This study analyzes student discourse ("studenting") in three educational settings - an online prep school, a Mexican prep school, and a German study center - through photos taken during a blended study abroad media literacy course. Studenting looked different in each setting: it was controlled at the study center, directed at the Mexican school with some student agency, and guided at the online school with teacher feedback. The study addresses issues of identity, agency, and discourse in complex educational environments.

1. Kelly Wiechart, Indiana University
School of Education
Literacy, Culture, and Language Education
Mediating Discourses in Place:
Doing #Studenting in Controlled,
Directed, and Guided Spaces

2. ABSTRACT METHODS
Se
FINDINGS
Kelly Wiechart Literacy, Culture & Language Education
IMPLICATIONS
Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA) is a type of
discourse analysis in which the unit of analysis is
the mediated action, which consists of the
performed action, the social actors, and the
semiotic resources being used in this action (Wells
& Wong, 2013). This study focused solely on the
Discourses in Place circulating through the
mediated action of #Studenting in 3 different
institutional settings
Fig 1: Nexus Analysis (Scollon &
Scollon, 2004, p. 20)
Prep-Direction
OPS-Guidance
SSC- Control
This poster shares findings of a partial Nexus Analysis of Discourses
in Place (Scollon & Scollon, 2003) at the three major institutional
sites of engagement for a blended learning travel-abroad media
literacy course. Hansen (2006) explains “to student is to be engaged
in a series of performances whose form and substance are primarily
shaped by the institutional and organizational properties of the
school setting” (102). Analysis of interdiscursive dialogicality of the
mediated action of “studenting” in still photos indicates varied
conceptions about what it means to do studenting in the 21st century
and how they correspond to Dewey’s (1916) three notions of
education: control, direction, guidance.
RQ: What does “studenting” look like in
each of the three sites of engagement?
LLS : It is useful to explore how discourses of place afford and constrain
social interaction amongst the same group of social actors.
Pedagogy: Spaces and practices communicate ideologies that may be in
tension with the stated institutional and educational ideologies.
Teacher Training: Through purposeful disruptions in expected interaction
orders, teachers can change constrained places into agentive spaces.
DATA
Larger Study:
704 still photos (iPhone 5 & iPad 2)
279 videos (iPhone 5 & iPad 2; HD camcorder)
Field notes
Notes from informal communication over 2 years
Tourist artifacts (maps, handouts, train schedules)
School artifacts (rules, signs, institutional materials, websites)
This Study: 36 still photos from 3 institutional sites of
participants engaged in the mediated action of #Studenting
Settings:
Online Prep School, Texas, USA (OPS)
Prepatoria, Mexico City, MX (Prep)
Satellite Study Center, Heidelberg, Germany
(SSC)
Participants:
6 focal secondary students
3 focal teachers
Mediating Discourses in Place: Doing #Studenting in Controlled,
Directed, and Guided Spaces
Further info: kelly.wiechart@gmail.com or click QR
code-
Fig 2 (left) is an image from the
first day of the study abroad
portion of the course set in the
Villa’s (SSC) courtyard. While
awaiting a tourist activity, one
of the SSC summer interns
orchestrated an impromptu
German language lesson. A
focal teacher (seated) is the
only one gesturing in response
to institutional audio-lingual
approach to learning the word
“Entschuldigung.”
#Studenting at SSC meant that
teachers lecture, students listen
and repeat, and all interaction is
controlled by the “teacher.”
Fig 3 (right) is an image of F2F intro for an OPS
online course at Prep. Institutional discourses of
innovation and social justice are in tension with
the panoptican arrangement of the classrooms.
Yet, they are easily negotiated through directed
use of available technologies. Here, one focal
teacher is at the front-stage gesturing to highlight
as students successfully post their “Proofies”
from their mobile phones to the Padlet digital
bulletin board.
In Fig 4 (left), students
are creating their
“About Me”online
profiles in Gravatar for
their Wordpress blogs.
Some students are
writing out their short
bios. Two students
and one teacher at the
computers are doing
login credentials to
enable posting from
mobile devices. One
is playing a game on
his mobile device.
These images of #Studenting in the guided space of
OPS’s Media Literacy course take place inside the Villa
(SSC).
Fig 4-Media Literacy Class Day 1
Fig 5-Media Literacy Class –Day 2
The image in Fig 5 (right) was taken on Day
2 of the OPS course as students were
constructing their “Unique Travel Blog” with
their mobile devices. Students were free to
go anywhere inside the Villa for the 3 hour
workshop. Here, “The Juniors” are checking
with the instructor (seated right) to assure
that their posted blogs are visible and
display as intended on different devices.
Fig 2: Impromptu German Language Class
Fig 3-Literature Course
Intro
#Studenting at Prep is directed
towards a pre-determined aim
with some opportunity for
agency in achieving the aim.
#Studenting at OPS is agentive with
teachers guiding through feedback on
functionality and communicability.

