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This study examines the role of discourse in the development of students' understandings of a rule for determining if a number is divisible by 8. The rule was suggested by a student in a seventh-grade mathematics class. Its validity was investigated in whole-class discussions that occurred on 3 consecutive days. In addition to making field notes and videotaping classroom interactions, what students learned was investigated through the use of whole class surveys and interviews with 9 out of 29 students. Discourse served to sustain the investigation, to assist students' development of the idea, and to confuse students. Confusion occurred as a result of "failures of context" when the discourse failed to deal with the complexity of the language structure involved in a rule and to discriminate between meanings of words such as even and evenly. (Author)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert