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Focus on Feedback: Highlighting Strategy

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Focus on Feedback: Highlighting Strategy

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If you're like me, you have tried everything from setting timers to creating carefully crafted rubrics to cut down on essay grading time. No matter the grading method, my school bag full of student writing still glares at me from the corner of my kitchen every weekend, taunting me with the hours upon hours of work I have yet to conquer.

However, I recently found the answer to my grading woes in an unexpected place: a standards based learning conference presented by the guru himself, Rick Wormeli.

Mr. Wormeli shared a video of a math classroom where the teacher graded papers by highlighting the errors, handing the papers back, and asking students to identify, discuss, and revise the mistakes. It was such a meaningful learning activity for her students, and it saved the teacher valuable grading time. The lightbulb immediately went off in my head: highlighting errors in student writing can save me grading time, too. The highlighting technique can also lead to meaningful learning opportunities for my students.

Since Rick Wormeli's conference, I have had the opportunity to grade 89 narrative writing pieces ranging from 2 pages to 38 (I might have some future authors in my classroom!). I used the highlighting technique and cut my grading time in half.

These are the steps I took to apply the highlighting technique in my 7th grade ELA classroom:

1. Highlight the Errors

I highlighted grammatical errors in yellow, revisions in green. If a student had a run-on sentence, I simply put a yellow highlight where the period should be. Several students used the wrong there/their/they're; I highlighted it in yellow. One student told the reader what the characters were saying instead of showing readers the dialogue; I highlighted that section in green.

Normally, I would have commented or corrected most of these errors. By simply highlighting with no comments, I cut out several minutes of grading time per paper, while still identifying the mistakes for students.

I also decided not to highlight each student's entire paper. For most narratives, I stopped highlighting after a few paragraphs and drew a line so students could continue finding similar errors on their own. My intention is not to overwhelm students with a paper covered in splotches of florescent yellow and green; I want them to identify mistakes as learning opportunities.

2. Give Students One Rockstar Moment

Mary T. Lane once said that writing is the soul on paper. My student authors poured their hearts into their narrative writing and spent weeks crafting, revising, editing, and conferencing their stories. I felt that if I handed back student narratives with only highlighted errors, they would be incredibly disappointed.

I created a simple form with two text boxes: one to identify each student's rockstar moment and one to identify a suggestion to strengthen the narrative. This form provided me a place to celebrate my students' writing while also giving students a few written comments.

3. Let Students Do the Work of Learning

When I handed back my student narratives, I reviewed how to interpret the highlighting: yellow means a grammatical error is present; green means a revision will strengthen the writing. I then set a timer for 5 minutes and told my students to review their highlights and identify as many errors as they could, challenging them to fix the errors that they could identify.

Next, I asked my students to share their "favorite mistakes" with a partner. Our favorite mistakes were the mistakes that helped us to learn the most. The student conversations were amazing! Kids were easily able to spot several of their errors and fix them without the excessive comments that I would normally leave.

After students shared their favorite mistakes, we had a whole class discussion, creating a list of our favorite mistakes and their fixes. We also shared some of the mistakes that students were stumped by, and as a class, we came up with ways to fix the errors. So much learning was happening, and students were the ones doing the work of learning.

4. Hand Back the Rubric Separately

When I handed back student papers, I did not hand back their grades. Student grades were recorded separately in my grade book and on rubrics that I shared with students at a conference later that week.

When teachers hand back grades to students, students tend to believe that the grade equates to the end of learning--the judgment has been made. However, when we hand back papers with feedback only, students focus on the feedback. Any time I spend highlighting and leaving my simple comments (the rockstar moment and the suggestion for strengthening the writing piece) is time well spent. Students are using and applying the feedback while growing as writers.

At the end of class, students took home their papers with the task of revising their writing for homework, due at the end of the week. When students brought back their revised papers, I was able to conference with each student, asking them to identify their revisions, sharing their rubric grade, and adjusting their grade as necessary. All the work is done in class.

Changing my method of giving feedback using highlighting has helped my students to grow as writers, and it has helped save me precious time as a teacher. Instead of that bag full of papers taunting me from the corner of my kitchen, I can focus on building curriculum and planning ways to help my students overcome some of the challenges they face as writers.

Too often, ELA teachers become sucked into piles of papers only to leave feedback that gets ignored. The highlighting technique will save you from the struggle and help your students to grow as writers.

Download my feedback form to use with your students by clicking on the image below:

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Save Grading Time and Provide Meaningful Feedback: It Is Possible

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If you're like me, you have tried everything from setting timers to creating carefully crafted rubrics to cut down on essay grading time.

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Graphs, maps and charts from The Times -- and an invitation to students to discuss them live.

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Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices

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Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices

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WWC | Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices

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This guide presents strategies that classroom teachers and specialists can use to increase the reading ability of adolescent students.

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Diagrams, Timelines, and TablesOh, My Fostering Graphical Literacy

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Diagrams, Timelines, and TablesOh, My Fostering Graphical Literacy

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November 2013 | Volume 71 | Number 3
Tackling Informational Text Pages 62-66

Rebecca R. Norman and Kathryn L. Roberts

The graphics in books have a purpose. Don't let students ignore them.

Take a minute to look through your classroom library. How many of your books have graphics in them? What do you do with those graphics when you are reading aloud to your students? What do students do with them when they are reading on their own? If you are like many teachers and students we have observed, you focus most of your time on the written words, and little on the graphics.

Although you probably wouldn't go to this extreme, we know one 1st grade teacher who covered up all the graphics in the books he read aloud to his students because he believed they took away from the reading experience. Along those same lines, we spoke to one 2nd grade boy who considered looking at the pictures to be "babyish" and "cheating." Countless students have told us they like having lots of pictures in their textbooks, which caused us to cheer until they told us it was because all those pictures meant there was less to read. Those children seemed to think of graphics as space fillers and, therefore, largely ignored them.

