a question given in response to a question

Today I have been looking over my analysis of sequences of talk that occurred during independent writing when students self-started talk with the teacher. All the sequences begin with a question and in response the teacher asks a question. I take the teacher's utterance in each case to be an insertion of a question since rather than supply an answer she asks a question. In the examples that i have examined in the literature, the insertion of a question results in an answer, and then this leads to the provision of an answer for the first question. This doesn't happen in independent writing.

My gut feeling is that when the teacher asks a question, in response to a student question, it brings into play the IRE sequence i.e the student hears the question as requiring an answer that will then be evaluated by the teacher. In my transcripts, the teacher appears not to provide an evaluation (which would be a very interesting aspect of independent writing). BUT, I'm not sure now since when I developed the transcript I was focused on other aspects of talk. So, I am going to have to return to the video recording of the lesson and look for what follows on from student answers to questions asked by the teacher. I have four sequences of talk that i am interested in so I am going to have to find those sequences and look again at what the teacher does after she asks the question, and what she does after a student response. I THINK she walks away without listening to student responses but I am not sure. if the teacher walks away without evaluating answers provided by students then this interaction deviates from that which characterises classroom interaction (a good find).

I have the tape recordings still and can pursue this. yes, Sacks was right. Recordings provide data that can be returned to -unlike written notes that might be recorded about classroom observation.