ABSTRACT

In this chapter we argue that classroom talk must be analysed across time and in relation to instructional stance and that teachers should employ purposeful and response-able talk practices. Response-able talk is both responsive to student contributions and responsibly slides in what is needed to support critical exploration, connect material to local ways of knowing, and cultivate an openness to perspectives (Boyd, 2016a). We focus on the minilessons that make up an instructional unit for a writing workshop in a classroom of seven- and eight-year-olds in the United States. We position minilesson talk as dialogue as instruction (Burbules, 1993) and explicate ways this teacher employs an instructional repertoire of talk practices across three levels: situational, the literacy event across time, and interactional. We show how different patterns of talk work together and provide illustrative examples of how this teacher purposefully and response-ably contextualises academic language usage.