Volume: 20  Number: 3  Page: 211–231

‘Unpacking’ Scaffolding: Identifying Discourse and Multimodal Strategies that Support Learning

Tina Sharpe Sharpe Consulting (NSW) P/L, Australia

In this paper the sociocultural notion of ‘scaffolding’ and the way in which various ‘scaffolding’ strategies support students’ learning are examined through classroom data. A distinction is made between scaffolding at a macro level, consisting of a planned, ‘designed-in’ approach to a unit of work in a subject discipline and the lessons that constitute it, and contingent scaffolding that operates at a micro level or ‘at the point of need’. By drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory it has been possible to articulate the kinds of discourse and multimodal strategies that constitute the nature of scaffolding and then examine the ways in which these function in the discourse to support student learning in the local and immediate context. In addition, this paper identifies an Induction genre that provides foundational understandings about the study of history for apprentice historians. This is supported by two post-foundational lessons that form a Macrogenre. This Macrogenre reinforces the application of focus questions that are fundamental to historical study and an approach to answering these questions that is consistent with the methodology of the subject.

Keywords: scaffolding, discourse, history, multimodal

© 2006 T. Sharpe

Access this article