earlier series. Basal series have also moved away from contrived stories with controlled vocabulary to the inclusion of texts from published children’s literature. As a result, many of the new basals represent an elementary school anthology of literature from which teachers can draw, and they make extensive recommendations for the development of thematic units using diverse works of literature.

For subject area instruction, the textbook is the dominant form of official text within the transmission approach at both the elementary and secondary levels (Alvermann & Moore, 1991), with a class set of a single textbook as the main source of reading material. Yet, the textbook appears to be used more by teachers than by students (Armbruster, Anderson, Armstrong, Wise, Janisch, & Meyer, 1991; Hinchman, 1987; Smith & Feathers, 1983). Many teachers rely on textbooks and their accompanying curriculum guides to structure content, organize lessons, and provide suggestions and materials for teaching and assessment. This sort of reliance on the textbook tends to occur most often among teachers with limited knowledge of the subject area they are teaching (Carlsen, 1991; Jetton & Alexander, 1997; Shymansky, Yore, & Good, 1991).

Also, certain institutional constraints and beliefs about the disciplines shape how much teachers rely on textbooks to structure their curricula (Stodolsky & Grossman, 1995). Highly sequential and well-defined subject areas such as math and foreign languages tend to allow for less curricular autonomy than less well-defined, less sequentially organized subjects such as English, science, and social studies. Furthermore, state and district curriculum guidelines, assessment programs, and text-adoption policies control what texts are selected, how they are used in classrooms, and what counts as learning. Thus, the perception of a need to sequence instruction and to meet state and district standards compels teachers to place greater emphasis on coverage and consequently to rely on the content of official texts so that students are prepared for assessments and subsequent courses.

Why content area texts are not used by students. Many studies have found that students engage in little content area reading of any kind, either in class or as homework (e.g., Alvermann & Moore, 1991; Armbruster et al., 1991; DiGisi & Willett, 1995; Goodlad, 1984). Students may not be reading because they find classroom texts to be inconsiderate, difficult to comprehend, or not engaging. Another reason that students do not read is that teachers often do not assign textbook or primary source material, except occasionally in advanced courses, in a way that suggests to students that such reading is important to their learning. The reasons for this are varied. Some teachers are concerned that students will not or cannot read assigned pages for reasons similar to those voiced by the students -- the texts are too difficult, poorly written, or uninteresting. This problem is aggravated when students lack the necessary skills and background knowledge to make sense of the print. Other teachers question the value for learning of reading about a topic, especially in content areas such as science, and advocate experience-based learning activities instead (Yore, 1991). Finally, because many secondary teachers view their role as teaching content (rather than literacy), they rely heavily on oral texts -- whole-class lecture, explanation, demonstration, and recitation -- considering these the most efficient way to deliver course content and to monitor learning (O’Brien, Stewart, & Moje, 1995).

Consistent with teachers’ views of reading and content learning, secondary school students place greater value on their teachers’ oral and written texts (such as lectures, study guides, outlines, and conceptual maps) and on the texts they generate themselves in class (such as lecture notes) than they do on official course textbooks. For example, in math classrooms, students tend to view their textbooks as a source of homework problems rather than a resource for new learning, which is explained and guided by the teacher (Stodolsky, 1988). In other content areas, students often use the textbook only to skim for answers to end-of-the-chapter questions or to search for definitions of vocabulary words. When students realize they can rely exclusively on oral texts and their written notes or worksheets to learn the content, they see little need to read assigned textbook pages (Hinchman & Zalewski, 1996, online PDF document; Moje, 1996). And, even when primary source texts are used, students who have not been encouraged to read see them as supplemental, or even tangential, to the teachers’ lectures or other oral class texts.

Recitation: Oral text used to monitor learning. One of the most common forms of oral text in transmission classrooms is recitation, which is used to monitor students’ learning during lectures or their recall of information from assigned readings. Recitation typically follows the initiation-response-evaluation sequence, and consists of a question posed by the teacher, answered by a student, and evaluated by the teacher (Cazden, 1986). It serves the purpose of reviewing, drilling, and quizzing students about what they have learned, while also controlling student behavior and the dissemination of knowledge. Researchers have found that almost all the questions posed to initiate recitations are at the literal level, and that student answers are brief, unelaborated, and at the same level (Alvermann & Hayes, 1989; Carlsen, 1991). Not surprisingly, students rarely ask questions, question the teacher’s interpretation, or offer alternative interpretations during recitations.

