This shift away from teacher-directed and centralized structures is reflected in research literature (Wiencek & Olahavan, 1994). Like the shift towards literature-based reading programs, this trend seems to be motivated, at least in part, by reader response theories of reading. Instead of a teacher filling the role of the expert in what has been labeled "inquisition mode" (Eeds & Wells, 1989) and students responding in "recitation mode" (Wiencek & Olahavan, 1994), more and more teachers are acting as facilitator, first modeling ways to respond to text and participate in literate discussions and then stepping back and allowing students to construct meanings in authentic conversations on their own.
The growing popularity of literate talk about text in the classroom is also informed by a social constructivist perspective on learning, rooted in the writings of such notable figures as Vygotsky, Bakhtin, and Wertsch (McMahon & Raphael, 1997). This perspective emphasizes the social aspect of learning. Vygotsky (1978) proposed that mental functions begin in the social realm, on what he called the interpsychological plane, and then progress to an inner, intrapsychological plane. This process of internalization, which is the process of understanding, is best facilitated in an individual learner in what Vygotsky (1978) refers to as the zone of proximal development. This is described as "the distance between the child actual development level as determined through problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (cited in McMahon & Raphael, 1997 p. 6). This learning theory points towards the more collaborative and social-interactive classroom structures that we see in literate classroom communities.
3. Integration of reading, writing, and literate talk. An important aspect of belonging to a literate community of readers and writers is the act of reading and writing every day (Graves & Hansen, 1983). Most of the successful models for creating literate classroom environments that I reviewed take this idea one step further and additionally incorporate oral uses of language in their instructional programs in the form of small-group discussions, whole-class discussions or author chair/community share time. The writing components take on a variety of forms, including individual reading logs (Raphael et al., 1994; Wiencek & Olahavan, 1994), dialogue journals (Atwell, 1987; Bromley, 1989) and self-published books (Graves & Hansen, 1983).
Research tells us that combining instruction in reading and writing improves children literacy skills, because 1) reading and writing develop concurrently and 2) reading and writing skills reinforce one another (Bromley, 1989; Shanahan, 1988). The combined use of all three facets of language arts provide students with a holistic literacy experience, strengthening the classroom function as a literate environment.
4. Authentic reading and writing activities. The value of providing students with authentic reading and writing activities in school has been widely recognized and touted among literacy educators (Short & Pierce, 1990). An essential factor in making an activity authentic for students is how much control students exercise in the learning process. As I have already discussed, creation of a community of literate readers and writers is determined in large part by how student-directed an instructional program is, that is, by the amount of control it affords the students. This applies not only to students?response to and discussion of texts, but also to students?choice in the selection of the texts themselves. Many successful instructional models incorporate some degree of student choice in the selection of texts. In Atwell reading workshop students exercise complete freedom to chose, so long as the texts they read are books: novels, biographies, histories, etc. (Atwell, 1987). In the Book Club program (Raphael & McMahon, 1994) and literature circles (Short & Pierce, 1990) students also are invited to take part in the selection of literature, though freedom is constrained in these programs by availability of texts and district requirements.
Another factor that influences the authenticity of a literacy activity in a classroom context is the activity function, or purpose. Language is a tool for communication, yet many classroom literacy activities serve the purpose of assessment rather than communication. The use of dialogue journals (Atwell, 1987; Bromley, 1989) in reading programs, as well as literary exchange programs that connect students from different classrooms and engage them in literary dialogue (Christian, 1997), provide students with authentic literacy activities that facilitate communication with an authentic audience.
Finally, authentic reading and writing activities may be provided for students through opportunities to publish their written work for an authentic audience of readers. This is a central component in classrooms that feature an author chair and emphasize the importance of publishing student writing (Graves & Hansen, 1983).
The integration of technology
With such a unique and theoretically compelling array of instructional programs available to assist teachers in creating literate classroom communities, what, one might ask, can technology possibly contribute? New technologies, especially Web technologies, bring powerful new capabilities to the classroom. When integration is thoughtfully informed by what we know about teaching and learning, these new capabilities can be used to support and extend good classroom practice (Brackett, 1999). We have seen some of the basic elements that comprise good classroom practice in literacy instruction. In the remainder of this paper I will give an overview of the features of a Web-based learning environment, called Book Club Online, that I designed specifically to support and extend use of the Book Club program in fifth and sixth grade classrooms. I will then present my ideas about how this technological addition uses the affordances of networked technologies to enhance the Book Club program impact on literacy instruction.
What is Book Club Online?
Book Club Online is a Web-based learning environment designed to support, but not replace, use of the Book Club reading program in the classroom. The site has two main purposes: (1) to provide a supportive community for teachers using Book Club in the classroom and (2) to provide teachers with a flexible tool to enhance the impact the Book Club program has on the literate environment of the classroom. These goals correspond to the two main areas of the site: the teacher lounge and the club house hub.
The teacher lounge is an area of the Web site that facilitates communication between teachers. In the teacher lounge teachers may (1) find out basic information about the Book Club program; (2) access a library of resources related to use of the program in the classroom, such as reproducible think sheet handouts and reading log entry suggestions; and (3) participate in online discussions with other teachers.
Unlike the teacher lounge, the club house hub is not the entrance to a single area of the site. It opens up to a large number of individual, self-contained mini-sites, which are referred to as club houses. An individual teacher may configure a club house to be used solely by his/her class of students or may collaborate with another teacher to use a club house as a vehicle for a literary exchange. All areas of the club houses, with the exception of the book reviews, are password protected for the purpose of keeping individual club houses distinct from one another and protecting the safety of students online. In a club house a student may chose to (1) write and post book reviews; (2) participate in online discussions; or (3) create and edit his/her own individual or book club web page.
What does the use of technology contribute?
