DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND THE STUDY OF CLASSROOM LANGUAGE AND LITERACY EVENTS.David Bloome, Stephanie Power Carter, Beth Morton Christian, Sheila Otto, and Nora Shuart-Faris. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. v + 263. $34.50 paper.

The authors of this volume explore a microethnographic approach to the study of classroom literacy events and provide useful models for analyzing classroom discourse. The heart of the book centers upon close analysis of transcripts of literacy events unfolding in various classrooms. These data reveal three methodological “issues in research on classroom literacy events: (a) classroom literacy events as cultural actions, (b) the social construction of identity, and (c) power relations in and through classroom literacy events” (p. xx). The final chapter attempts to locate this microethnographic approach within new literacy studies, “a broader intellectual movement concerned with people's everyday lives” (p. xxii). Readers will find useful models for how researchers might go about doing the kinds of analysis that lead to connections between local classrooms and larger social and cultural contexts.