higher percentage of shorter exchanges in that classroom than was found in the other, more
Socratic classrooms.
- There is also some variation among the short-exchange classes, with Classes #2
and #3 (interestingly, at opposite ends of the law school status hierarchy) actually having
more time spent in extended exchanges than in shorter ones, despite the fact that in each
category their relative percentages placed them as considerably less Socratic than the more
Socratic classrooms, and as having percentages of shorter discourse most similar to the
more conversational classes. The difference in each case is taken up by professor mono-
logue, which in Class #2 occupied 50% of the time and in Class #3 occupied 63% of the
time. Thus, we could understand these classes as falling closer on the continuum to the
lecture-style class than did the two other short-exchange classes (which had 29 and 33%
monologue, respectively) and as having a fairly eclectic mix of discourse styles overall. - To protect the identities of informants, I have identified students only by an
initial (Ms. L., Mr. U., etc.), and these are not the actual initials of their last names. In
classes where professors called on students by their first names, I have substituted alter-
native first names to convey the overall informal character of the discourse while still
preserving anonymity. - This night school Contracts class, taught in a local law school, was the third-
smallest in the study, with 76 students. The teacher, a European American woman trained
at a regional law school, was in her late forties. One of the more experienced teachers in
the study, she had been teaching more than ten years. The class was one of the more infor-
mal classes in the study, although the teacher did engage in some focused Socratic-style
exchanges and extended lecturing. This was the least diverse classroom of the study, with
only 6.6% students of color and 32.9% women. There were no Asian American students
and only 1.3% African American students. Interestingly, however, the percentage of Latino/
a students was above the national average (5.3). - With only 53 students, this Contracts class in a local, midwestern law school was
the second-smallest in the study. It was taught by a European American woman in her early
forties, trained at a local law school. She was an experienced teacher (more than ten years
of teaching). A highly informal classroom characterized by the use of first names and many
student-initiated turns, this was also the most egalitarian classroom in the study in terms
of gender participation rates. The class far exceeded the national average at the time in
percentage of women (54.7); along with Class #8, it had the highest percentage of women
in the study. But the class was at the low end in terms of racial diversity, with only 11.3%
students of color. In a profile quite similar to that of Class #1 (also taught at a local law
school in an urban setting), Class #6 had a high representation of Asian American students
(5.7%) and relatively low percentages of African American and Latino/a students (fewer
than 2% each). This class, obviously, had “other” minority students as well. - As noted in the text, it’s a bit difficult to delineate the pair-part structure here at
times, but we can count roughly 20 professor turns here mixed in with the turns of the 10
identified and several unidentified students. - To be sure, it was also one of the smaller classes, with 53 students. But two of the
classes with still smaller numbers of students did not have 100% participation rates, so
the difference cannot be attributed solely to the class size. - Although, as noted in Chapter 2, there are indications (particularly from the
writings of clinical and legal writing professors) that this kind of more active role-play-
ing exercise may be growing in popularity along with other nontraditional pedagogical
techniques. - The remaining short-exchange classrooms were Class #2 and Class #8. Class #2,
the largest in the study (135 students), was taught in an elite/prestige law school by a
Notes to Pages 155–164 257