3. Abstract
This poster shares findings of a partial Nexus Analysis of Discourses in Place (Scollon,
2003) at the three major institutional sites of engagement for a blended learning travel-
abroad media literacy course. Hansen (2006) explains “to student is to be engaged in a
series of performances whose form and substance are primarily shaped by the
institutional and organizational properties of the school setting” (102). Analysis of
interdiscursive dialogicality of the mediated action of “studenting” in still photos
indicates varied conceptions about what it means to do studenting in the 21st century and
how they correspond to Dewey’s (1916) three notions of education: control, direction,
guidance.

4. Background
This poster reports on findings from a small subset of data of the dissertation study entitled “Mediating
Identities: Doing being global in a Study Abroad Media Literacy Course.”
Working Abstract:
This study reports on findings of a complex, contextualized blended education world. It is a blend of
modalities, technologies, media, languages, countries, cultures, and literaces. The nature of this blend
facilitates observation of what happens as learners transform formal, informal, and digital learning contexts
into their own agentive spaces. This ethnographic study addresses interdisciplinary gaps in study abroad,
translingualism and complexity education research. Using mediated discourse analysis methods to analyze
filmed observations, interviews, field notes, and course artifacts, this study describes how translingual youth
select and incorporate available semiotic resources to negotiate and co-construct identities across three
primary sites of engagement. This study builds on “poststructuralist conceptions of identity and human
agency” (Norton, 2014) by noting the crucial roles played by educators in facilitating agentive spaces, even in
historically constrictive places. Findings indicate that “emergent teaching” plays important roles in constructing
collaborative agency even in spaces that materially and discursively are quite constraining.
• Keywords: translingual; mediated discourse analysis; complexity; emergence; agency; identity

5. Significance
This study answers calls for a move towards more complex thinking in
sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and education research and directly
addresses four “problems” that R. Scollon (2001) identified as needing
further development:
1. “problem of agency”
2. “problem of
3. “problem of multimodal discourse”
4. “problem of social structures such as institutions and organizations, nations
and cultures”
(Scollon, 2001, p. 17).

6. Settings-The Schools
The focal Media Literacy course was a blended learning collaboration amongst three different education institutions from Mexico,
Germany, and the United States. The program partnership between Prepatoria and OPS has served between 169-209 students each
year since it began in 2011.
Prepatoria (Prep)
The Preparatoria is part of a bilingual PreK-12 faith-based private school located in Mexico City, Mexico. It was founded in 1905 as an
English Academy and became a bilingual school in 1998. The campus recently underwent significant renovations and modernization
to align with the mission of preparing 21st century global citizens.
Online Prep School (OPS)
Regionally accredited Online Prep School (OPS) was established in 2010 and has an annual enrollment of 190-210 students in grades
9-12 (US). The faith-based virtual school currently offers 66 core, elective, and AP-track courses, as well as 13 dual-enrollment
courses in which students concurrently earn high school and college-level credits. OPS offers fully online learning as well as blended
learning options in collaboration with OPS exists purely as an online entity though sharing administrative staff and faculty with two
other high schools affiliated with the Host University (HU) in Texas.
Satellite Study Center (SSC)
Housed in a 105 year old villa in Southern Germany, the Satellite Study Center (SSC) formally joined the Host University system in
2012. Like the OPS, it is semi-autonomous with its own administration, yet term faculty are generally sourced from the Host
University in Texas. The SSC shares a campus with a German language school run by the SSC director’s spouse.

7. Participants
Name Age Home Affiliation
Julia 19 Mexico City, MX Ex-Prep
Amanda 20 Mexico City, MX Ex-Prep
David 16 Mexico City, MX Junior @ Prep
Sofia 16 Mexico City, MX Junior @ Prep
Claudia 16 Mexico City, MX Junior @ Prep
Rick 13 Southwest, USA 8th grader @ public school
Tanya 35 West Coast, USA OPS Lead English Instructor
Kelly 47 East Coast, USA Researcher & HU Adjunct Professor
Samuel 38 Mexico City, MX Prep Maestro
Jesse 50 Southwest, USA OPS & HU Administrator