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November 2013 | Volume 71 | Number 3 Tackling Informational Text Pages 62-66 Rebecca R. Norman and Kathryn L. Roberts The graphics in books have a purpose. Don't let students ignore them. Take a minute to look through your classroom library. How many of your books have graphics in them?

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Visual Thinking Strategies is a popular teaching method initiated by teacher-discussions of art images, and is commonly documented for having positive effects of teachers and students.

Today, VTS is used in museums, schools, universities and health institutions around the world, and as an organization, provides workshop training for educators.

A Brief Intro to VTS

"Visual Thinking Strategies" is an inquiry-based teaching method created by cognitive psychologist Abigail House and museum educator Philip Yenawine. In Yenawine's latest book, he defines VTS as the use of art to teach "visual literacy, thinking, and communication skills."

The official Visual Thinking Strategies website, vtshome.org, describes how art is imperative: "Art is the essential first discussion topic because it enables students to use existing visual and cognitive skills to develop confidence and experience, learning to use what they already know to figure out what they don't; they are then prepared to explore other complex subject matter alone and with peers."

The main aspects of VTS teaching practice include three key inquiries:

1. What's going on in this picture?

2. What do you see what makes you say that?

3. What more can we find?

For more information, watch this video capturing practical use of VTS in the classroom:

VTS and the Common Core Standards from Visual Thinking Strategies on Vimeo.

Lesson Plans for VTS

1. The Learning Network at The New York Times Blog

Every Monday, The Learning Network at the NY Times posts a new photograph with the question, "What's Going On in This Picture?" Participants are invited to join the conversation in the comments, and read what others have posted. VTS will lead a discussion on the comments from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

2. Integrating Technology and Literacy: Five Card Flickr

Invented by educator Alan Levine, this story-telling game using images from Flickr.com can be easily guided by the three core questions of VTS.

3. Various Sources via Pinterest.com

Social networking website Pinterest proves to be a valuable resources for teachers looking for creative lessons plans.

Good Resources for Learning How to Teach VTS

1. Visual Thinking Strategies: Using Art to Deepen Learning Across School Disciplines, by Philip Yenawine.

The book by the cocreator of the VTS curriculum details his experiences teaching elementary school age students. The stories show how VTS can be easily integrated into the classroom with structured discussions of visual art. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 1, " Permission To Wonder."

2. Cases on Teaching Critical Thinking through Visual Representation Strategies, by Leonard Shedletsky

This book compiles research from scholars and education professionals to provide more insight into student development through visual thinking.

3. Rutgers University Study: " On Using Museum Methods in the Classroom: A Case Study with VTS"

Teacher and museum educator Emily Monty examines VTS, a teaching method traditionally used in museums, and the challenges and rewards of translating it to the classroom.

Written and Compiled by Samantha DiMauro, Education World Contributor

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How to Teach Visual Thinking Strategies to Your Students

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Visual Thinking Strategies is a popular teaching method initiated by teacher-discussions of art images, and is commonly documented for having positive effects of teachers and students. Today, VTS is used in museums, schools, universities and health institutions around the world, and as an organization, provides workshop training for educators.

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April 2020 | Volume 77 | Number 7

Unlocked articles can be read for free by all visitors.

Members and subscribers log in to read all articles.

Feature Articles

Columns / Departments

Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey

Use the power of close reading to deepen student discussions about texts. Watch the video.

Reader responses to recent issues of EL.

Advisory: Trends and Ideas

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

Jon Simmons

With just a pen and paper, you can track classroom discussions to ensure all voices are being heard.

Jeff Zwiers

How can we get beyond shallow student discussions? By using the right approach and tools to sharpen skills at building up ideas.

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April 2020 | Volume 77 | Number 7 Unlocked articles can be read for free by all visitors. Members and subscribers log in to read all articles. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey Use the power of close reading to deepen student discussions about texts. Watch the video.

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What Literacy Looks Like in My Discipline

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What Literacy Looks Like in My Discipline

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Using Questions to Drive Content Area Learning- Revising Old Favorites

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Printed Copies for Informational Texts (Secondary)

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What Literacy Skills Do Students Really Need for Work_ - Education Week

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What Literacy Skills Do Students Really Need for Work_ - Education Week

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What Literacy Skills Do Students Really Need for Work_ - Education Week

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Disciplinary Literacy in Physical Education

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Disciplinary Literacy in English Language Arts

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Disciplinary Literacy in a World Language

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What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy

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What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy

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It's a given that we want our students to read well.
We want them to handle challenging material strategically, to comprehend all of its nuances clearly, to break it down and analyze it, and more than anything, to remember what they read.

Lately, the mandate to support student reading has been directed outside the English language arts classroom: Teachers of history, science, and other subjects are now expected to weave literacy instruction into their teaching of content. But how should they do that? What are the most effective ways to help students learn to read challenging content-area texts?

One way is to teach them text structures. This is different from text features - the headings, subheadings, and supporting visuals that writers use to highlight key points. A text structure is its overall organization: Common text structures are cause and effect, sequence, and compare/contrast. And research shows that when students are explicitly taught to identify text structures while they read, they understand the material better and retain more of it after reading (National Institute for Literacy, 2007).