One of the basic affordances of networked technologies is access to communication (Brackett, 1999). The primary function of Book Club Online is to increase both the number and the diversity of opportunities Book Club participants, students and teachers alike, have to communicate with one another.
The online discussions available to students in the club houses provide a compelling setting in which students in a single classroom, or across multiple classrooms, can engage in authentic written communication about literature. These dialogues are meant to add another dimension to the social construction of knowledge taking place in the classroom and to strengthen the variety of authentic literacy activities available to students. This feature is an electronic variation on student-student dialogue journals.
The purpose of the teacher lounge is to create a resource for teachers faced with practical questions, such as how to group students for small-group discussions, how to incorporate district and state standards into the Book Club program, and how to manage use of technology in curriculum when computer resources are limited. Innovative teaching and the obstacles it presents often are hidden in isolated classrooms behind closed doors. Internet technologies make it possible for teachers to collaborate with like-minded peers conveniently, because it facilitates fast and flexible asynchronous communication.
Another affordance of the Internet is the fact that it is a decentralized system. For this reason, Web-based learning environments intuitively lend themselves to use in classroom settings that are themselves largely decentralized and student-directed. Book Club Online is designed to extend the depth of the student-directed aspects of the Book Club program by putting the tools for authentic literacy activities in the hands of the students. Book Club Online provides an opportunity for students to actively choose to participate in literacy activities for their own purposes.
At the same time, the flexibility of the Web-based environment allows teachers to provide the support and supervision that students need. For example, the malleability of the digital medium makes Book Club Online more accessible to students with individual differences, whether they be visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive in nature. Also, the Book Club Online environment is designed to accommodate many different classroom applications. In online discussions, teachers can remain largely invisible, but can still monitor the learning taking place and make their presence known when it is necessary to keep students on task. Teachers can also direct online discussions by creating discussion topics, or requiring students to do so for each other.
Lastly, the World Wide Web provides an easy, inexpensive, and highly professional looking publishing platform for young students. Book Club Online Web page creator allows students to publish professional looking products for an authentic audience. By publishing lists of the books they have read, book reviews, and pieces of their own written work, students are able to develop a sense of themselves as readers and writers, bringing characteristics of the author chair to Book Club Online.
How can Book Club Online be integrated into the classroom?
Effective integration of Book Club Online into classroom practice can best be illustrated by considering how it might be used in a specific scenario, such as in Mrs. Leys?and Ms. Miller hypothetical 5th grade classrooms.
Both Mrs. Leys and Ms. Miller use the Book Club program in their classrooms. When they first began using the program, they relied on the discussion forums and the resource library in the teacher lounge area of Book Club Online to help them grapple with the kinds of questions and issues that arise with implementation of student-led, literature-based reading programs, such as how to take into account varying reading levels among students when forming book club groups.
In their second year of using the program, the two teachers met in the online forums and decided to connect their geographically distant classrooms using a Book Club Online club house for a four-week unit on folk tales. That year, both teachers had 24 students in their class. Each class was divided into six book clubs of four students each. Mrs. Leys had access to her school computer lab of 24 Internet accessible machines once a week. Ms. Miller had one networked computer in her classroom and could sign up to use her school mini-lab of 6 machines once a week.
The teachers structured the folk tale unit much like any other book club unit. Students read in a variety of ways, including partner-reading, choral reading, oral reading/listening, silent reading, and reading at home the evening before book club discussions. Students wrote responses to assigned literature in their reading logs, completed think sheets, participated in whole-class discussions during community share time, and met in their book club groups to take part in peer-led discussions. Unlike in previous book club units, both teachers took time during community share to discuss how participating in an online discussion is similar to participating in a book club discussion, and how it is different. This allowed the teachers to address the issue of appropriate online conduct and to raise students?awareness of the demands of different modes of communication.
Once a week, community share in each classroom was devoted to writing prompting questions for the other classroom book clubs to discuss and respond to, much in the manner of the Anne Frank Conference (Christian, 1997). Ms. Miller, on a large screen display connected to her classroom one computer, modeled how to post messages to the online discussion while the class was formulating its prompts. Mrs. Leys had her class come up with the prompting questions and then had a student volunteer post them to the club house discussion at a later time.
Later in the week, during book club discussion time in both classrooms, students met with their book clubs in their school computer lab or mini-lab, gathered around one computer per book club, and composed responses to the prompts posted by the other class. This was also the time for students to read the responses the other class has posted to the previous week prompt.
Students also were able to post personal responses to any piece of literature they had read in a free read section of the online discussion, or in the book review section. Both teachers encouraged their students to post responses and book reviews to books read at home and during D.I.R.T (Daily Independent Read Time). Students were able to do so during designated class time, free time in class, or from home. Before beginning the unit, Mrs. Leys and Ms. Miller divided the free read discussion into topics and categories that were both open-ended and similar to the kinds of writing students did in their reading logs to support meaningful discourse. This allowed students to apply the techniques they were learning for thinking about assigned literature to literature selections of their own choosing. Free read discussions included topics such as "Favorites Characters," "Me & The Book," and "Author Craft and Special Tricks."
Lastly, students in both classrooms were able to create their own Web page that included lists of books they have read, book reviews they had posted to the club house, and their own written work. Book Club Online Web pages, like book reviews, were not required by either teacher, but were one of many options students could select as a final project for the folk tales unit.
Conclusion
Both theory and practice in literacy instruction have uncovered and celebrated the importance of fostering a literate environment in the classroom. While the Internet and Book Club Online may not be the "dining room tables" that Atwell had in mind in 1987 when she expressed her desire to invite her eighth graders to "pull up their chairs," they nevertheless offer powerful new opportunities for us to expand our vision of a what a literary community in a classroom context can be and, ultimately, to improve literacy education in the 21st century.
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