Student writing. Student-authored written texts play a role in transmission classrooms, although it is quite limited. In most subject area classes, except for language arts and English composition, students have few opportunities to engage in the construction of written text, either in class or in homework assignments (Applebee, 1984; Campbell, Voelkl, & Donahue, 1997, online document). Most student-generated written text in subject area classes is limited to multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank exercises, one- or two-sentence responses to short-answer questions, copying from the chalkboard, note taking in lectures, and math calculations. The primary purposes of having students engage in this kind of writing are to review subject area information and to test recall of what has been taught.

Not surprisingly, the primary audience for such writing is the teacher, in the role of examiner. Even in elementary language arts classes, student writing is often limited to the purpose of assessing understanding of story structures, themes, and concepts or retention of information. In recent years, however, a number of elementary and middle school language arts teachers have incorporated journal writing and writer’s workshop methods as a way of including student-generated texts in their curricula. We discuss these forms of text in more detail in the section on participatory pedagogies.

Summary and critique. Within the transmission model, teachers’ oral and written texts and published print texts (used as curriculum guidelines) have the role of transmitting information and controlling how that information is used in classroom learning, while student-generated texts document whether students can recall the information correctly. In addition, handouts, outlines, chalkboard notes, study guides, recitations, and other forms of student performance are important texts used to transmit and control, but also to reconstruct, information and knowledge. Although it can be argued that teachers and students always textualize their experiences in multiple ways in every kind of classroom, the primary role of texts within the transmission model is to serve as repositories, transmitters, and guardians of information and knowledge.

However, reliance on the transmission approach alone may not accomplish desired learning goals (Goldman, 1997). First, students do little reading of any kind of informational text and consequently do not gain access to or practice in the variety of textual strategies or practices necessary to comprehend, interpret, or critique text. Second, knowledge acquired through the transmission approach does not transfer readily to new situations and often is not remembered after the test. Third, performance on recognition and recall tests may suffer when learners go beyond surface-level processing and relate the knowledge being taught to their prior knowledge and experience. Fourth, other types of learning deemed essential to success in the world, such as the ability to think critically and to collaborate with others in solving problems, are ignored.

Why is all this important? Literacy is not simply knowing how to read and write at a basic level; rather, it has a broad meaning that includes comprehending what is read, reflecting on and evaluating what is learned through oral and written texts, becoming aesthetically engaged in reading and writing processes, and knowing how to find and use knowledge in new situations to achieve personal and social goals. Reading allows students to access a variety of texts that can offer fuller explanations and alternative examples of the topic being discussed. Unlike information and ideas presented orally, written texts are not transitory; instead, they can be reread and studied. Through them, students can develop a deep understanding of how facts, examples, and concepts are connected to one another. Thus, reading of printed text is seen by some educators as an effective and efficient way to acquire deeply connected knowledge, which is easier to access and apply to new learning or problem-solving situations. For other educators, reading of print text is seen as a tool of power that students can use in a variety of social, economic, and political situations, decreasing the need for people to depend on what others may or may not tell them.

Based on these critiques and using theories that focus on how knowledge is socially constructed, many school-restructuring efforts have been implemented to bring learners together in collaborative and community-based problem-solving activities. In addition, cultural theories have aided educators in designing pedagogies that tap into students’, families’, and communities’ ways of knowing (see, e.g., Moll & Greenberg, 1990). These alternatives to the transmission model are collectively referred to as “participatory approaches.”

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Text and Learning in Participatory Approaches, Briefly

Although participatory approaches vary in many ways, they are all based on constructivist or sociocultural views of learning and teaching. Instead of being viewed as passive recipients of information, students are viewed as active constructors of their own knowledge and interpretations of texts as well as authors of their own texts. Further, participatory approaches all view texts as tools for learning and constructing new knowledge, rather than as repositories and guardians of information.

Consistent with such views, participatory approaches rely on a wide range of texts, including published print materials such as textbooks, reference books, picture books, novels, journals, magazines, and comic books; student-generated writings, presentations, and notes; oral discourse constructed in discussions and conversations; electronic texts read and generated on the Internet and with hypermedia; television, radio, and film media; and visual and performance art. In addition, texts drawn from experiences in people’s homes and communities are linked with texts traditionally valued in school. Texts are viewed as cultural tools that shape not only what people know, but how they know and learn. The purpose of text use and of learning, then, is to expand the cultural tools to which students have access, not by dismissing or excluding the texts (or tools) they bring to school, but by incorporating them into the curriculum and working with students to make connections among the various texts they explore.