This video shows you how to teach text structures:

Tools to Get You Started

Graphic Organizers

Teaching text structures is much easier with the help of graphic organizers. The organizers featured in this video, along with several others, are included in this Graphic Organizer Multi-Pack, available now in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

Signal Terms

Students will be able to identify text structures more easily if they become familiar with signal terms, words and phrases that frequently occur in certain types of texts. Here's a free chart from the University of Tennessee's Center for Literacy, Education & Employment that shows common text structures with their signal terms: Informational-Text-Structures

Further Reading

What Content-Area Teachers Should Know About Adolescent Literacy
National Institute for Literacy, 2007
Every teacher interested in supporting students' reading and writing should grab a copy of this free 61-page PDF. It includes the strategies mentioned here, plus dozens of others for supporting student reading and writing in the content areas.

20 Strategies to Teach Text Structure
Kristi Orcutt, ESSDACK.org
This PDF provides some fantastic ideas for teaching students how to recognize text structures and use them to improve their comprehension.

Like what you've seen so far?
If you found this article useful, I'd love to have you come back for more.Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration - in quick, bite-sized packages - all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my new e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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When We All Teach Text Structures, Everyone Wins

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Teachers of history, science, and other subjects are now expected to weave literacy instruction into their teaching of content. But how should they do that? What are the most effective ways to help students learn to read challenging content-area texts?

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The Great and Powerful Graphic Organizer | Cult of Pedagogy

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Beneath its simplicity lies an absolute dynamo, a vehicle that can cement learning more firmly than a lot of the other stuff we try, in a lot less time.

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Decision Pathways for Selecting Texts (1) (1)

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Vocabulary_ Five Common Misconceptions - Educational Leadership

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Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction

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Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction

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Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction - Educational Leadership

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Four Practical Principles for Enhancing Vocabulary Instruction

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Four Practical Principles for Enhancing Vocabulary Instruction

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Four Practical Principles for Enhancing Vocabulary Instruction

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The Fisheye Syndrome: Is Every Student Really Participating?

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The Fisheye Syndrome: Is Every Student Really Participating?

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Greta just had an amazing discussion with her fifth period history class. They've been studying the Holocaust, and in today's class, they just nailed it. She had originally planned for about ten minutes of discussion, but things were going so well, she let it go for the whole period. Days like this rock.

Except for the stuff she didn't notice. Like Haley.

Haley is in Greta's fifth period. She had a lot of questions today, but never found the right moment to ask them. She doesn't like to interrupt. A few times, she almost put her hand up, but someone else would start talking before she ever managed to lift it.

Robert is in that class too. He felt like an idiot the whole period - that one kid kept mentioning the Third Reich, and Robert wasn't 100 percent sure what that was. He definitely didn't want to ask.

Nadia thought the discussion was dumb - people really oversimplified the whole tragedy. But she didn't want to start any trouble, so she said nothing.

And Becky and Kyle? The super shy ones? Naturally, they also stayed quiet. Oh, and three other students secretly texted the whole time. In fact, in Greta's class of 28 students, only nine of them actually contributed to that discussion: Four of those were really into it, five commented once. The other nineteen just sat there. The whole time. Really.

Greta doesn't realize that she is suffering from the Fisheye Syndrome. It's a condition that impacts our perception, as if we're looking through a fisheye lens - the kind they use in peepholes. To those afflicted with fisheye, some students appear "larger" than others. They take up more energy and grab more of our attention, making the others fade into the periphery. We have a vague sense that the others are there, and we nag ourselves to include them, but those magnified students are just too hard to resist.

Maybe you're thinking this doesn't apply to you, especially if you're used to having animated debates with your students. Unlike some classrooms, where students are asleep most of the time, yours is interactive and engaging, right? Here's the weird thing: The fact that your class seems so lively might actually be a stronger indication that you're operating behind the fisheye lens.

I've been guilty of fisheye teaching. A lot. Recently, even. And I've seen many other teachers, good teachers, do it too.

I don't think any of us do it on purpose. We do it out of habit, and because it's so freakin' gratifying: You pose a question, and one of your sharp, verbal kids pipes up right away with an answer. It's a good answer, one that takes the class in the direction you were hoping they'd go, demonstrating a solid grasp of the material. Wow, you think, they're really learning! (...and, if we're being honest: You like me! You really like me!) Then it happens with another student, another extrovert, and then one more. Things are hopping now, a bona fide "class" discussion, but really, you're just volleying with three or four students. Most of the others have already checked out. We don't realize it because we're high on the whole thing, the nice rhythm we've got going with those three or four, that we lie to ourselves just a little.

So even if you have the tiniest suspicion that you might be afflicted, do some investigating. The best way is to videotape a few of your classes. The only problem is, once you become aware of the imbalance in participation, you're more likely to try and correct it while videotaping. Not necessarily a bad thing, unless you overcorrect for the recording, then go back to old habits and never recognize the presence of the fisheye. Another diagnostic tool is a laminated seating chart: Using a dry-erase marker, put a mark in each student's place on the chart every time he or she contributes to the class. In no time you'll have a visual on who is talking and who isn't.

Whether you think this is an issue in your teaching or not, my goal here is just to put the bug in your ear. To raise your awareness. Tomorrow, when you interact with your students, move your vision to the periphery and ask yourself if those students are as involved as they could be.

Sure, there's an element of "no duh" here: Obviously, increasing student participation is a good thing. But apart from making school a more interesting place to be, why is it important to get all of our students involved in discussions? Can't a student get just as much from listening as they would from actively participating?

Discussion equals formative assessment.
Classroom discussion is one of the simplest, quickest, and most effective means of formative assessment we have. By asking our students good questions, we can determine what they know and how well they know it in seconds. But when we allow a pattern to emerge where only our most confident and verbal kids respond, we miss the opportunity to assess the thinking of the others, and we may very well be fooling ourselves into thinking they're all getting it, when really, they're not.

