Abstract

As children move from one grade to the next, one teacher to a new teacher, they must reorganize and reconstruct how they view their membership in the new community. Using Gee’s (1999, 2003) construct of Discourse and supplemented with the idea of social worlds from Lewis (2001) and of figured worlds from Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain (1998), we analyzed how students new to three 5th grade classrooms adopted the ways of being and the language of their new classrooms, some with ease but most with some difficulty. For the students, active literacy construction in the semiotic domain of the classroom exposed ways of being that provided them successful strategies for participation. Specifically, we considered how students changed their discourse to reflect the Discourse of the new classroom in authentic ways. Through multiple data sources (interviews, focus group discussions, journal writing, observation) and with prolonged engagement, we constructed three categories to reflect the theoretical lenses provided by Gee: (1) adopting new values, beliefs, and attitudes in the new community; (2) changing cultural practices in a new community; and (3) acquiring the language and Discourse of the new community. Results indicated that conceptualizing classrooms as Discourse communities yielded insights into the processes learners experience as they experience transition into new classrooms.