1. Do truancy officer-parent phone calls (the Ms. Medeiros calls discussed in class) involve a special turn-taking system? Do parent-teacher conferences involve a special turn-taking system? Explain.

I’m trying to learn for my Communications class and I’m stuck. Can you help?

 

Work to answer these questions as you do the readings for this unit, making sure to also refer to your class notes. These are intended to help you prepare for quizzes and also help you master key concepts for use in doing class assignments. Specific examples of data (transcript excerpts) may appear on quizzes, so in answering these questions, be prepared to point out specific features in transcript excerpts.

 

1. Do truancy officer-parent phone calls (the Ms. Medeiros calls discussed in class) involve a special turn-taking system? Do parent-teacher conferences involve a special turn-taking system? Explain.

2. What is the concept of “constellations of affiliation”, and how does this apply to family-school interaction?

3. Describe the interactional practice displaying a non-neutral personal state. What work do parents do through this practice during the opening phase of the parent-teacher conference?

4. According to the reading “Being a ‘good parent’ in parent-teacher conferences” (Pillet-Shore), what is the official, explicitly sanctioned business of the parent-teacher conference? What is the unofficial business of the conference?

5. What is “preference organization”? What are the properties of turn/sequence design associated with the terms “preferred” and “dispreferred”?

6. While teachers deliver student-praising utterances, what do parents usually do? How does this compare to what parents usually do when teachers project delivery of student-criticizing utterances? Be sure to discuss parents’ state-of-knowledge displays.

7. According to the reading “Being a ‘good parent’ in parent-teacher conferences” (Pillet-Shore), what are the regular methods through which parents can do “being a good parent” during sequences in which conference participants criticize students? What happens if a parent does not use these methods?

8. Describe how teachers and parents manage to “tacitly collaborate” to produce sequences in which the parent criticizes the student first.

9. According to the reading “Criticizing another’s child: How teachers evaluate student during parent-teacher conferences” (Pillet-Shore), how do teachers produce their student-praising versus their student-criticizing utterances? (Be sure you can explain the regular design features of each, and recognize them in transcript excerpts).

10. How do teachers do the actions “obfuscating responsibility” for, and “routinizing”, student-troubles? Do these actions seem to promote or forestall conflict?

11. According to the reading “The problems with praise in parent-teacher interaction” (Pillet-Shore), what are the conflicting rules or social norms that shape and constrain how a recipient of a compliment/praise should respond?

12. How can we understand why participants laugh when teachers credit parents for their child’s academic performance/behavior in school?

13. How do parents treat their own articulation of favorable, praising comments about their chil