The quiet ones MUST learn to speak.
Every year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers surveys employers about the skills they most want in potential employees (updated in 2016). In 2013, the 'ability to verbally communicate with persons inside and outside the organization' was near the top of the list. If our task is to help students become college- and career-ready, we are responsible for helping them grow as talkers. All of our students-especially the quiet ones-must learn how to present their ideas effectively, and no amount of listening compares to the cognitive and social challenge of actually having to frame your thoughts into coherent spoken sentences. Although our painfully shy students will resist, and our compassion will make us want to protect them, we do them no favors by letting them avoid this practice. Writer and teacher Jessica Lahey, in her February 2013 Atlantic column, agrees: "If anything," she says, "I feel even more strongly that my introverted students must learn how to self-advocate by communicating with parents, educators, and the world at large."

The talkers MUST learn to listen.
The extroverts need to learn how to let someone else take the stage. In school, in their careers, and in their most important relationships, listening skills are hugely important. Chances are, your big talkers don't have a lot of practice in skills like paraphrasing another person's ideas, asking thoughtful follow-up questions, or thinking quietly before they speak. By making a concerted effort to balance the participation in our classes, we are also giving those extroverts a chance to grow in ways that could have a powerful impact on their quality of life.

So now that the lens is off, how to keep it off? How do we get more students involved? First of all, know that the goal is not to have all students participate at exactly the same rate; the push should be for more balance. If your quieter students contribute one good comment per discussion, that's a step in the right direction.

Here are some ways to balance things out:

Make your intentions transparent. Talk to your students about this issue, and ask them to help change the current dynamic. This will prepare your quiet students, so they won't be startled by the sudden shift in attention. It will also help your extroverts understand why they are no longer getting the floor the way they're used to. Some of this might happen behind the scenes: For the class dominators, you might encourage them to limit the number of comments they make to three per class, or offer points any time they paraphrase or build on another student's comment or question. For those who typically hang back, have them choose a question ahead of time that they feel they could contribute something to, and plan to call on them for that item.

Increase wait time. Typically, female students and those with more reflective learning styles need more time to process higher-level questions. This can be accomplished with some good old-fashioned wait time. We should be waiting at least three seconds between posing a question and calling on a student to answer. (Easier said than done.) This gives everyone more time to think about what they want to say. Want to go even further? Add a "no hands" time, where no one gets to raise their hands at first: You ask the question, EVERYONE thinks for a moment about their answer with their hands down, then give them the go-ahead to raise their hands, then you call on someone. You'll be surprised at what a difference this makes to the number of hands that go up.

Pre-load discussions. Give shy students a head start by slipping them the discussion questions ahead of time. Actually, go ahead and give them to everyone. The talkative students could also benefit from some more thinking time.

Vary discussion formats. Any time you can give students a chance to share their thoughts with a smaller audience, you build their courage to share them with the larger group. This is where think-pair-share comes in handy: Rather than holding whole-class free-for-alls, put students in groups of 2 to 4 and pose questions one at a time, allowing each group to talk it over with each other first, then call on representatives to recap for the whole class. Take this a step further by doing a think-WRITE-pair-share, where each student first considers their own answer, writes it down, then shares it with someone else. Not only does this give them more thinking time, it also forces them to answer the question on their own, rather than "what that guy said."

Use icons. This strategy, described by Ruth Wickham, an English language teacher in Malaysia, is an ingenious way to get active participation from students in large classes. "I printed out four sets of little pictures, just clip-art type things, then I cut them up and stuck one on the first inside page of each (participant) workbook. The icons were all mixed up, so no one had the same as the person next to them, and there were four of each scattered around the room." She then placed the same icons onto certain slides in her presentation. Whenever an icon (such as a duck) appeared on the screen, participants who had a duck on their paper had to come to the front of the room and answer a question or perform a task. "The looks on their faces every time they saw an icon appear was just classic! We all had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs even with such a big group."

Some students are naturally going to be more active, more talkative, livelier than others. We're not trying to make them all be the same, just better, stronger, more balanced versions of the people that showed up on day one. With your little case of fisheye taken care of, you'll be ready to help every one of them stretch closer to their full potential. That's when the real conversation will begin. ♦

Stick around.
If you liked this one, I'd love to have you come back for more.Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and joyful. When you join, you'll have access to my Members-Only Library of free downloadable resources, including the e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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The Fisheye Syndrome: Is Every Student Really Participating?

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Greta just had an amazing discussion with her fifth period history class. They've been studying the Holocaust, and in today's class, they just nailed it. She had originally planned for about ten minutes of discussion, but things were going so well, she let it go for the whole period.

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Math Constructive Conversation Skills Poster 

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The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

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The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
When I worked with student teachers on developing effective lesson plans, one thing I always asked them to revise was the phrase "We will discuss."
We will discuss the video. We will discuss the story. We will discuss our results.
Every time I saw it in a lesson plan, I would add a note: "What format will you use? What questions will you ask? How will you ensure that all students participate?" I was pretty sure that We will discuss actually meant the teacher would do most of the talking; He would throw out a couple of questions like "So what did you think about the video?" or "What was the theme of the story?" and a few students would respond, resulting in something that looked like a discussion, but was ultimately just a conversation between the teacher and a handful of extroverted students; a classic case of Fisheye Teaching.

The problem wasn't them; in most of the classrooms where they'd sat as students, that's exactly what a class discussion looked like. They didn't know any other "formats." I have only ever been familiar with a few myself. But when teachers began contacting me recently asking for a more comprehensive list, I knew it was time to do some serious research.

So here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging. If you've struggled to find effective ways to develop students' speaking and listening skills, this is your lucky day.

