The Value of "Time Off Task": Young Children's Spontaneous Talk and Deliberate Text

1 December 1987

journal article
Published by Harvard Education Publishing Group in Harvard Educational Review

Vol. 57 (4) , 396-421
https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.57.4.j3743l47g0k60m59

Abstract

Anne Haas Dyson analyzes primary students' spontaneous, unsanctioned talk in the classroom and argues that these interactions — often regarded as "time off task" — can become occasions for engaging in intellectually demanding tasks. Drawing upon research conducted over a two-year period in an urban elementary school, the author presents an overview of the accomplishments of children who, without explicit directions from their teacher, collaborated with one another to create extended stories and critique the logic of those stories. Dyson maintains that these examples of spontaneous talk supported the intellectual development of these beginning writers, thereby extending conventional definitions of students' "on" and "off" task behavior.

Keywords

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit:

Individual Differences in Beginning Composing
Written Communication, 1987
Characters are Coauthors
Written Communication, 1986
English and Creole: The Dialectics of Choice in a College Writing Program
Harvard Educational Review, 1985
From Utterance to Text: The Bias of Language in Speech and Writing
Harvard Educational Review, 1977