Week 6 response

I liked the Rogoff (1991) and Doise (1990) citations in Cassell (p. 78), where Cassell writes: “When two peers collaborate, the simple juxtaposition of their actions allows the peers to modify their understanding of their own actions, through appropriating the perspective of the other peer. That is, to apply Rogoff’s notion to emergent literacy, the very fact of telling a piece of a story that follows after the piece told by one’s peer allows both peers to gain a new understanding of the meaning of their words in the context of the story.”

I wonder how much status matters for Cassell’s model of peer collaboration. I’d think that the “balance” of which participant “modified” the understanding of the other would depend on the roles and status of the participants. Not all collaboration is equal; Rogoff’s own idea of “intent community participation” (Week 2 reading) depends on the notion that children observe community activities for a while before assuming greater and greater responsibilities. This is collaboration via a teacher-student relationship, wherein we’d expect the learner to modify their understanding far more than the teacher.

I’d be curious to know how Cassell’s idea of collaboration extends to the “affinity spaces” that Curwood, Magnifico, and Lammers discuss. Quoting Gee (2004), they say that “‘newbies and masters and everyone else’ interact around a shared passion” in these spaces. Surely “masters” and “newbies” must have different roles in these spaces, as suggested in the features they list for affinity spaces. I’d be curious to know more about the roles of leaders and followers within these affinity spaces [aside: can we just call them ‘fandoms’ like everyone else?] and how they influence the conversations within, and especially the influence on young people. Is the language of superfans influencing the language patterns of young fans?