I've separated the strategies into three groups. The first batch contains the higher-prep strategies, formats that require teachers to do some planning or gathering of materials ahead of time. Next come the low-prep strategies, which can be used on the fly when you have a few extra minutes or just want your students to get more active. Note that these are not strict categories; it's certainly possible to simplify or add more meat to any of these structures and still make them work. The last group is the ongoing strategies. These are smaller techniques that can be integrated with other instructional strategies and don't really stand alone. For each strategy, you'll find a list of other names it sometimes goes by, a description of its basic structure, and an explanation of variations that exist, if any. To watch each strategy in action, click on its name and a new window will open with a video that demonstrates it.

Enjoy!
a.k.a. Chat Stations
Basic Structure: Stations or posters are set up around the classroom, on the walls or on tables. Small groups of students travel from station to station together, performing some kind of task or responding to a prompt, either of which will result in a conversation.

Variations: Some Gallery Walks stay true to the term gallery, where groups of students create informative posters, then act as tour guides or docents, giving other students a short presentation about their poster and conducting a Q&A about it. In Starr Sackstein's high school classroom, her stations consisted of video tutorials created by the students themselves. Before I knew the term Gallery Walk, I shared a strategy similar to it called Chat Stations, where the teacher prepares discussion prompts or content-related tasks and sets them up around the room for students to visit in small groups.
a.k.a. Values Continuum, Forced Debate, Physical Barometer, This or That
Basic Structure: A statement that has two possible responses-agree or disagree-is read out loud. Depending on whether they agree or disagree with this statement, students move to one side of the room or the other. From that spot, students take turns defending their positions.

Variations: Often a Philosophical Chairs debate will be based around a text or group of texts students have read ahead of time; students are required to cite textual evidence to support their claims and usually hold the texts in their hands during the discussion. Some teachers set up one hot seat to represent each side, and students must take turns in the seat. In less formal variations (which require less prep), a teacher may simply read provocative statements students are likely to disagree on, and a debate can occur spontaneously without a text to refer to (I call this variation This or That in my classroom icebreakers post). Teachers may also opt to offer a continuum of choices, ranging from "Strongly Agree" on one side of the room, all the way to "Strongly Disagree" on the other, and have students place themselves along that continuum based on the strength of their convictions.

Basic Structure: Students are divided into 4 groups. Three of these groups are assigned to represent specific points of view. Members of the fourth group are designated as "provocateurs," tasked with making sure the discussion keeps going and stays challenging. One person from each group (the "speaker") sits in a desk facing speakers from the other groups, so they form a square in the center of the room. Behind each speaker, the remaining group members are seated: two right behind the speaker, then three behind them, and so on, forming a kind of triangle. From above, this would look like a pinwheel. The four speakers introduce and discuss questions they prepared ahead of time (this preparation is done with their groups). After some time passes, new students rotate from the seats behind the speaker into the center seats and continue the conversation.

Variations: When high school English teacher Sarah Brown Wessling introduced this strategy in the featured video (click Pinwheel Discussion above), she used it as a device for talking about literature, where each group represented a different author, plus one provocateur group. But in the comments that follow the video, Wessling adds that she also uses the strategy with non-fiction, where students represent authors of different non-fiction texts or are assigned to take on different perspectives about an issue.
a.k.a. Socratic Circles
Basic Structure: Students prepare by reading a text or group of texts and writing some higher-order discussion questions about the text. On seminar day, students sit in a circle and an introductory, open-ended question is posed by the teacher or student discussion leader. From there, students continue the conversation, prompting one another to support their claims with textual evidence. There is no particular order to how students speak, but they are encouraged to respectfully share the floor with others. Discussion is meant to happen naturally and students do not need to raise their hands to speak. This overview of Socratic Seminar from the website Facing History and Ourselves provides a list of appropriate questions, plus more information about how to prepare for a seminar.

Variations: If students are beginners, the teacher may write the discussion questions, or the question creation can be a joint effort. For larger classes, teachers may need to set up seminars in more of a fishbowl-like arrangement, dividing students into one inner circle that will participate in the discussion, and one outer circle that silently observes, takes notes, and may eventually trade places with those in the inner circle, sometimes all at once, and sometimes by "tapping in" as the urge strikes them.
a.k.a. Affinity Diagramming
Basic Structure: Give students a broad question or problem that is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as "What were the impacts of the Great Depression?" or "What literary works should every person read?" Have students generate responses by writing ideas on post-it notes (one idea per note) and placing them in no particular arrangement on a wall, whiteboard, or chart paper. Once lots of ideas have been generated, have students begin grouping them into similar categories, then label the categories and discuss why the ideas fit within them, how the categories relate to one another, and so on.

Variations: Some teachers have students do much of this exercise-recording their ideas and arranging them into categories- without talking at first. In other variations, participants are asked to re-combine the ideas into new, different categories after the first round of organization occurs. Often, this activity serves as a good pre-writing exercise, after which students will write some kind of analysis or position paper.
a.k.a. Speed Dating
Basic Structure: Students form two circles, one inside circle and one outside circle. Each student on the inside is paired with a student on the outside; they face each other. The teacher poses a question to the whole group and pairs discuss their responses with each other. Then the teacher signals students to rotate: Students on the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing in front of a new person (or sitting, as they are in the video). Now the teacher poses a new question, and the process is repeated.

Variations: Instead of two circles, students could also form two straight lines facing one another. Instead of "rotating" to switch partners, one line just slides over one spot, and the leftover person on the end comes around to the beginning of the line. Some teachers use this strategy to have students teach one piece of content to their fellow students, making it less of a discussion strategy and more of a peer teaching format. In fact, many of these protocols could be used for peer teaching as well.

