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Table 7 Excerpt 1: A segment of discourse from group F’s discussion (lines 1 to 10)

From: Promoting productive argumentation through students' questions

Turn of talk

Student

Discourse

1

C:

Have we cleared all questions?

2

Y:

Let me check, okay, I have one more?

RBC lyse…what was the cause?

3

S:

Can be caused by agglutination or osmosis.

4

C:

Was she injected with something that caused her red blood cell to agglutinate?

5

S:

Oestrogen and anti-androgen are hormones. Don’t think they will cause agglutination otherwise she would be dead long ago right? I mean she was on regular injection.

6

L:

Then, osmosis. If water entered the red blood cells, the red blood cells would become bloated and eventually burst.

7

Y:

Hmmm…for water to enter red blood cells, the external must have higher water potential then the cytoplasm of red blood cell. But plasma concentration should be isotonic to that of red blood cells.

8

L:

Not unless if water entered her lungs and moved into her blood stream, then her blood would have a higher water potential.

9

S:

Yah, that also explains for the presence of river water in the lungs…so clever!

10

C:

Let’s link these together in the mind map.