| It has been documented that there is a dearth of literacy and classroom discourse research in the northern regions of Mexico. In response, this qualitative study examines the social organization and discursive interaction of a 6 th grade classroom in a public elementary school located in the U.S.-Mexico border city of Mexicali. The interactions that occurred between the teacher and students were transcribed and then analyzed in light of the constructs of co-authorship, consensus construction, agency and exploratory talk. The results show that (1) the students usurped some of the teacher's authoritative roles and in this sense became co-authors of certain normative genres; (2) the classroom members exhibited a sociocultural tendency toward reaching consensus; and (3) the students engaged in exploratory talk even though they had not received any explicit training in this type of discourse. Furthermore, it was found that the teacher played an important role in facilitating consensus reaching and in promoting exploratory talk by using certain participant structures that allowed spontaneous student talk. The findings are consistent with previous studies of Mexican classroom interaction and suggest it differs from interaction characteristic of the United States and other English speaking settings. This has potential implications for classrooms in the United States that receive Mexican immigrant children who bring with them discursive and interactional practices or expectations that could be misunderstood on account of their contrast with the social organization of the new classroom community. |