Basic Structure: Another great idea from Sarah Brown Wessling, this is a small-group discussion strategy that gives students exposure to more of their peers' ideas and prevents the stagnation that can happen when a group doesn't happen to have the right chemistry. Students are placed into a few groups of 4-6 students each and are given a discussion question to talk about. After sufficient time has passed for the discussion to develop, one or two students from each group rotate to a different group, while the other group members remain where they are. Once in their new group, they will discuss a different, but related question, and they may also share some of the key points from their last group's conversation. For the next rotation, students who have not rotated before may be chosen to move, resulting in groups that are continually evolving.

Basic Structure: Two students sit facing each other in the center of the room; the remaining students sit in a circle around them. The two central students have a conversation based on a pre-determined topic and often using specific skills the class is practicing (such as asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing, or elaborating on another person's point). Students on the outside observe, take notes, or perform some other discussion-related task assigned by the teacher.

Variations: One variation of this strategy allows students in the outer circle to trade places with those in the fishbowl, doing kind of a relay-style discussion, or they may periodically "coach" the fishbowl talkers from the sidelines. Teachers may also opt to have students in the outside circle grade the participants' conversation with a rubric, then give feedback on what they saw in a debriefing afterward, as mentioned in the featured video.

Basic Structure: One student assumes the role of a book character, significant figure in history, or concept (such as a tornado, an animal, or the Titanic). Sitting in front of the rest of the class, the student responds to classmates' questions while staying in character in that role.

Variations: Give more students the opportunity to be in the hot seat while increasing everyone's participation by having students do hot seat discussions in small groups, where one person per group acts as the "character" and three or four others ask them questions. In another variation, several students could form a panel of different characters, taking questions from the class all together and interacting with one another like guests on a TV talk show.
a.k.a. Pyramid Discussion
Basic Structure: Students begin in pairs, responding to a discussion question only with a single partner. After each person has had a chance to share their ideas, the pair joins another pair, creating a group of four. Pairs share their ideas with the pair they just joined. Next, groups of four join together to form groups of eight, and so on, until the whole class is joined up in one large discussion.

Variations: This structure could simply be used to share ideas on a topic, or students could be required to reach consensus every time they join up with a new group.

Whereas the other formats in this list have a distinct shape-specific activities you do with students-the strategies in this section are more like plug-ins, working discussion into other instructional activities and improving the quality and reach of existing conversations.

One of the limitations of discussion is that rich, face-to-face conversations can only happen when all parties are available, so we're limited to the time we have in class. With a tool like Voxer, those limitations disappear. Like a private voice mailbox that you set up with just one person or a group (but SOOOO much easier), Voxer allows users to have conversations at whatever time is most convenient for each participant. So a group of four students can "discuss" a topic from 3pm until bedtime-asynchronously-each member contributing whenever they have a moment, and if the teacher makes herself part of the group, she can listen in, offer feedback, or contribute her own discussion points. Voxer is also invaluable for collaborating on projects and for having one-on-one discussions with students, parents, and your own colleagues. Like many other educators, Peter DeWitt took a while to really understand the potential of Voxer, but in this EdWeek piece, he explains what turned him around.

A backchannel is a conversation that happens right alongside another activity. The first time I saw a backchannel in action was at my first unconference: While those of us in the audience listened to presenters and watched a few short video clips, a separate screen was up beside the main screen, projecting something called TodaysMeet (update: TodaysMeet has shut down. Use YoTeach! instead.) It looked a lot like those chat rooms from back in the day, basically a blank screen where people would contribute a few lines of text, the lines stacking up one after the other, no other bells or whistles. Anyone in the room could participate in this conversation on their phone, laptop, or tablet, asking questions, offering commentary, and sharing links to related resources without ever interrupting the flow of the presentations. This kind of tool allows for a completely silent discussion, one that doesn't have to move at a super-fast pace, and it gives students who may be reluctant to speak up or who process their thoughts more slowly a chance to fully contribute. For a deeper discussion of how this kind of tool can be used, read this thoughtful overview of using backchannel discussions in the classroom by Edutopia's Beth Holland.
a.k.a. Accountable Talk
Talk moves are sentence frames we supply to our students that help them express ideas and interact with one another in respectful, academically appropriate ways. From kindergarten all the way through college, students can benefit from explicit instruction in the skills of summarizing another person's argument before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions, and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the stance of another participant. Talk moves can be incorporated into any of the other discussion formats listed here.

Whole Brain Teaching is a set of teaching and classroom management methods that has grown in popularity over the past 10 years. One of WBT's foundational techniques is Teach-OK, a peer teaching strategy that begins with the teacher spending a few minutes introducing a concept to the class. Next, the teacher says Teach!, the class responds with Okay!, and pairs of students take turns re-teaching the concept to each other. It's a bit like think-pair-share, but it's faster-paced, it focuses more on re-teaching than general sharing, and students are encouraged to use gestures to animate their discussion. Although WBT is most popular in elementary schools, this featured video shows the creator of WBT, Chris Biffle, using it quite successfully with college students. I have also used Teach-OK with college students, and most of my students said they were happy for a change from the sit-and-listen they were used to in college classrooms.

An oldie but a goodie, think-pair-share can be used any time you want to plug interactivity into a lesson: Simply have students think about their response to a question, form a pair with another person, discuss their response, then share it with the larger group. Because I feel this strategy has so many uses and can be way more powerful than we give it credit for, I devoted a whole post to think-pair-share; everything you need to know about it is right there.

TWO MORE YOU'LL LOVE

Since writing this post, I have learned about two more discussion strategies that teachers are finding to be incredibly effective and powerful for getting students to talk, especially about books and other texts:

This protocol has students come up with their own Thoughts, lingering Questions, and Epiphanies from an assigned reading. Teachers who have used this method say it has generated some of the richest conversations they have ever heard from students!

