A Gifted Child's Education Requires Real Dialogue: The Use of Interactive Writing for Collaborative Education

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of two studies which compared the responses to using dialogue journals by teachers of the gifted and talented and their students. The purpose of this research was to learn more about the ways that such interactive writing can enable GT students to collaborate effectively in their own education. Study 1 sought to determine the types of discourse functions teachers used in the journals they kept with their instructor in a graduate practicum and with the GT students they taught in that practicum. They interacted differently with their instructor than with their students in ways consistent with their role: they commonly used questions, a controlling behavior, when journaling with students. Study 2 examined whether teachers could vary their responses to students' journals to make them more collegial and less controlling. Together these studies supported the use of dialogue journals to promote mutuality in the educational process.