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Edutopia
What Productive Talk Looks Like in the Elementary Grades
Using sentence stems to scaffold classroom discussions guides students
to speak, actively listen, and build on each others’ ideas.
By Susan O’Brien
October 14, 2019
I used to think that the perfect classroom had students sitting in
rows, hands folded, with their eyes on me. “All eyes on me” was in fact
my favorite teacher line. Having an attentive audience was one of the
reasons teaching was fun for me.
Fast-forward 35 years to my last year of teaching before I transitioned
to being an instructional coach—my students were at tables or sitting
knee-to-knee in small groups. They weren’t quiet, and they were
facilitating their own learning. The chatter was rigorous and the ideas
were flowing. How did we get there? I taught my fifth-grade students
talk moves—sentence stems and key phrases that help students speak,
actively listen, and build on each other’s ideas.
INTRODUCING THE TALK MOVES
I presented the talk moves over four days. After I introduced each talk
move, we practiced what it would sound like in our classroom. For
example, when students wanted to expand their peer’s thinking, that
sounded like “What do you mean by that?” or “Can you give an example?”
On the fourth day, after students had learned the talk moves, a group
of four students modeled them. The rest of the class observed and then
gave the group feedback by naming the talk moves they saw their peers
use.
I kept a bulletin board in the classroom with the talk moves up all
year long. This gave my students key phrases to activate their talking,
thinking, and listening—like “I respectfully disagree because ___.”
Building the routines takes time, but in the long run it saves time by
engaging students and making the time much more productive. As the
school year progressed, we would sometimes need to revisit the talk
moves to reflect on how the talk looked—students sitting facing each
other, in a circle or knee-to-knee—and what it sounded like when it was
working well. The bulletin board was used as a reference guide most
every hour of our day.
THE TALK MOVES
Time to think: When I introduced this to students, we quickly discussed
why it’s important to allow each other time to think—having that think
time helps students articulate their thoughts. To practice this talk
move, I gave students time to jot down a few ideas before they started
talking, and during conversations they could say, “I need time to
think.” Allowing for quiet moments and thought to become routine will
encourage think time to happen as students later work in small groups
or with a partner. I also brought to students’ attention when I used
this move as a teacher. I’d say, “Notice, I just used think time.”
Say more: Too many times people talk and don’t listen. This talk move
gets students listening as they ask their classmates for clarification.
Having students ask questions like “Can you say more about that?” “What
do you mean by that?” or “Can you give an example?” encourages active
listening and back-and-forth discussion between students.
So, are you saying ___? Summarizing helps students check their
understanding and verify with speakers that they communicated what they
intended to. Some helpful sentence stems: “Let me see if I understand
what you are saying: ___” and “Are you saying ___?”
Who can repeat or rephrase that? Students have to listen carefully if
they are going to repeat what someone else said. Having students ask
each other, “How can we say that differently?” or “Can you put that in
your own words?” also deepens content understanding.
What is your evidence or reasoning? As students explain their thought
process, they deepen their own thinking as well as their classmates’.
In all subjects, students should be making claims and backing them up
with evidence. They can ask each other questions like “What is your
evidence?” “Why do you think that?” “Is there anything in the text that
makes you think that?” and “Where did you get that information?”
Challenge or counterexample: When students are introduced to a
conflicting example, it pushes their thinking and deepens their
understanding. They can gently challenge each other’s thinking by
asking questions like “Does it always work that way?” “How does that
idea work with a different example?” and “What if it had been ___
instead?”
Agree and disagree: Conflict isn’t always easy, but it’s important for
students to learn how to respectfully express their opinions and know
that it’s OK to change their mind when they are introduced to new
information. These sentence stems can help facilitate constructive
communication: “I respectfully disagree because ___,” “I agree with
___,” and “Are you saying the same thing as ___?”
Add on: Sentence stems like “I would like to add on to that,” “Adding
on to what [another student] said, ___,” and “Can I push that idea a
bit further?” helps students work together to build upon their prior
knowledge.
Explain what someone else means: Having students put their peers’
responses into their own words gives more students ownership over the
answer, exposes them to different ways about thinking about the answer,
and allows you to check for understanding. You can get this talk move
started by asking, “Why do you think he said that?” and students can
initiate it by saying, “I can explain what ___ means by that” or “I can
put that into my own words.”
Teaching students to talk productively in the classroom is the most
important change I’ve made in my teaching career. I’ve used talk moves
with students in all areas of the curriculum. As an instructional
coach, I find that teachers benefit from using talk moves in
professional development, too. We all need to talk, process, and share
to be truly learning.
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