This strategy places students into one-on-one conversations, getting them to learn each others' names better and create a track record of what they talked about. Excellent for classes where you want to assess for discussion and help students get more comfortable with each other.

So what else do you have? I would like to think this is a pretty complete list, but I'm sure more strategies are out there. If you use a discussion strategy that's not mentioned here, please share it below.

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The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

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Here they are: 15 formats for structuring a class discussion to make it more engaging, more organized, more equitable, and more academically challenging.

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Deeper Class Discussions with the TQE Method

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Deeper Class Discussions with the TQE Method

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Listen to my interview with Marisa Thompson (transcript):
Sponsored by Peergrade and 3Doodler

Check out information about Marisa Thompson's Ultimate TQE Course at the bottom of this page!

So much of the learning we do comes from texts: articles, textbooks, novels, and all kinds of online publications. Sometimes, those texts come in less traditional forms; in fact, our use of the word "text" has broadened over time to include things like films, images, and even diagrams. Regardless of what form they come in, texts make up the bulk of how our students experience learning.

But too often, when we assign texts to students, we find that they don't experience them with much depth. One reason for that may be that we don't set them up to do that. In many text-based classes (English, history, science), the learning cycle often consists of (1) consuming a section of the text, (2) answering teacher-created questions about the text, (3) taking a test after several sections have been completed.

For years, high school English teacher Marisa Thompson followed this same programming, and got typical results: Some students did the required work, but never seemed particularly invested in the books themselves. Others completed the questions unevenly, sometimes not answering them all, other times copying work from their peers. And when students didn't do the work, they got calls home and office referrals.

As this pattern repeated itself year after year, Thompson became more frustrated: The texts themselves were wonderful, but students weren't experiencing them the way they were meant to be experienced. Instead, they had shallow interactions with them, doing whatever surface work had to be done to get a grade.

Finally, she started experimenting with a different approach, and the way she teaches texts now is completely different from the way she used to. Her current approach, which she calls TQE, is similar to Socratic Seminar, where students lead a discussion on a given text, but with a few twists. Since implementing this new approach, Thompson has seen her students reading much more than they used to, and with much more depth than ever before. They are having college-level conversations about books in class, and for the first time, they seem excited about the books they're reading.

On top of that, Thompson's prepping and grading work for these class sessions is down to almost nothing.

What I love about this method, and why I'm sharing it here, is that I think it could be applied in a lot of different areas, not just with the study of novels. In any class where students need to read a text in order to learn, something along these lines could be implemented, and I think you'll find that the learning in your classroom gets much richer as a result. So as you read about TQE, think about how you might be able to apply it in your content area.

The Problem

As an English teacher, Thompson found that her students were experiencing books in a very shallow, grade-focused way.

"(I would) send students home, maybe get them started on Chapter 1, and then, Hey guys, go home and read Chapter 2. Come on back and we'll talk about it, and here's your list of questions; you're going to have a reading quiz. I realized I wasn't really assessing their reading with homework and quizzes. I was assessing whether or not they did their homework questions."

This method not only diminished the value of the books students were reading, it also led to other problems. "It made reading seem like a hassle," Thomspon says. "I started getting a bunch of cheating. One year I had 10 kids copy off each other. It turned this amazing story-this beautiful novel that everybody should read and enjoy and love-into a discipline problem."

Early Changes

Knowing something had to change, Thompson decided to try grading students only on whether their participation in class indicated that they had read the book.

"I said, 'Look. We're going to read this book, and we're just going to read it and talk about it. You're not going to have study questions. You're not going to have any reading quizzes. But I'm going to know if you read or not. I'm going to know.'"

These early discussions were similar to Socratic Seminar, where students came with questions and Thompson mostly observed. When a student participated in a way that demonstrated that he or she had read the book, their names would be crossed off of a chart. "And that was it," Thompson says. "The standard says, Be able to read and analyze at grade level. And if they're doing that, I mean, yeah, cross their name off. Move on."

For students who scored low on the discussion or who weren't initially comfortable with active participation, Thompson offered alternative means of assessment. "I said, hey, if I'm wrong with your score, then we need to come up with some sort of alternative: They were used to taking annotations, taking notes on their thoughts while they read-you can show me those. You can sit down and have a conversation just one-on-one, or you can take a test. So if you got an eight out of 10, and you're like, 'No, I want the 10 out of 10,' I have a multiple-choice test on the book."

Most of the time, Thompson's initial score on the discussion turned out to be accurate. "I did have a lot of students who had a B for their assessment, and they're like, No, I want the A. Great. And they took the test and then it was cute, because they were like Yeah, I didn't really read all of it. So my assessment was, on average, about 3 or 4 percent higher than what they were normally getting on their tests."

Right away, Thompson started to see changes in how her students were reading. "I had students who started reading more than they were assigned, and they were finishing the book early," she says. Some were even reading ahead.

Over time, Thompson refined her approach, adding small-group time before the large-group discussions, offering scaffolding to help students develop better questions, and structuring student contributions so that the richest questions got the most discussion time.

These changes have so elevated the level of discourse that Thompson sometimes feels like she's teaching college class. "And that's exactly what I tell them: 'What we just did, that was a collegiate literature course. That was amazing. You could walk into a college course and have this discussion.' And you can see that they're enjoying it."

The TQE Method

Here is the approach Thompson uses now, step by step:

1. Students Complete Assigned Reading at Home

Usually, this will be a segment of a longer text, like a few chapters in a novel. Students who show up having not completed the reading are invited to finish up in the hall during small group discussion (step 2) to catch up. They are welcome to return to class for the discussion when they finish.

