The Person Who Does the Talking Does the Learning!

Yesterday’s blog on the subject of distance learning got me thinking about student conversation. I was thinking about the energy that abounds in a classroom and the excitement of students wanting to talk to each other or to their teacher.

Increasingly over the last few years, the time for these
conversations has been minimized by the pressure to get it all done and get through the daily lesson plans. We ignore all of the research telling us that conversation with peers improves comprehension and engagement with texts. We revise our schedules to allow more time teaching specific skills in isolation and pushing toward more question and
answer episodes where the teacher is doing most of the talking. It feels counter-intuitive to give them more talk time when our minutes are limited and there is so much information to cram into their little heads. We continue to view students as empty vessels that we have to fill, instead of seeing them as having important information and life experiences that contribute to the goal of learning. We have all been guilty of being in the middle of the lesson and seeing the blank stares and realizing “they’re not getting it”. So now what do we do? We talk more and teach more because if we talk slower, louder, or try it a different way they will eventually get it. Right? But when we look at their faces 10, 20, 30 minutes later, all we see is the blank stares looking back at us! Students are just as confused and you, the teacher is utterly exhausted and frustrated. Have you ever been there or done that? However, this goes against what research tells us about how children process, evaluate, retain and utilize information.

John Hattie tells us that based on analyses of classroom observations, on average teachers pose about 200–300 questions per day and speak about 80% of the time. Richard Allington’s research teaches us that talk is an essential element in elementary literacy instruction. It is often underutilized, but the most easy-to-implement means of improving comprehension. Allington found that in highly effective classrooms teachers used a more conversational means of talk vs. interrogational. Students talk more with their peers about ideas, concepts, hypotheses, strategies and responses to others’ thinking.

One way we can increase student talk time is to think about our initial questions. How well do they initiate or invigorate students ability to stimulate and thrust ownership of conversations into the hands of the students, while also deepening understanding and transfer of concepts? Look at this conversation in Guided Reading about the text Katie Woo: Red, White, and Blue by Fran Manushkin. The story is about a girl named
Katie and her friends that are celebrating the Fourth of July by attending a parade and then enjoying a party in Katie’s backyard. The teacher is attempting to have students think more deeply about Katie’s perspective about the day.

Red, White, and Blue and Katie Woo!

(after reading the first chapter)

T: Why is the 4th of July Katie’s favorite holiday? (Factual)

S: She likes it best of all.

T: But why is it her favorite?

S: She’s having a parade in her backyard.

S: She having a party too!

T: Why do they put decorations on their bike?

S: They wanted their bikes to look nice.

T: But did the text say they wanted their bikes to look nice.

S: No, but when I put up decorations on my bike, I want it to look nice.

S: Yeah, me too.

T: Where are they going? To the _____

S: parade

T: So why would Katie, Pedro, and JoJo decorate their bikes?

S: To look pretty for the parade.

The teacher in this excerpt made many attempts to get the children to expand their responses and think more broadly about what was happening, but only elaborated with a few words. This conversation started off with a narrow factual question and continued to ping-pong from the teacher to the student. Based on the Text Talk research of Isabel Beck and Margaret McKeown, we know that initial questions should be open questions that require students to describe and explain text ideas, rather than recall and retrieve words from the text. Allington also suggests that interactions with the texts are more meaningful and deep when children are analyzing, commenting
and comparing the text rather than recalling or telling information.

Take a look at this conversation about the same text:

T: What do we know about Katie so far? (inferential)

S: Katie loves holidays especially the Fourth of July.

S: Yeah, she is excited about having a party and parade in her backyard.

T: Do all of the characters introduced share Katie’s excitement or perspective about the Fourth of July? Make sure you have evidence to back up your argument.

S: Yes, because Pedro and Jojo decorated their bikes with red, white and blue decorations.

S: I agree, and when Katie said she was excited about the parade and party, Pedro told her don’t forget about the fireworks, so he must like the fireworks the best.

S: Oooh! I want to add on, the parents were excited too.

T: Whose parents?

S: Katie’s parents because when they rode by in the parade on their bikes, everybody was cheering and Katie’s mom and dad yell at them “Way to go!”

S: I didn’t think about the parents. Look they have their arms up cheering in the picture. Yeah, I agree with Juan. They had to be excited too because they were having the party. Katie is just a kid so she can’t throw a party by herself so her parents had to want to celebrate too.

The teacher in this excerpt talked about the same book but allowed for a broader initial question that set the conversation on a trajectory that allowed students to think more deeply about not only the main character but also the secondary characters in the story. Readers were better able to make connections and in conjunction with revelations from peers, they heightened their understanding of the story and the ability to think about the perspectives of multiple characters.

Doing the work of intentionally planning and writing good open-ended, inferential and critical thinking questions is what is needed for students to be able to deepen their understanding and ability to discuss the subject matter.

Here are a couple questions to ask yourself as your plan for student-focused conversations:

• How can I provide more opportunities for students to take ownership of their learning through conversation?
• How can I broadening conversations so my students will think more deeply about their reading and writing.
• How can I intentionally incorporate student-focused conversations during distance learning?

If this is something you are interested in and want to investigate further, I have listed a few ideas of how you can monitor student-focused conversations in your classroom.

1. Videotape yourself and reflect on the ratio of student talk versus teacher talk;
2. Ask a colleague or a coach to observe and discuss what they notice about the amount of time students are engaging in deep reading and writing conversations (partnerships, book clubs, group talk).
3. Try out an initial question that is open-ended and allows readers to deepen their understanding of the information the author wants the reader to learn in the text.

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

― Frederick Douglass

Mary

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