Wells (2002) - Spiral of Knowing

Wells, G. (2002). Learning and teaching for understanding: the key role of collaborative knowledge building. In Social Constructivist Teaching, Volume 9, pages 1–41. Elsevier Science Ltd. PDF

In this chapter, Wells explored the role of language – and of meaning-making practices more generally – in promoting students’ learning in all areas of the curriculum. Wells gives some attention to reading, broadly conceived, since acquiring information from books, maps, diagrams, and texts of all kinds, plays an increasingly important role in education as students increase in age (Kress, 1997; Lemke, 2002). Wells also devotes some attention to writing – in non-narrative as well as narrative genres – as, with Langer and Applebee (1987) Wells believes that it is in the writer’s dialogue with his or her emerging text that an individual’s understanding of an issue or topic is most effectively developed and refined.