ABSTRACT
In this paper, we examine remediation as a social construct, as the product of perceptions and beliefs about literacy and learning, and we illustrate some ways in which inaccurate and limiting notions of learners as being somehow cognitively defective and in need of “remedy” can be created and played out in the classroom. We will look closely at one student in one lesson and detail the interactional processes that contribute to her being defined as remedial-this specific case, however, is also representative of common kinds of classroom practices and widespread cultural assumptions, ones we’ve seen at work in our other studies (Hull and Rose, “Rethinking”). In order to better understand these cultural assumptions and the ways they can affect classroom practices, we will attempt to combine an empirical, finegrained analysis of classroom discourse with broader historical and cultural analyses. We want to place a teacher’s instructional and evaluative language in the contexts that we believe influence it, that contribute to the practice of defining students as remedial.