Participatory approaches take different forms, which we have categorized into two general types: those that focus primarily on developing the individual student, and those that focus on developing social and cultural communities. Both types use texts as tools and rely on social interaction, but the individually focused approach is aimed at furthering each child’s cognitive development as a result of peer interaction or interaction with a more knowledgeable other. By contrast, socioculturally focused approaches draw upon students’ social and cultural backgrounds and engage them in activities aimed at understanding and contributing in the classroom, school, or local community. They encourage students to examine how they are members of communities and how their texts are connected to those of their classmates and of community members.

Integrating published, oral, and student-authored texts. Literature-based discussions, reading-writing workshops, and project-based learning are three common practices in participatory classrooms in which all types of text are read, created, and connected to one another. In literature-based discussions, students read published literature texts and create oral texts by discussing their interpretations with one another (see, e.g., Almasi, 1994; Many, 1991; McMahon & Raphael, 1997; Rogers, 1991; Santa Barbara Discourse Group, 1994). Literature discussions may be facilitated by the teacher or be peer led (e.g., book clubs) as a way of moving the teacher’s authority away from a central position and encouraging students to explore their own questions. Thus, the same literary text may be interpreted differently from one classroom context to another, with different kinds of oral texts constructed as a result of classroom interactions. Whether students choose the literature they study depends largely on the classroom teacher’s philosophy regarding student choice, as well as on any institutional constraints (e.g., school-prescribed language curricula) that might be present in a particular context.

In reading-writing workshops, the most privileged texts are those that students write, although published texts chosen by the teacher are often used as models for writing themes and conventions (e.g., Atwell, 1987; Calkins, 1994; Graves, 1983; McCarthey, 1994). In writing conferences, students bring individual texts to a peer, a group of peers, or the teacher for feedback and critique. Thus, individual texts are constructed and reconstructed during writer’s workshop, but collaboratively produced texts are rarely part of workshop practices. Studies have demonstrated that encouraging students to generate and respond to one another’s texts in workshops enhances learning and development of social skills necessary for communication, cooperation, and collaboration (DiPardo & Freeman, 1988; Forman & Cazden, 1985). Thus, workshops provide opportunities for students to build on and further develop the knowledge, experiences, and skills they bring to the classroom as they create new texts. Students do not, however, generally learn to synthesize information across texts, although intertextual connections are often explicitly and implicitly explored.

Project-based pedagogies incorporate published and student-generated oral, written, electronic, and pictorial texts into classroom practices as a way of engaging students in collaborative investigations of real-world problems (Marx, Blumenfeld, Krajcik, & Soloway, 1997). Typically, project-based pedagogies result in shared, student-created texts (e.g., exhibits, books, research reports, models, videotapes, or computer programs) that represent students’ learning.

One example of individually based project learning is Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI), a four-phase approach designed to promote elementary students’ engagement in literacy and science (Guthrie et al., 1996). During each phase, teachers explicitly teach cognitive and metacognitive strategies to help students accomplish specific goals. Another example is the Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS), where researchers and teachers work together to examine how project-based science curricula, coupled with technology tools, can be used as catalysts for systemic change in U.S. urban schools. The LeTUS approach bases the students’ curriculum in the texts of their experience by asking them to identify community-based questions and problems, which they link to a driving question identified by curriculum developers and teachers. Teachers and students together construct texts from the classroom activities, and they use electronic, video, and print texts as tools to examine and communicate their understandings about the concepts under study. In another project, this one an example of a socioculturally focused, community-based approach, Moll, Tapia, and Whitmore (1993) describe how third-grade bilingual students conducted original research about their own community. Using two languages, the children wrote, piloted, and revised a questionnaire about community resources; tabulated the data they collected; revised and readministered the questionnaire; and reported their findings to the community.

Summary and critique. Like the transmission approach, participatory approaches are not without problems (see, e.g., Finders, 1996; Moje, Willes, & Fassio, 2001; Willis, 1995). One criticism is that in some participatory classrooms, teachers rely on mainstream literature and overlook how students’ cultural experiences might influence their engagement with and interpretations of the texts being used. Another concern is the potential for peer-led literature groups and workshops to allow some students to dominate, thereby enriching these students’ learning while inhibiting the learning of those who are marginalized or silenced. Similarly, practices such as “the author’s chair” or “group share” may silence or regulate diverse voices and perspectives, causing children to keep their personal texts separate from the classroom. Thus, although student-generated texts are given primacy in these approaches, what is considered appropriate or acceptable text by teachers and students may shape the kinds of work students generate both in writing and orally. Likewise, project-based pedagogies are only useful insofar as the questions and texts relate to students’ lives outside of school.

