ABSTRACT
In this chapter we describe some classroom incidents in which responsibility for the direction of the lesson shifts from the teacher or textbook to the learners. We are interested in particular kinds of shift: those that involve learners in generating and creating the material on which part of the lesson is based. In some of the cases we report some of the effects of this shift, but we do not claim that such shifts will always have such effects. Rather, we think that readers will respond to the stories in personal ways by finding themselves thinking “I could use that” so that our examples may be catalysts for using some new strategies. Alternatively, your response might be “That would never work with my students,” in which case any recommendations we might be tempted to make would be little more than ripples on a stream that may be flowing in another direction. In these cases, we hope you will at least imagine how it could have worked with some students but might not work with yours. If necessary, simplify or complexify each task to suit your interests.
