Text Talk: Engaging Readers in Purposeful Discussions

TEXT TALK

Engaging Readers in Purposeful Discussions

DOT McELHONE

What’s New in Literacy Teaching?

SSENTIALS

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IRA

ven in an increasingly digital world that

offers us opportunities to engage in online

discussions of a wide range of multimedia

texts (Kissel, Wood, Stover, & Heintschel, 2013),

face-to-face classroom discussions are increasingly

important. Students need to develop interpersonal

skills to help them navigate in-person social

interactions. They need opportunities to develop

their ideas about texts and to rehearse their writing

through meaningful talk. To authentically assess

student comprehension and thinking about texts,

teachers need opportunities to listen in on student

discussions.

Kris Hammond aims to give her students

opportunities to talk “long and windingly” about

their ideas and responses to texts. She engages

students in whole-class discussions of read-aloud

texts, organizes students into small book clubs where

they share ideas and build interpretations with peers,

and meets with them in individual and small-group

reading conferences to discuss the texts they have

chosen. Through face-to-face interactions in each of

these contexts, Ms. Hammond comes to know each

student both as an individual and as a reader in ways

that inform and guide her teaching far better than

any screening assessment could.

Reading is a social, cultural process, and talk is

a crucial tool for comprehending, learning from,

synthesizing across, and generating new ideas with

texts, which are central demands of the Common

Core State Standards (CCSS; National Governors

Association Center for Best Practices & Council of

Chief State School Officers, 2010). Talk is not merely

a medium that students can use to show what they

know; by talking out their ideas and confusions

with peers and teachers, students actually transform

and deepen their thinking. In short, when students

reason together through talk, they learn. When Ms.

Hammond’s students talk at length about texts in

student-led and teacher-led contexts, they use talk to

reason and respond together and to grow as readers.

What Kind of Student Talk

Promotes Learning?

Most of us who have spent time in classrooms have

experienced moments of classroom text discussion

that felt productive, engaging, and alive. We could

almost see our students’ wheels turning—observe the

learning happening before our eyes. There is a certain

kind of fleeting magic in those moments, a magic that

makes teaching and learning joyful and exciting, but

that magic can be hard to re-create on a regular basis.

What is it that makes those moments so special? How

can teachers help them happen more regularly in

the classroom? In this section, I explore the kinds of

student talk that can make those moments glow and

some ways to determine whether this is happening in

your classroom. In the following section, I examine

four practices that you can use to create more of these

powerful moments.

If we could return to some of those magical

classroom text discussions and look closely at what

students were doing, we would probably find that

they were excited about the text and their ideas.

Perhaps they had “aha!” moments about how

tornadoes and hurricanes work, about the nature of

the fictional world in The Giver by Lois Lowry, or

about the way calligraphy helps Ali cope as bombs

fall over the city in Silent Music: A Story of Baghdad

by James Rumford. Consider a time when there

was a buzz of focused energy in the room. Students

responded emotionally to the text and articulated

new learning from it, perhaps “interrogating the text

in search of the underlying arguments, assumptions,

worldviews, or beliefs that can be inferred from [it]”

(Soter et al., 2008, p. 374). They may have empathized

with the difficulties faced by Sade and her brother

after their they were forced to flee from Nigeria

to England in The Other Side of Truth by Beverley

Naidoo and challenged the beliefs and actions of

the bullies in Sade’s new school. Students elaborated

Pressmaster/Shutterstock.com

Cover: Dawn Shearer-Simonetti/Shutterstock.com

and learning? How can you re-create the magic of

powerful discussions regularly in your classroom? In

this section, I explore four key ways that you can help

your students move toward these kinds of discussions.

First, you need to set the stage by establishing a

safe climate for risk taking and by helping students

understand what they will be doing with talk and why.

Next, think carefully about the kinds of questions and

follow-ups you pose to students during discussions,

but also recognize that engaging discussion rests

on more than good questions. Third, offer students

supported opportunities to engage in small-group text

discussions. Last, but perhaps most important, ensure

that text discussions are based on interesting texts

that merit critical, thoughtful discussion.

on their contributions by explaining them, offering

reasons, or pointing to particular parts of the text.

They went beyond the teacher’s interpretation of the

text and offered surprising new perspectives.

These magical moments of discussion often

have an exploratory quality (Barnes & Todd, 1995):

Students explored ideas together by listening and

responding directly to one another, building on

and constructively challenging one another’s

contributions, and working toward a consensus

interpretation or answer. Collaborating toward

consensus pushes students to reason together, rather

than simply holding on to their initial impressions.

Students might even reconsider or question their

beliefs through these powerful discussions (Pierce &

Gilles, 2008). When students are talking in this way,

they are often so engaged that the conversations spill

over from reading time onto the playground or into

the lunchroom.

Table 1 offers some questions that you might

ask yourself about the student talk you hear during

text discussions in your own classroom. Answering

these questions can help you set goals for student text

talk. This work will be even more worthwhile if you

collaborate with a trusted colleague. For example,

each teacher could videotape text discussions for a

week and then select one or two video segments to

share. You could view the segments and choose some

of the questions in Table 1 to answer about each one.

