“The most comprehensive curricular conversations occur when students discover interrelationships across all of the elements in the curriculum, so that the parallel but independent discussions of an episodic curriculum begin to echo back on one another.” (Applebee 1996, p. 77)
I love the idea of knowledge-in-action, as learning to take part in the conversation of a domain of knowledge, and ultimately in the conversations that occur across domains of knowledge. It reminded me of Heath’s (1984) ways of knowing that we all bring with us to school, or the conversation, from our cultural groups. In order to take part in the conversation of a group we must learn the discourse(s) which make up that conversation. Last night I attended a wine tasting party at a friend’s house. I have always liked wine (go ahead snicker), but have found the conversation that revolves around it to be silly and pretentious. There is a fairly stable terminology/metaphors one can use when talking about the wine. Everyone takes it very seriously, but I have often wondered why do we have to use those specific descriptions: chocolate, berry, apple, gooseberry (whatever those are). I read once that J. Mcinerneyay wrote a wine column where he described the wines he was reviewing using actresses rather than the traditional terminology. I thought at the time, why not? Yet, that idiosyncratic terminology would not allow one to become part of the larger discourse community.
In the same manner, integrating the curriculum, whether on a large scale across multiple conversational domains, or on a smaller scale within the conversational domain of a subject area, becomes a way for the student to become a part of a larger and longer ranging (in time) discourse community. This idea is similar to slowly becoming more adept personally with the discourse of doctoral language and literacy studies. When I started this two years ago, people in class were tossing words, and phrases about as if they were frisbees in the park. Much of the time I was befuddled by the language. When I went over the readings, I got it; but the conversations about the topic were obviously reaching back across other classes and other books that were not part of the required reading for that class, yet were pertinent to the discussion. I was hearing echoes of previous conversations which I was not a part. Over time I have become more comfortable in the discussions because I have learned to better take part in the conversation and to make the connections by becoming more conversant in the language of the domain.
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