by
Cory Ann Boyd
Dissertation Committee:
Professor Hervé Varenne, Sponsor
Professor Paul Byers
Approved by the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Education
Date: MAY 10, 1993
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education in
Teachers College, Columbia University
1993
ABSTRACT
THE INTERACTIONAL POSITIONING FOR A LITERACY RELATED
MOMENT DURING GROCERY SHOPPING
Cory Ann Boyd
Any answer to the question of what it means to be literate would be shallow without support from an extensive search through the related literatures. Even at that, it is questionable if any fundamental yet comprehensive description of what it means to be literate is available. In attempting to study certain details regarding literacy and very young children, this research has isolated a teaching sequence called "the interactional positioning for a literacy related moment during grocery shopping". Using as a basis work by Ochs and Schieffelin (1984), Becker (1984) and Conklin (1949), data from a videotape offers a visual description of how the learning of literacy is organized into the routine, household chore of grocery shopping. Five teaching sequences are presented that demonstrate the interactional positioning for a literacy related moment during grocery shopping. The existence of the interactional positioning is further refined by the identification of two additional sequences that clearly show what the teaching sequence does not look like.
Each teaching sequence has three phases. The phases are (1) preparation for reading, (2) the reading lesson, and (3) closure. Each phase is constituted by a limited number of kinds of positionings. The phases derive character from the specific combinations of the positionings within that phase. Each sequence is embedded between the neutral positions of grocery shopping. Works by Scheflen (1973), Byers (1976) and McDermott (1976) were instrumental in providing the direction in the analysis of movement in the videotape. This research closely approximates the basis of the work Propp (1968) presented in the Morphology of the Folktale. There is a specific arrangement to the interactional positioning for a literacy related moment that rises above a superficial glance at a mother and a thirteen month old child during grocery shopping. A description of that arrangement is offered. This study concludes that the interactional positioning for a literacy related moment during grocery shopping is a lesson in literacy embedded into the routine activities of everyday life in American culture. It is the process of becoming an active member of our culture that we learn of many things. One of them is literacy.
[2001]