Digital Commons Network^™

Finding A Voice: Poetry And Performance With First Graders, Lisa Lenz Bianchi

Doctoral Dissertations

This is a qualitative research study of a ten week immersion unit in the reading, writing, and performance of poetry conducted in a first grade classroom in Closter, New Jersey during the winter of 1995. The three girls selected as case studies show the ways in which remarkably different children expand their repertoires of ways with words as speakers, readers, and writers. Danielle, a performative speaker, learns to make her tacit knowledge about performance part of her explicit frames of reference. This shift enables her to serve as a coach for peers who are less adept at crafting performative texts. …

Mentoring In Adolescence: A Sociocultural And Cognitive Developmental Study Of Undergraduate Women And Sixth-Grade Girls In A Mentoring Program, Katharina Maria Fachin Lucas

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, a quasi-experimental study was conducted to explore the cognitive developmental effects of taking on the role of "mentor" as an undergraduate or the role of "mentee" as a sixth grader in one university-based mentoring program. Second, an ethnographic study was conducted to study the experiences of ten sixth graders and ten undergraduates as they took on the role of "mentor" or "mentee" in a planned mentoring relationship. A sociocultural analysis explored processes occurring on the personal, interpersonal, and community level that shaped the mentoring experiences of the participants.

The participants in this …

Learning To Read Music Cooperatively In A Choral Setting: A Case Study, Andrew Inzenga

Doctoral Dissertations

Two volunteer cooperative teams of ninth grade girls were studied for six months to discover whether and how they learned to read music. The two teams represented novice students and students who had received private instruction. Study teams represented the population of the freshman Girls Chorus. Teams met regularly during daily chorus rehearsals, with only occasional help from the director. These meetings were analyzed through video tape recordings to observe if students employed traditional teaching and learning strategies to assist each other in learning. It was determined that team members regularly use certain teaching and learning strategies to assist in …