2. Small Group Discussions (15 minutes)

When they arrive in class, students get into small groups, where they have 15 minutes to share thoughts, lingering questions, and epiphanies (TQEs) they have about the reading. Early in the year, Thompson provides stems to help students generate these (see below), encouraging them to move from the more simplistic ideas on the left to the more complex ones on the right.

3. TQEs on the Board

By the time the 15 minutes is up, each group needs to choose their top 2 TQEs from the group and write them on the board. Although these are meant to serve as the basis for the group discussion, they are not necessarily used as is.

"If they put something on there that is not at the quality or as thought-provoking as we need it to be for the class to discuss, we'll edit it together, the 40 of us," Thompson explains. "So it becomes a writing lesson."

Thompson also insists that when discussing a text, students use the author's name. When discussing Of Mice and Men, for example, she started by having students repeat the name "Steinbeck" five times. "I love Lenny and George. I love Lenny," she told them. "but he's totally fictional. So when you start asking questions like, 'Why did George do that?' George doesn't exist."

Instead, she has students practice asking questions like, "Why did hat theme is Steinbeck have George do that?" "W Steinbeck trying to convey to the rest of us by having his character do that?"

"It's not about the character," she explains. "It's not about the character's motivation, it's the author's purpose in providing that motivation for the character."

4. Class Discussion of TQEs

Thompson then moderates a whole-class discussion of the reading, using the TQEs that have been written on the board. This takes about 40 minutes of class time-she teaches on a block schedule, so there's plenty of time to dig in. When the class is actively studying a novel, they will have these conversations in every class meeting.

As for grading, Thompson simply records when students participate, and that's it. "I have a chart with their little pictures," she explains, "and I cross them off as I go. So I'm not necessarily grading them every single day. My student Sally might have participated a ton one day, and skipped the next day. But my standard-based grading says she is reading and analyzing at at least grade level. I don't need to score each of my 40 kids every single day."

"And the amount of planning is nil," Thompson adds. " I'm not creating, I'm not copying, I'm not collecting, I don't need to waste my time. My prep is reading before bed every night."

What Student-Centered Learning Looks Like

"We have all these really great aphorisms, these quotes about, 'Students should own their learning,' and 'Empower students,'" Thompson observes. "And it's like, well that's great, but how in the heck do we do that?"

Since starting the TQE process, Thompson has seen true student-centered learning in action: Students are in charge of the content of the discussions, and the ability to participate fully has become its own motivator for completing the homework.

"The peer pressure of Everyone's discussing this book- that becomes cool. To have an idea, to have an opinion. So the student comes in, and all of a sudden it's, "Wait, I read that part, and I think this," you know? And you want to talk about empowering a student? You just turned that student into a part of the classroom community." ♦

If you are a fan of the TQE method and you want to take it further, check out Marisa's Ultimate TQE Course. This course will revolutionize your reading and writing instruction and assessment through student-led inquiry, intentional teacher guidance, feedback that is immediately useful to students while eliminating the need for at-home grading, even for essays, and a personable approach to teaching and learning that leaves everyone in the room energized and engaged.

Cult of Pedagogy receives a portion of the Ultimate TQE Course sales that come through the link on this page.

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Deeper Class Discussions with the TQE Method

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Want your students to have rich, complex conversations about the texts they read? This method leads to the kinds of classroom discussions you thought only happened in college.

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Speaking and Listening Strategies - RPS Content Literacies

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Utah's Online Library Quick Reference EBSCO -Kids Search -Searchasaurus/Animals Gale-National Geographic Kids World Book-Kids/World of Animals EBSCO -Kids Search -Searchasaurus -Student Research Center EDSITEment-Art & Culture -Smithsonian's History Explorer World Book CultureGrams EBSCO-Image Collection World Book - Atlas Gale -Biography in Context -Gale Virtual Reference Library Readwritethink CultureGrams - World

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A Message From the Assistant Director of Content Development

The Purdue OWL® is committed to supporting students, instructors, and writers by offering a wide range of resources that are developed and revised with them in mind. To do this, the OWL team is always exploring possibilties for a better design, allowing accessibility and user experience to guide our process. As the OWL undergoes some changes, we welcome your feedback and suggestions by email at any time.

Please don't hesitate to contact us via our contact page if you have any questions or comments.

All the best,

Garrett

Social Media

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Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice. Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.

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Super Teacher Worksheets - Thousands of Printable Activities

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Printable worksheets and activities for teachers, parents, tutors, and homeschool families. Subjects include math, reading, writing, science, social studies, spelling and more.

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You can find a graphic organizer for almost anything

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Curriculum Map Template From Mike Schmoker

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Think Plan Write Review

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Enhancing Adolescents' Comprehension of Text by Building Vocabulary Knowledge

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Video Clips (iPad/iPhone compatible)

Description: Dr. Archer has had the opportunity to demonstrate explicit instructional lessons in many general and special education classes. These video clips illustrate many of the concepts and practices introduced in Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching. Teachers, faculty members, and teachers-in-training are invited to view these video clips, to analyze and critique the instructional procedures.

Suggestions for use: Each video clip is accompanied by a video guide. We suggest that you download and print the guide before watching the video. Read the description of the video and the suggested video focus. As you watch the video, take notes in response to the focus questions. After viewing the video, share your observations with your colleagues and read the feedback provided by Dr. Archer.

Limits on videos use: . No individual or agency is given permission to post these videos on a for-profit website or use them in any manner in which financial gain occurs without written permission from Dr. Archer.

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Explicit Instructions | Effective and Efficient Teaching

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Video Clips (iPad/iPhone compatible) Description: Dr. Archer has had the opportunity to demonstrate explicit instructional lessons in many general and special education classes. These video clips illustrate many of the concepts and practices introduced in Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching.