ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author brings to light what happened when community practices were disrupted—through group work, by newcomers, and by means of an event which turned learning "inside out and upside down" yet ended up "the right way round". It discusses some of the disruptions to established practices that occurred during the second half of the research project: group work, newcomers, carnival. The chapter provides a more thorough examination of classroom discourse, primarily through a discussion of groupwork. It explores what happened when established classroom practices were disrupted by groupwork. The chapter focuses on the discussion component of the assignment. It concludes with what Nystrand and Gamoran describe as the Bakhtinian explanation for the relative ineffectiveness of monologic instruction in promoting learning and conceptual change, compared with discussion and instructional conversation. The chapter explores what it was about "life turned inside out" that made for "learning the right way round" for the students.