8. Data Sources
Research Phase Timeline Data Sources Analysis Methods
Phase 1: Online Course
Etic perspective
“Neutral/Objective” Data
May 4-June 29 Class blog site
School websites
Blackboard course site
Nexus analysis
Document analysis
Content analysis
Phase 2: Study Abroad
Emic
Individual Experience
Members’ Generalizations
June 30- July 9 Audio video recording
Observations
Field notes
Photos
Material artifacts
Nexus analysis
Phase 3: Back Home
Playback Responses
Individual Experience
Members’ Generalizations
August 8-13 Stimulated-recall interviews
Audio/video recording
Field notes
Photos
Member checking
Nexus analysis
Content analysis

9. Mediated Discourse Analysis
(MDA) is a type of discourse
analysis in which the unit of
analysis is the mediated action,
which consists of the performed
action, the social actors, and the
semiotic resources being used in
this action (Wells & Wong, 2013).
This study focused solely on the
Discourses in Place circulating
through the mediated action of
#Studenting in 3 different
institutional settings
Methods
Fig 1: Nexus Analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, p. 20)

10. Data
Larger Study:
704 still photos (iPhone 5 & iPad 2)
279 videos (iPhone 5 & iPad 2; HD camcorder)
Field notes
Notes from informal communication over 2 years
Tourist artifacts (maps, handouts, train schedules)
School artifacts (rules, signs, institutional materials, websites)
This Study:
36 still photos from 3 institutional sites of participants engaged in
the mediated action of #Studenting

11. Findings & Discussion
Discourses of/in place varied significantly across the three institutional
sites. The notion of “seit Zeit ” (since Time) was quite dominant in the
SSC. I coded this as a way of venerating something based on its
longevity. It was quite interesting that Prep is actually five years older
than the SSC, yet that notion was very hidden in their institutional
discourses. Rather, discourses of globalization, innovation, and being
“state of the art” are prominent in the newly built (2009) places of the
Prep campus. OPS exists as an online entity with material discourses
aligned to their mission of providing “academic excellence and social
justice by providing faith-based educational opportunities to the global
community.”

12. SSC-Controlled
Fig 2 (left) is an image from the
first day of the study abroad
portion of the course set in the
Villa’s (SSC) courtyard. While
awaiting a tourist activity, one of
the SSC summer interns
orchestrated an impromptu
German language lesson. A focal
teacher (seated) is the only one
gesturing in response to
institutional audio-lingual
approach to learning the word
“Entschuldigung.”
Fig 2: Impromptu German Language Class

13. Preperatoria--Directed
• Fig 3 (right) is an image of F2F intro
for an OPS online course at Prep.
Institutional discourses of
innovation and social justice are in
tension with the panoptican
arrangement of the classrooms.
Yet, they are easily negotiated
through directed use of available
technologies. Here, one focal
teacher is at the front-stage
gesturing to highlight as students
successfully post their “Proofies”
from their mobile phones to the
Padlet digital bulletin board.
Fig 3-Literature Course Intro

14. OPS: Guided
In Fig 4 (left), students are
creating their “About Me”online
profiles in Gravatar for their
Wordpress blogs. Some students
are writing out their short bios.
Two students and one teacher at
the computers are doing login
credentials to enable posting from
mobile devices. One is playing a
game on his mobile device.

15. OPS-Guided cont.
The image in Fig 5 (right) was
taken on Day 2 of the OPS course
as students were constructing
their “Unique Travel Blog” with
their mobile devices. Students
were free to go anywhere inside
the Villa for the 3 hour workshop.
Here, “The Juniors” are checking
with the instructor (seated right)
to assure that their posted blogs
are visible and display as
intended on different devices.
Fig 5-Media Literacy Class –Day 2

16. Conclusions
#Studenting at SSC meant that teachers lecture, students
listen and repeat, and all interaction is controlled by the
“teacher.”
#Studenting at Prep is directed towards a pre-determined
aim with some opportunity for agency in achieving the aim.
#Studenting at OPS is agentive with teachers guiding
through feedback on functionality and communicability.

17. Implications
LLS : It is useful to explore how discourses of place afford and constrain
social interaction amongst the same group of social actors.
Pedagogy: Spaces and practices communicate ideologies that may be in
tension with the stated institutional and educational ideologies.
Teacher Training: Through purposeful disruptions in expected interaction
orders, teachers can change constrained places into agentive spaces.

18. References
Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and education. Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm
Hansen, D. (2006) John Dewey and our educational prospect: A critical engagement
with Dewey’s Democracy and Education. Albany: State University of New York Press,
Project MUSE. Web 20 March 2015 http://muse.jhu.edu/
Scollon, R. (2001). Mediated Discourse: The nexus of practice. New York: Routledge.
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (2003). Discourses in Place: Language in the material world.
New York: Routledge.