Dialogic Inquiry

"An important contribution. . . . Dialogic Inquiry is a challenging book to read, both because it raises serious questions about many of the assumptions underlying cognitive science and because it tackles difficult theoretical questions without avoiding their complexity. . . Wells has demonstrated. . . that the sociocultural perspective has a great deal to offer our understanding of thinking, knowing, language and learning." Contemporary Psychology

• Conventions of transcription; Introduction; Part I. Establishing the Theoretical Framework: 1. The complementary contributions of Halliday and Vygotsky to a 'language-based theory of learning'; 2. In search of knowledge; 3. Discourse and knowing in the classroom; Part II. Discourse, Learning, and Teaching: 4. Text, talk, and inquiry: schooling as semiotic apprenticeship; 5. Putting a tool to different uses: a reevalution of the IRF sequence; 6. From guessing to predicting: progressive discourse in the learning and teaching of science; 7. Using the tool-kit of discourse in the activity of learning and teaching; 8. Making meaning with text: a genetic approach to the mediating role of writing; Part III. Learning and Teaching in the ZPD: 9. On learning with and from our students; 10. The zone of proximal development and its implications for learning and teaching ; Appendices; References; Indexes.