Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to demonstrate that the manner in which children develop points of view in classroom writing is a function of how children verbally interact with their teachers. Eighty-two fourth graders were classified as using one of three verbal interaction patterns, or registers (Halliday, 1918). When given the instructions to write a story about a picture, children who employed an imitative response register used more descriptive information in developing their point of view than did children in the other two register groups; these imitative children developed mostly expository points of view. Children employing a noncontingent response register tended to use more schema-creative information in developing their points of view than did those in the other two register groups; these noncontingent children tended to develop narrative points of view in which a character's specified goal was only incidentally related to the outcome. Children who employed a contingent response register tended to develop points of view that made the most consistent use of task, stimulus, and schema information. These results are interpreted in terms of a proposed theory of perspectivetaking.