A related concern is that participatory approaches may do no better a job of encouraging students to think critically than does the transmission model. In instances where students are allowed complete choice in book selection, for example, teachers do not expose students to texts beyond their experiences. In reading-writing workshops, the texts that students generate may remain rooted in their particular conceptions of the world; consequently, students may not be challenged to think differently about their texts or their worlds. Further, some researchers have questioned the practice of using published and student-generated texts for modeling the writing process without encouraging students to examine these texts critically for the assumptions and stereotypes that they offer to readers. Thus, although texts in a modified writer’s workshop can be used as tools for teaching students to think critically, students need to be guided in the deconstruction of texts and in the construction of countertexts.

Finally, participatory approaches require a great deal of planning, may not cover all the information or ideas that students need for deep learning of concepts, and are not concrete in terms of curricular materials and teaching methods. What’s more, they often focus on the doing of an activity, and fail to provide students with guidance in how to make sense of text. It can be difficult to integrate reading strategy instruction, for example, into the main activities and experiences demanded by peer-led literature circles, writer’s workshops, or project-based pedagogies. Time is short and the activities are many in participatory classrooms; teaching students how to negotiate written and oral textual experiences may easily fall by the wayside. And yet, students need optimal and timely amounts of explicit instruction to extract and synthesize important information -- or make meaning -- across multiple resources and to contribute to community development and change. Further, the challenge for all forms of participatory approaches is for students and teachers to broaden the role of text in classroom learning into one in which students are asked to negotiate a variety of genres, text types (including printed, electronic, visual, and audio texts), and potentially unfamiliar topics. Students also need to learn how to collaborate successfully with fellow students and to welcome diverse points of view.

In sum, participatory approaches have been studied and critiqued from different theoretical perspectives, thus focusing on different learning goals and issues. Some critiques have focused on problems of design and implementation -- for example, tasks that are not challenging, inadequate strategy instruction or guidance for students, and inadequate support for teachers and the difficulties of teaching complex cognitive strategies using multiple texts. Sociolinguistic and sociocultural critiques have tended to focus on what counts as “acceptable” student interpretations, how teachers’ and students’ roles in participatory approaches may conflict, how to choose among texts, how to challenge students to read and write critically for social change, how a focus on process over product may disadvantage nonmainstream students, and how to share control with students without allowing some to be marginalized or silenced.

Unlike transmission approaches, participatory approaches are all grounded in students’ texts and experiences, whether individual, social, or cultural. Nevertheless, because they focus on the role of texts in classrooms and on connecting community texts to academic learning, the approaches at times overlook the texts that children and adolescents use to navigate the many different spaces -- school, family, community, and youth social groups -- in which they live and work every day. These texts often are unacknowledged and sometimes unsanctioned in each of their different communities. In the next section, we examine these different texts and their implications for student learning.

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Unacknowledged and Unsanctioned Texts

Missing from the studies of both transmission and participatory approaches that we have reviewed are the social -- and often unsanctioned -- writings that students generate. While these texts often go unacknowledged and are not used for reading or content learning in the classroom, students nevertheless learn a great about themselves, about schooling, and about society from the texts they create and exchange. At times, these “missing” texts are a result of a disjuncture between home/community and school -- that is, home and community texts of various cultural groups do not always match the texts that are valued in school (Heath, 1983). A number of studies have found that what children and adolescents learn from the various texts they use outside of school -- texts that they view as important in their social interactions with peers -- can often be more powerful and valued than what they learn in school (Camitta, 1990; Finders, 1996; Hartman, 1997; Heath & McLaughlin, 1993; Moje & Thompson, 1996; Moll, Tapia, & Whitmore, 1993; Myers, 1992).

One of the ways students actively construct their social and classroom contexts is to create their own texts, texts that serve multiple purposes in their in- and out-of-school learning. They use these texts to make a social space for themselves but also to define themselves and to limit others’ participation in their social groups. One example is graffiti and tagging texts, as well as conventional written texts about gang practices, that serve to claim space and position in their authors’ social worlds (Moje, 2000). These texts are not validated in their schools, homes, churches, or communities, but are nevertheless quite powerful for the adolescents in their social interactions with other youth. Studies of these kinds of text raise questions about how to acknowledge the sophistication and power of these textual practices for young people without simply appropriating them into the official curriculum as “sanctioned” texts.

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Questions for Practice

As researchers, theorists, and practitioners, we need to be more explicit about what is counted as text and as learning as we make pedagogical recommendations and implement them in schools. A number of the studies we reviewed did not make their perspectives on text explicit, but implicitly acknowledged only published, print texts as the ones to be valued and studied in schools. To examine thoroughly the role of text in classroom learning, we must use multiple perspectives to look at what texts are, what learning is, and how texts could be used to learn.

In effect, success and failure in our schools are defined by what counts as text and as learning, by how texts are actually used in classrooms to achieve particular learning goals, and by assessment practices. If we count only print texts as text, and if we view learning only as extracting important information or as individual responses or interpretations of text, then we miss possibilities for engaging all students in learning in multiple ways from multiple texts. We also risk disenfranchising large groups of students for whom print texts are not paramount because of particular social or cultural values. Operating from one perspective means that pedagogical recommendations will remain rooted in finding ways to help students become successful according to certain predefined conceptions of success. This view privileges the learning and textual practices of some students and devalues the practices of others, thereby relegating some students to the status of “unsuccessful,” “problem,” or “at risk of failure.”

If we use multiple approaches to text and learning, we may be able to expand our understanding of the role of text in classroom learning and work with more students to expand their textual, social, and cultural worlds. When notions of text and learning are broadened, we begin to see how more children and adolescents can be successful in settings in which they are encouraged to use and learn from many different texts, and where learning is assessed in many different ways -- perhaps broadening definitions of “classrooms” in the process.

We realize that the conclusions we have just presented are abstract and that there are many questions to be posed and responded to regarding the role of text in classroom learning. Rather than attempt to write a definitive set of questions that emerge from this review and then, even more audaciously, to try to answer those questions, we invite you, our readers, to contribute to an online discussion forum questions that came to mind as you read this article. We also invite you to respond to any of the questions that intrigue you and to comments from other readers comments. As a result, we hope an engaging and informative dialogue will take place over the next few months, until February 28, 2002, at which time we will archive the discussion and begin summarizing it for a follow-up article for Reading Online. Readers who would like to participate can log on to the bulletin board available for our discussion. [Note: The bulletin board was closed on February 28. A transcript of the discussion is available here.] To begin the dialogue, we have posed a few questions that have emerged for us from our review of the literature:

What questions and comments would you like to add?

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References

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About the Authors

portrait of Suzanne Wade     Suzanne Wade is a professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Utah (1705 East Campus Center Drive, Room 142, Salt Lake City, UT, 84121, USA). Her areas of specialization include content area literacy, assessment and instruction of reading difficulties, inclusive education, and case pedagogies in teacher education. She has published numerous book chapters and articles in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, Review of Educational Research, Journal of Educational Psychology, JRB: A Journal of Literacy, The Reading Teacher, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and Teaching and Teacher Education. She has been supported in her work by a National Academy of Education Spencer Fellowship to conduct research in reading, and a Career Development Award from the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Foundation to design and teach an experimental course for preservice and inservice teachers on inclusive education. Her work on inclusive education culminated in two related books: Inclusive Education: A Casebook and Readings for Prospective and Practicing Teachers and Preparing Teachers for Inclusive Education: Case Pedagogies and Curricula for Teacher Educators (published by Lawrence Erlbaum). In 1999, she received the University of Utah’s Distinguished Teaching Award.
portrait of Elizabeth Birr Moje    
Elizabeth Moje is an associate professor of educational studies in the Literacy, Language, and Culture Program at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI, USA), where she teaches courses in literacy and cultural theory and in qualitative research methods. She is a former high school history and biology teacher. Her research interests include the study of literacy as a tool for learning in academic disciplines and the literacy and other social practices of “marginalized” urban adolescents. She is the author of All the Stories That We Have and coeditor, with David O’Brien, of Constructions of Literacy. She has also published articles in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Literacy Research, Teachers College Record, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Journal of Educational Research, and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Her research projects have received funding from the National Academy of Education, the Spencer Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the International Reading Association.

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Citation: Wade, S.E., & Moje, E.B. (2001, November). The role of text in classroom learning: Beginning an online dialogue. Reading Online, 5(4). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=/articles/handbook/wade/index.html



Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted November 2001
© 2001 International Reading Association, Inc.   ISSN 1096-1232