Revealing the video segments that puzzle or concern

you may feel risky. It is crucial that both teachers

agree to respond in a positive, respectful manner

that honors the risk each is taking by sharing his

or her practice. My collaboration with Teri Tilley, a

fifth-grade teacher, was built on a foundation of trust

and respect. As we investigated video recordings of

text-based talk in her classroom, she found that our

work together was most productive when she focused

on video segments and topics that felt a little scary.

Those conversations pushed her out of her comfort

zone and into new insights about student talk.

Cultivating Powerful,

Engaging Discussions

What can you do to help students reason together

through talk in ways that promote engagement

Table 1

Questions to ask yourself about your

students’ talk

• Who is participating? Who is silent?

• Do students offer expressive or emotional

responses to the text?

• Do students articulate new learning from the text?

• Do students make critical inferences and judgments

about the text?

• Do students communicate their points clearly?

• Do students use talk to try out ideas that might

not be fully formed? (This kind of exploratory talk

is often marked by hesitations and incomplete

statements.)

• Do students connect their contributions to what

came before, or does each contribution send the

conversation in a new direction?

• Do students respond to one another’s ideas

uncritically (e.g., not noticing when their idea

contradicts the one that came before)? Do students

challenge one another’s ideas in a respectful way?

• Do students elaborate on their ideas by explaining,

giving reasons or examples, or pointing to evidence

in the text?

• Do students collaborate to try to reach a consensus

about questions or interpretations? (Collaborating

toward consensus pushes students to reason

together, rather than simply holding on to their

initial impressions.)

Hall, 2010). The Thinking Together program (Mercer

& Littleton, 2007) is organized around a set of ground

rules designed to promote exploratory talk. I adapted

these ground rules into student-friendly language:

• Everyone joins in.

• Explain why you think what you think.

• Listen to what others are saying and try to

understand their points of view.

• Give others the chance to try out new ideas.

• You can respectfully disagree with someone else’s

idea if you give reasons.

• You can respectfully disagree with someone else’s

idea and offer a different idea.

• Let each person share their idea before you make a

decision as a group. (adapted from Mercer & Dawes,

2008, p. 66)

You can work with your students to develop ground

rules in their own words that get at these same ideas.

The Accountable Talk approach to classroom

discourse is organized around three forms of

accountability (Michaels, O’Connor, & Resnick,

2008). These forms are different from the

accountability that we associate with high-stakes

tests and teacher evaluation. First, students are

accountable to the learning community, which

means that they listen to one another attentively

and respond respectfully. Second, students are

accountable to accurate knowledge: They strive to

provide accurate information, refer to resources to

help them get their facts straight, and notice where

Setting the Stage for Productive Talk

Exploratory, critical, constructive talk among

students can only occur in a classroom climate where

students feel respected and safe in taking risks.

Teachers and students create that climate from the

first day of school through relationship building and

activities that set the tone for the classroom culture.

(Visit the Responsive Classroom website for useful

resources on developing a positive classroom climate:

www.responsiveclassroom.org/.)

Even in a warm, safe, supportive classroom,

the kinds of talk about texts that promote learning

and growth do not just happen on a regular basis.

Engaging students daily in powerful talk requires

intentional, talk-focused work. Researchers and

educators such as Mercer and Littleton (2007) and

Nichols (2008) have observed that when students are

asked to engage in conversations around academic

tasks without talk-focused preparation, those

conversations often stray off topic, fail to delve

deep into the academic content, or do not include

the constructive challenges that are characteristic

of exploratory talk. If you have listened in on small

groups of students at work, you will likely recognize

this phenomenon. Students are talking to one

another, but they don’t seem to be getting anywhere

with their talk.

Although all children (except some with

particular special needs) arrive at school using

language successfully for a range of purposes

and engaging in social interactions, we cannot

expect children to know how to engage in

focused, academically productive discussions or

elaborated, exploratory talk unless we show them

how and support them. We swim in a sea of talk

so continuously that we can fail to pay attention to

the “water.” Setting students up for success in text

discussions requires you to focus explicit attention on

how talk will unfold.

Constructing Ground Rules

You can set the stage for productive discussions

by constructing ground rules about how talk will

work in the classroom. Researchers recommend

establishing clear norms for turn taking in class

discussions, such as asking each student contributor

to select the next speaker (Michaels, O’Connor, &

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Acknowledging Different Talk Norms

When we construct ground rules for talk with

students and refer to them regularly, we help students

talk to learn (rather than only to be social), we provide

a shared reference about what is expected, and we

make norms that often exist as implicit expectations

clear and explicit for all students. Because the kinds

of talk norms advocated by researchers such as

Mercer, Michaels, and O’Connor (e.g., those listed

previously) are similar to implicit talk norms among

middle class, white populations or associated with

the dominant culture, some scholars have cautioned

against sanctioning them as class ground rules

(e.g., Lambirth, 2006). The concern is that making

these norms the official discourse of the classroom

privileges them over other kinds of talk and may

disenfranchise or alienate students who come from

backgrounds with different talk norms. This is a valid

and important concern.

I argue that shying away from ground rules or

explicit attention to talk norms is not the best way

to address this concern. Talk norms exist in every

cultural setting, including every classroom, whether

they are acknowledged or not. Leaving norms implicit

and unacknowledged is likely to result in frustration

or limited success for students whose talk patterns

do not match the unstated norms of the classroom.

Instead, I encourage you to explicitly explain and

model the norms for academically productive

talk and support and coach students as they try

on those norms. It is also important to explicitly

acknowledge that these norms do not represent the

only way to speak “correctly” or to “be smart.” You

can help students navigate successfully across the

multiple spaces where they live and learn by drawing

their attention to the various ways of talking and

interacting that they use across a range of purposes

and settings. Have students brainstorm the kinds of

talk that they might use in particular settings, or even

role-play talk in those settings and point out that we

use talk for different purposes and in different ways

in different places and with different people. All

ways of talking are valid. Demystify academic talk by

making clear what is expected and showing students

how they can participate successfully. Doing so will

help include and engage all students in the learning

community.

they need more information. Finally, students are

accountable to rigorous thinking or standards of

reasoning: building coherent, defensible arguments

supported by relevant, compelling evidence. These

norms might form the basis for co-constructed

ground rules written in student-friendly language.

Before generating a list of ground rules, engage

students in activities that require collaboration and

conversation. You might start by asking pairs of

students to meet together to talk about a picture

book, poem, short story, article, or other short text.

After these conversations, help students reflect

together about their talk. They might notice that not

everyone gets an equal opportunity to participate,

that sometimes the conversation strays far away

from the text or task, or that participants sometimes

disagree but don’t explain why. After engaging in

cycles of collaborative activity and reflection on talk

over the course of a few days, the students will be

more prepared to co-construct ground rules with you

that will support the exploratory, constructive talk

that you are hoping for. (See Dawes, 2011, and Dawes

and Sams, 2004, for more ideas about setting the

stage for talk.)

Once ground rules are established, the teacher

should follow them, along with the students. For

example, if treating tentative ideas with respect is

a ground rule, the teacher should not evaluate a

student’s contribution of a partially formed or in-

process idea offered during a discussion. The teacher

should leave the door open for the class to continue

developing the idea (e.g., “What do other people

think about David’s idea?”).

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have put forward a number of alternate forms of

questioning and responding to students during

class discussion. For example, Nystrand (1997)

recommends that teachers pose authentic questions

(i.e., open-ended questions without predetermined

answers) as a way to promote dialogue. Mr. Elmore

could have asked the class authentic questions

about Corduroy by Don Freeman, such as, “Did you

enjoy the story? Why or why not?” Some authentic

questions challenge students to analyze, apply,

synthesize, interpret, or evaluate what they have read.

Mr. Elmore could have posed one of these higher

order questions to prompt dialogue, such as, “What

can you infer about the little girl from the ending of

the story?” or “What would you have done if you were

the girl?”

The Importance of Wait Time

To offer more students opportunities to think

through the question and generate a response, Mr.

Elmore would be wise to use wait time. Although

keeping the overall pace of a lesson snappy is

valuable, if we are seeking elaborated, thoughtful

responses from students, we need to offer them

time to think. That can feel awkward for teachers

and students accustomed to rapid-fire recitation. I

recommend addressing wait time in the ground rules

for talk, setting an expectation that both the teacher

and the students will offer others time to think.

Explain to students why you do not call on the first

student to raise a hand, and establish norms for wait

time, such as keeping hands down until prompted

by the teacher. Even three seconds of wait time

between posing a question and calling on a student

can dramatically increase the number of students

participating in discussion. Once you have selected

a student, it is valuable to offer further wait time.

Students sometimes need to gather their thoughts

during or before speaking. When you encourage

other students to give the chosen student time to

formulate his or her thoughts, you communicate that

you respect your students and value thoughtful ideas

over quick answers. This practice can be particularly

valuable for English learners, who may need time to

translate thoughts from their native language into

English.

Facilitating Powerful

Teacher–Student Dialogue

Over the past several decades, the recommended role

of the teacher in classroom dialogue has changed

quite a bit. In the not too distant past, teacher–student

exchanges like this one were the accepted norm:

Mr. Elmore: What did Corduroy lose on his overalls?

Samantha?

Samantha: A button.

Mr. Elmore: Right! A button.

In this interaction, Mr. Elmore has asked a

question for which he has one correct answer in

mind (initiation). Samantha produces the answer

(response), and he evaluates her response as correct

(evaluation/feedback). Exchanges like this are often

referred to by the acronym IRE (initiation–response–

evaluation) or IRF (initiation–response–feedback).

The trouble with teacher–student interactions

like this one is that they can shut down dialogue and

do not typically offer opportunities for students to

explore or develop ideas. Recitation sequences like

this put the teacher in the position of primary knower

(Berry, 1981), the one person in the classroom who

holds authoritative knowledge. Students are often

left trying to identify the answer that the teacher is

looking for, rather than using talk to grapple with big

ideas.

To address these problems with IRE/IRF

recitation, over the past several decades, scholars

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in their life. What have you noticed

about Wilma and her struggles?

2 Gabriela: That, um, that she struggled with,

like, racism.

3 Ms. Nivera: OK, with racism. So, back that up.

What, uh, what is the evidence that

she struggled with racism?

4 Gabriela: ’Cause they only had—like there were

only a couple of doctors, and about

the bus, too.

5 Ms. Nivera: There were only a couple of doctors?

6 Gabriela: Yeah.

7 Ms. Nivera: Why were you thinking that had to

do with racism? What made you say

that’s about racism?

8 Gabriela: Mostly the doctors, they wouldn’t

help them because they were black,

and the—the doctor they could go to

lived a long way away. And on the bus

to go over there, they had to ride in

the back.

9 Ms. Nivera: OK, so what does all that make you

think about Wilma?

10 Gabriela: It was hard, like it was already hard

for her because she was sick, and

they didn’t—they didn’t have a lot of

money and stuff. And then they made

it hard—harder for her because she

was black. They made it harder for

her to get better and be happy just

because she was black. It’s not fair

how they did that. And I can’t—

I can’t believe that all happened and

she still got to become a gold medal

winner.

Taking Up Student Ideas and

Pressing Students to Think Further

Authentic and higher order questions have the

potential to open up dialogue about texts, but how

should teachers respond after students answer these

kinds of questions? Researchers have found that

students offer more elaborated contributions to

discussions when teachers do not evaluate student

responses by saying things like “Good,” “Right,” or

“Not quite” (Nystrand, 1997). By refraining from

evaluation, you also step out of the role of primary

knower and open space for students to be possible

knowers (Aukerman, 2006): individuals with valid,

worthwhile ideas to contribute. From these positions,

students are able to reason together and grapple with

ideas, rather than jockey for opportunities to report

the “correct” answer. They can talk in ways that

promote learning.

What should go in place of evaluation? Uptake, or

incorporating a student’s response into a discussion

(“taking up” their ideas), is a form of feedback that

researchers recommend (Nystrand, 1997). High-press

talk (McElhone, 2012), which is one form of uptake,

involves probing student responses with follow-up

questions that press them to take their ideas further.

High-press follow-up questions ask students to

clarify (e.g., “What do you mean?”), elaborate (e.g.,

“Can you say more about that?”), explain (e.g., “Why

do you think so?” “How did you figure that out?”),

provide evidence (e.g., “What did you see in the text

that made you think that?”), or give examples (e.g.,

“Can you give an example?”).

Joy Nivera used this kind of feedback during

a reading conference about Wilma Unlimited:

How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest

Woman by Kathleen Krull (1996). This picture book

chronicles the life of an African American track star

and Olympic gold medalist who was struck with

polio during her impoverished upbringing in the

1940s U.S. South. During a unit on biography and

overcoming adversity, Ms. Nivera read this text aloud

to her class. She discussed the challenges faced by

Wilma with Gabriela.

1 Ms. Nivera: So, we’ve been talking about how in

our biographies each—each person

faced some diff—some struggles

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an IRE structure that launches an

engaging, constructive discussion.

Recent research points to

the importance of the teacher’s

overall instructional stance

in shaping the way students

receive and respond to particular

forms of teacher questions and

feedback. A teacher’s stance is

informed by the purposes that

he or she brings to classroom

interactions over time. For

example, a teacher concerned

primarily with test preparation

or eliciting correct answers, or

who believes that students can

simply listen and “receive” school

knowledge without connecting

it to their everyday knowledge,

takes a monologic stance. The

students in this class might notice that their teacher

does not seem to really listen to their ideas, except

to check whether they are correct. They get a sense

that their job is to report correct answers as quickly

as possible so the class can move on, and might offer

only brief responses aimed at guessing what answer

the teacher has in mind even when he or she poses an

open-ended question.

In contrast, Boyd and Markarian (2011) report

on a third-grade teacher named Michael who brings

to classroom conversations a sincere interest in his

students’ ideas. He is, first and foremost, a listener.

Over the course of the school year, Michael’s students

pick up on his desire to hear them elaborate on their

thinking and develop ideas about texts together,

even when he poses closed-ended questions. Michael

takes a dialogic stance toward his literacy teaching.

In this dialogic classroom, students can read the

undercurrent of the teacher’s intentions in his tone

of voice, his focused way of listening to students, the

think time he offers, and in the way he encourages

students to add their thoughts, rather than always

emphasizing his own. Table 2 shows a comparison of

monologic and dialogic stances.

I find the research on monologic and dialogic

stances encouraging. It tells me that although I

should be thoughtful about the questions I pose and

One of the most striking

things about this moment of

classroom talk is the way Gabriela

elaborated on her evolving

thinking. She proposed that

Wilma struggled with racism,

and then explored and built

on that idea over the course of

the conversation, sometimes

hesitating or offering partially

formed ideas. In this exchange,

Ms. Nivera helped Gabriela

elaborate by asking her follow-up

questions that pursued her claim

about Wilma’s struggles. In turns

3, 7, and 9, Ms. Nivera asked

high-press questions that pushed

Gabriela to do more with the

ideas that she had communicated.

The way you respond to

student contributions in discussions shapes student

engagement and opportunities to learn. By inquiring

into their thinking, you can prompt students to

engage with their own ideas about text and with

the text itself. Your responses also tell students

something about what reading is and about who they

are and can become as readers and participants in

class discussion. In this interaction, Ms. Nivera took

Gabriela’s ideas seriously. She stuck with Gabriela’s

thinking even when it was unclear exactly where she

was headed. The follow-up moves that Ms. Nivera

chose positioned Gabriela as a capable reader with

worthwhile ideas. They also highlighted building

ideas (rather than mastering discrete skills) as central

to the practice of reading.

Beyond Teacher Questions:

Taking a Dialogic Stance

Although we know that it can be useful for teachers to

ask authentic, higher order, open-ended questions and

to follow up by taking up students’ ideas and probing

their thinking, there is more to creating magical

moments of productive student talk than particular

types of teacher questions. Sometimes higher order

or open-ended questions fall flat; students offer one-

word answers or don’t chime in at all. Sometimes a

teacher can pose a series of closed-ended questions in

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teachers navigate across multiple communicative

approaches for different instructional purposes.

These researchers described communicative

approaches across two dimensions: interactive–

noninteractive and authoritative–dialogic.

In interactive communication, students have

opportunities to contribute to class discussion,

whereas in noninteractive communication, the

teacher does all of the talking. Authoritative

communication occurs when the teacher steers

the talk in a particular direction, such as to make

an instructional point or to introduce a concept

that students are unlikely to discover on their

own. In dialogic communication, student ideas are

incorporated into the flow of the talk, although

they might be referred to by the teacher rather

than spoken by the students. (The term dialogic is

used a little differently in this context than in an

overall dialogic stance.) These two scales yield four

communicative approaches: interactive/authoritative,

noninteractive/authoritative, interactive/dialogic, and

noninteractive/dialogic. A skilled teacher can take

the way I respond to students, I don’t have to be

perfect. If I maintain the genuine interest in getting

to know students and learning about their ideas

that drew me to teaching in the first place, and if I

communicate that interest through words, gestures,

and actions, my students are likely to understand that

my classroom is a space where they can grow ideas

and elaborate on them through talk. They are likely

to pick up on my dialogic stance.

Navigating Across Communicative Approaches

Given today’s rigorous standards and the central

role of high-stakes tests, taking a dialogic stance in

teaching has become especially challenging. How can

a dialogic teacher teach the content that students need

to meet the standards? Does being a dialogic teacher

mean never providing explanations or modeling

for students? Must a dialogic teacher follow every

interaction wherever it leads, even when conversation

drifts far from the intended purposes of a lesson?

Definitely not. In fact, Mortimer and Scott (2003)

found that effective, dialogically oriented science

Table 2

Characteristics of dialogic and monologic stances

Dialogic Monologic

The teacher…

• has a sincere interest in students’ ideas and

interpretations.

• believes that students can offer valid perspectives about

texts that he or she has not thought of.

• is willing to reconsider his or her own thinking about a

text in light of conversations with students.

• offers students many opportunities to engage in

exploratory talk.

• may use authentic, open-ended questions and follow-ups

that probe students’ thinking (but need not use this kind

of talk exclusively).

• offers think time and encourages students to allow one

another time to think.

• focuses talk around students’ thinking.

• supports students in learning to listen to one another and

build on one another’s ideas.

• engages students in high-level, critically constructive talk

about big ideas within and across texts.

The teacher…

• emphasizes correct answers and conventional

interpretations of texts.

• focuses on delivering knowledge to students rather

than helping them construct it.

• may not offer many opportunities for student-

to-student talk or may structure that talk around

identifying correct answers.

• may use initiation–response–evaluation/initiation–

response–feedback recitation sequences.

• may not focus instructional attention on helping

students learn to talk productively with one another.

• engages students in conversations about texts that

involve literal recall and low-level inferences.

only structures for engaging students in small-group

text discussion. Table 4 provides resources to help

you learn more about student-led and teacher-led

small-group text discussion structures studied by

researchers.

In any of these text discussion structures, the goal

is for students to engage in enjoyable, constructive

talk about texts. It’s important to guide students and

scaffold their learning until they’re comfortable with

such discussions. The teacher leads some structures

(e.g., instructional conversations, Questioning the

Author; see Beck & McKeown, 2006), whereas in

others (e.g., literature circles), the teacher facilitates

the classwide process, moves from group to group

listening in on discussions, and occasionally offers

a comment or idea, but the groups are run by the

students.

Colleen Tracy assigns the group members in

her class rotating roles, such as discussion director

(facilitates the discussion) and passage picker (selects

a favorite or puzzling passage to share and discuss

with the group). She teaches minilessons about each

role to help all students step into the discussion

prepared. Many teachers have found these roles to

be helpful, temporary scaffolds that support students

as they learn to talk about texts together. However,

be careful about relying on particular roles (or the

role sheets that sometimes accompany them) for too

an overall dialogic stance toward literacy teaching

while navigating across these four communicative

approaches. Table 3 summarizes Alice Pan’s use of

the four communicative approaches during reading

minilessons.

By traversing these four communicative

approaches, Alice can engage students in critically

constructing ideas together and offer some explicit,

formative assessment–driven teaching of strategies

that will help students grow as readers. This class has

a trajectory: It is clearly headed somewhere, but the

journey isn’t rigid or lockstep. Alice and her students

move forward together in a bumpy, dynamic, alive

way that keeps everyone learning.

Scaffolding Productive

Small-Group Text Discussions

If our goal is for students to build ideas about texts

together through talk, our teaching must give them

lots of opportunities to talk to one another. Book

clubs (Raphael, Florio-Ruane, & George, 2001) and

literature circles (Daniels, 2002) are examples of

proven structures for discussion that are seeing a

resurgence in light of the CCSS for speaking/listening

and reading and as teachers push back against

instructional practices and curricula that have parsed

reading into a process of mastering discrete skill

sets. Yet, literature circles and book clubs are not the

Table 3

How Alice Pan uses the four communicative approaches in her reading minilessons

Dimension Interactive Noninteractive

Authoritative Interactive/authoritative: Alice poses questions

that lead students toward the key point of the

lesson. The students participate, and Alice steers

the conversation in a predetermined direction.

Noninteractive/authoritative: Alice explains

the strategy or practice and thinks aloud

as she models it for students. Students

observe.

Dialogic Interactive/dialogic: Alice engages the whole

class in open-ended discussion of a text,

their experiences using a strategy, etc. These

discussions often follow pair or small-group

opportunities to try out the strategy or practice,

but interactive-dialogic talk can also be a terrific

way to open a lesson. For example, students

might work together to sort a variety of texts

into categories and discuss the thinking and text

characteristics that prompted their choices.

Noninteractive/dialogic: As Alice presents

the focal strategy or practice, she refers to

contributions made previously by students

and to strategies that individual students

have tried. For example, she might say,

“Yesterday, I was talking to Sahar, and she

told me about something really smart that

she was doing as a reader....”

minilessons, Ms. Hammond teaches her students

to try out various types of response and to track

their thinking across a text using sticky notes. For

example, students might track the author’s use of a

particular symbol, jot down questions prompted by

the text, or note similarities and differences in the

content of two informational texts on the same topic.

Ms. Hammond also teaches her students, many of

whom are English learners, how to keep a discussion

long. Although using roles can encourage reluctant

or uncertain students to start talking, over time the

roles can constrain discussion. Conversation can

become robotic: Each student reads the notes on his

or her role sheet, and the discussion stops there.

Some teachers, such as Ms. Hammond, find that

students engage more effectively in small-group

text discussions when they create more open-ended

responses that aren’t tied to particular roles. In

Table 4

Selected structures for small-group text discussion

Structure Description Resources

Book clubs • The focus is on reading authentic literature

and responding in authentic, expressive

ways.

• Students engage in reading, writing, and

community sharing to support their small-

group, student-led book club discussions.

• Raphael, T.E., Florio-Ruane, S., & George, M.

(2001). Book Club Plus: A conceptual framework to

organize literacy instruction. Language Arts, 79(2),

159–168.

• Raphael, T.E., & McMahon, S.I. (1994). Book Club: An

alternative framework for reading instruction. The

Reading Teacher, 48(2), 102–116.

Collaborative

reasoning

• The focus is on argument, reasoning, and

considering multiple points of view about

a text.

• The teacher organizes small groups around

a big question, which is often about what a

character should do.

• Students respond directly to one another.

• Clark, A.-M., Anderson, R.C., Kuo, L.-j., Kim, I.-

H., Archodidou, A., & Nguyen-Jahiel, K. (2003).

Collaborative reasoning: Expanding ways for

children to talk and think in school. Educational

Psychology Review, 15(2), 181–198.

• Collaborative Reasoning (video): www.youtube

.com/watch?v=nCGT9wQya8A

• Building ELL Language Skills With Collaborative

Reasoning (video): www.youtube.com/

watch?v=Nms5awUz9FY

Instructional

conversations

• The focus is on gaining information from

text.

• It is designed to support English learners.

• The teacher leads the discussion, selects

a theme and has a basic plan for the

conversation, helps students link to

background knowledge and schemata, and

uses follow-up probes that are similar to

high-press questions.

• The teacher weaves together student ideas

and sometimes provides direct teaching.

• Goldenberg, C. (1992). Instructional conversations:

Promoting comprehension through discussion. The

Reading Teacher, 46(4), 316–326.

• Module 1: Instructional Conversations: Understanding

Through Discussion (DVD): www.newteachercenter

.org/products-and-resources/dvd-series/meeting

-the-challenge/module1/instructional

-conversations-understanding-through-discussion

Literature circles • The focus is on expressive or emotional

response to text and enjoyment of reading.

• Texts are selected by students (often from a

menu of options provided by the teacher).

• Conversations are led by students.

• Students bring written/drawn responses to

the group to prompt discussion.

• Daniels, H. (2002). Literature circles: Voice and choice

in book clubs and reading groups. Portland, ME:

Stenhouse.

• Looking Into Literature Circles (DVD): www

.stenhouse.com/shop/pc/viewprd.asp?idProduct

=9119

• Looking Into Literature Circles (video clip):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-2rhRYB4hk

but don’t limit yourself and your students to the

exemplar texts.

Seek out quality children’s literature across a range

of genres and consider how you can incorporate a

range of texts into your discussion activities with

students. Award programs for children’s literature,

such as the Coretta Scott King and Orbis Pictus

awards, can offer a good starting point in identifying

quality texts, although not all discussion-worthy texts

are award winners. (See Table 5 for information about

children’s literature awards.) You can also refer to the

annual Children’s Choices booklists published by the

International Reading Association (www.reading

.org/Resources/Booklists/ChildrensChoices.aspx).

Young readers often have different tastes than adult

judges, and their preferred texts may prompt the

richest discussions. You might even host a children’s

choice contest in your classroom and ask your

students to vote for favorite texts in a number of

different genres. Doing so is a terrific way to get to

know your students as readers and to communicate to

them that you value their opinions: one more way to

take a dialogic stance in your teaching. Banned books

(see www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooksweek) and

texts addressing social justice issues (see, e.g.,

www.tolerance.org/lesson/reading-social-justice)

can also prompt engaging discussions that challenge

students to question their thinking and beliefs.

Just as you hope your students will turn a

critical eye toward texts in their classroom talk, it is

important to ask critical questions as you select texts

for whole-class discussion or as options for small-

group discussion, such as, “Whose perspectives are

represented in the text?” “Who is absent from the

text?” and “What ways of knowing or ways of living

going and how to incorporate strategies for close

reading and critical analysis of texts into their

conversations. She models small-group discussions

with students and occasionally with other teachers,

and students have the opportunity to observe and

comment on the kinds of talk they hear.

Within talk-focused minilessons, Ms. Hammond

asks her students to try out posing particular kinds

of questions to their partners, such as, “Where did

you find that in the text?” She helps them get the

language of text discussion “in their mouths” so

they are more likely to use it when they collaborate

in small groups without her direct guidance. The

sticky note responses prompt students to tie their

discussions to the text because they have to open

it up to see the ideas they have written. That way,

when students question one another or challenge

one another’s ideas, they can point to specific text

passages and investigate them together.

Literature circles typically focus on students’

emotional and expressive responses to texts, which

are crucial aspects of the social process of reading.

Ms. Hammond’s approach helps students respond

emotionally and engage critically with texts in ways

that are likely to help them meet the demands of the

CCSS.

Choosing Texts That

Support Powerful Talk

For a text discussion to take on magical, alive,

exploratory qualities, it must start with an interesting,

compelling, or controversial text. Incorporating such

texts may seem like a challenge if your school dictates

strict use of narrow reading programs and decodable

books. However, if you are hoping to convince your

principal or district curriculum director of the

importance of incorporating authentic, high-quality

trade books, you can turn to CCSS Anchor Standard

10 (range of reading and level of text complexity;

National Governors Association Center for Best

Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers,

2010) for support. The CCSS call for students to

read, comprehend, discuss, and connect ideas across

increasingly complex, high-quality literary and

informational texts. Some examples are provided in

Appendix B of the CCSS. These lists can provide a

starting point for thinking about appropriate texts,

iStock/Thinkstock.com

and curricula that strip away the joyful, social,

collaborative, critical nature of real reading. Whole-

class, small-group, and one-on-one discussions of

texts are crucial to students’ literacy development

and to their success in meeting the CCSS. Teachers

can help students engage in powerful, productive

text talk by creating a safe climate for risk taking;

developing, modeling, and scaffolding clear ground

rules for participating in discussion; posing questions

and follow-ups that encourage elaboration; taking

a dialogic stance toward their literacy teaching;

organizing small text discussion groups; and choosing

texts that are likely to prompt rich discussion.

Classroom talk is both fascinating and complex.

No teacher ever completely masters the art of

engaging all students in powerful text discussions.

There is always something new to learn. Consider

collaborating with colleagues to use video as a tool for

inquiring into the patterns of talk in your classroom.

Perhaps the most important “what’s new” in

classroom talk about texts will be what you uncover

in your own reflective teaching.

are valued?” It is important to ensure that all of

your students will see their cultural and linguistic

backgrounds represented in the texts chosen

for small- and whole-group discussion. Further,

particularly if you teach in a relatively culturally

homogeneous setting, make sure to incorporate

texts into discussion that introduce your students

to cultures and experiences that they might not

encounter in their local surroundings.

Choosing a face-to-face format for discussion

doesn’t mean you cannot take advantage of

digital resources. Powerful text discussions can

emerge when students read e-books, blog posts, or

informational or news-related websites.

Final Thoughts

Talk is the heart of classroom life and a powerful

tool for learning, even in an increasingly digital age.

As the pressure to meet rigorous standards mounts

and the stakes around assessment grow ever higher,

students need teachers to push back against policies

Table 5

Selected children’s literature awards

• Batchelder Award for children’s books published outside the United States in a language other than English:

www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/batchelderaward

• Caldecott Medal for illustrations in a picture book: www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/

caldecottmedal

• Coretta Scott King Book Awards for African American authors and illustrators of books “that demonstrate an

appreciation of African American culture and universal human values” (American Library Association, 2014, para. 1):

www.ala.org/emiert/cskbookawards

• Edgar Awards for mystery (see the Best Juvenile category): www.theedgars.com/edgarsDB/index.php

• Jane Addams Award for children’s books “that effectively promote the cause of peace, social justice, world

community, and the equality of the sexes and all races” (Jane Addams Peace Association, 2013, para. 1):

www.janeaddamspeace.org/jacba/

• NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children: www.ncte.org/awards/poetry

• NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children: www.ncte.org/awards/orbispictus

• Newbery Medal for “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children” (Association for Library

Service to Children, 2014a, para.1): www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberymedal

• Pura Belpré Award for Latino/Latina authors and illustrators “whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates

the Latino cultural experience” (Association for Library Service to Children, 2014b, para.1): www.ala.org/alsc/

awardsgrants/bookmedia/belpremedal

• Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal: www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/sibertmedal

• Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction: www.scottodell.com/pages/ScottO’DellAwardforHistoricalFiction.aspx

Mercer, N., & Dawes, L. (2008). The value of exploratory talk. In N.

Mercer & S. Hodgkinson (Eds.), Exploring talk in school (pp. 55–72).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mercer, N., & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the development

of children’s thinking: A sociocultural approach. New York, NY:

Routledge.

Michaels, S., O’Connor, C., & Resnick, L.B. (2008). Deliberative

discourse idealized and realized: Accountable talk in the classroom

and in civic life. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 27(4), 283–297.

doi:10.1007/s11217-007-9071-1

Michaels, S., O’Connor, M.C., & Hall, M.W. (with Resnick, L.B.). (2010).

Accountable Talk

sourcebook: For classroom conversation that works.

Pittsburgh, PA: Institute for Learning, University of Pittsburgh.

Available: 2012-leadership-forum.iste.wikispaces.net/file/view/

AT-Sourcebook.pdf

Mortimer, E.F., & Scott, P.H. (2003). Meaning making in secondary

science classrooms. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of

Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards

for English language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science,

and technical subjects. Washington, DC: Authors.

Nichols, M. (2008). Talking about text: Guiding students to increase

comprehension through purposeful talk. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell

Education.

Nystrand, M. (with Gamoran, A., Kachur, R., & Prendergast, C.). (1997).

Opening dialogue: Understanding the dynamics of language and

learning in the English classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College

Press.

Pierce, K.M., & Gilles, C. (2008). From exploratory talk to critical

conversations. In N. Mercer & S. Hodgkinson (Eds.), Exploring talk

in school (pp. 37–54). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Raphael, T.E., Florio-Ruane, S., & George, M. (2001). Book Club Plus:

A conceptual framework to organize literacy instruction. Language

Arts, 79(2), 159–168.

Raphael, T.E., & McMahon, S.I. (1994). Book Club: An alternative

framework for reading instruction. The Reading Teacher, 48(2),

102–116.

Soter, A.O., Wilkinson, I.A., Murphy, P.K., Rudge, L., Reninger, K., &

Edwards, M. (2008). What the discourse tells us: Talk and indicators

of high-level comprehension. International Journal of Educational

Research, 47(6), 372–391. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2009.01.001

Children’s Literature Cited

Krull, K. (1996). Wilma unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph became the

world’s fastest woman. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.

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awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberymedal

Association for Library Service to Children. (2014b). Welcome to

the Pura Belpré Award home page! Available: www.ala.org/alsc/

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Nguyen-Jahiel, K. (2003). Collaborative reasoning: Expanding ways

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DOT MCELHONE is an assistant professor of curriculum and

instruction in literacy at Portland State University in Portland,

Oregon. She can be contacted at mcelhone@pdx.edu.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“What’s New in Literacy Teaching?” is edited by:

KAREN WOOD (University of North Carolina,

Charlotte, North Carolina)

RACHEL MCCORMACK (Roger Williams University,

Bristol, Rhode Island)

JEANNE PARATORE (Boston University,

Boston, Massachusetts)

BRIAN KISSEL (University of North Carolina,

Charlotte, North Carolina)

ISSN 2326-7216 (online) | No. 8045

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