Negotiating Meaning and Engaging in Disciplinary Practices: Just-in-Time Online Inquiry in 1:1 Contexts

Functioning in a world beyond school requires more sophisticated understanding of both content knowledge and knowledge production across the disciplines (Lee & Spratley, 2010; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008), as well as how to access, interpret, and share information in print and online environments (Afflerbach & Cho, 2009; Coiro & Dobler, 2007; Goldman, 2012; Zhang & Duke, 2008). This descriptive study introduces the construct of “just-in-time online inquiry” to describe the ways students engaged in online inquiry intended to support disciplinary literacy in a diverse seventh grade English Language Arts classroom. In this one-to-one context where each student had a personal digital tool, students utilized online texts in ways that supported the process of learning. Data from classroom discourse (student discussion), activity (purpose for just-in-time online inquiry), and tools (texts) were synthesized to analyze literacy practices using both a broad lens across and close examination within daily literacy events. Investigating the ways meaning is negotiated by learners, texts are accessed and used, and goal-oriented activities are enacted, can support our understanding about how these literacy practices play out in the complex context of a classroom, which can then inform the conditions and environments that best facilitate meaningful literacy practices that support disciplinary literacy learning for all students. This can guide future studies in online inquiry and disciplinary literacy by providing new models for embedding online inquiry into disciplinary teaching, also giving insight to strategies and activities that support effective use of just-in-time online inquiry in the classroom.