Abstract

Innovative inquiry practices enable sophisticated levels of literacy, which contributes to children's advances in knowledge building. This study provides the description of a creative example of dialogic literacy enabled by technology and cross-community scientific knowledge building dialogue to shed more light on the connection between knowledge building and literacy. Grounded theory analysis of student interviews and classroom discussions reveals three distinctive characteristics of the nature of dialogic literacy in this innovative inquiry: (a) Problem solving dialogue to advance shared research goals; (b) Reflective synthesis to develop "big ideas" in the context of others' work; and (c) Making knowledge accessible to peers in their community and beyond. PurposeThis study aims to advance several areas in contemporary literacy research on knowledge building in disciplinary activities. First, it provides the description of an innovative example of dialogic literacy (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2005) enabled by cross-community scientific knowledge building dialogue to inform implementation of new standards. As newer, collaborative, and technology-enhanced inquiry spaces, such as described in this study, afford dialogic literacy in new, constantly evolving ways, studying such spaces is needed to contribute to advances not only in knowledge that children can build but also in better understanding of literacies that enable building knowledge. Therefore, the study also aims to inform researchers'