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For the Joy of Learning

Learning should be joyful... and so should teaching!  It's all about balancing creativity with structure, passion with purpose, community with individuality, goal-setting with go-with-the-flow.

​This blog tells the story of my efforts to create a student-centered classroom culture of learning, full of curiosity, confidence and joy.

It's Time to Defund the Grammar Police!

6/15/2020

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Meaning matters to me.  I think it is important that my students learn to choose their words carefully, get their points across clearly, and ruthlessly revise and edit their writing for accuracy and specificity.  So, I teach them the language of grammar. I teach them about complete and complex sentences, and the role of the comma in correcting both.  I teach verb conjugation and the perils of tense switching.  We pick out homophone errors. A lot. At the same time, the current conversation around defunding the police and reallocating those resources to other government sectors is rooted in the understanding that a police force is a militarized system of social control and therefore not an appropriate system for promoting community safety, especially in communities of color.   Grammar policing is often used as a method of domination and exclusion, and there is racism embedded in the very idea that there is a single, correct way to speak English.  So if we want BIPOC and linguistically diverse voices to truly matter in our classrooms, how might we defund the grammar police?
“English is like the colonial settler of language (unsurprisingly) in that it constantly takes from all other languages, claims the stolen parts as its own, and then has the audacity to say certain dialects aren’t “correct.” 
​Sarah Khan 2019
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Decolonizing the Canon
Yikes! Likening grammar to colonialism connects it directly to white supremacy, which does not sit comfortably with me at all!  It’s wrong to imagine that there is a single correct way to speak.  Grammar rules have changed over time, they vary from place to place, and the way we speak depends on context. Everyone’s conversational grammar is different from their written grammar, and we talk differently with our parents, friends, and colleagues. Grammar rules are a human invention, and they are always changing. Did you know that ‘ain’t’ used to be associated with high class British people, such as Winston Churchill?  Now, it’s sneered at by those very same people. As an English woman, I speak different English to my family in England than I do with my American friends and colleagues. Neither is more ‘right’ (although my mum has a different perspective on this!), but wires often get crossed when I forget to code switch. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) has its own distinct grammatical and syntactical rules, and plays an important role as a symbol of resistance to racism. At the same time, it is constantly being assimilated and appropriated by white culture.  ESL students are often dismissed in deficit terms in schools, when in fact bilingualism is correlated with cognitive flexibility and it literally means the ability to do double what monolingual students can do!  This is complicated stuff.  Categorizing ‘nonstandard’ English grammar as inferior is dehumanizing, and correcting someone’s grammar or spelling in the middle of a discussion is derailing; a pernicious and subtle form of tone policing.  

"Language works best when it brings as many people into communication with each other.  If we know, by using certain language, we're disinviting certain people from that conversation, language isn't doing its job."
Elizabeth Pryor
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Understanding Intersectionality
Grammar policing is not just about racism and language purity. All the biases and marginalization that we see across the social, political, and economic spectrum are embedded in our language, and rules about how and when people should speak.  ‘Feminine’ forms of verbal expression, such as use of qualifiers, upspeak, and ‘like’ are frowned upon as social weakness, and women (and sometimes gay men) are often advised to stop sugarcoating things and get assertive!  This doesn’t apply to Black women, apparently, whose expression is more likely to be criticized and controlled because it is considered too loud or aggressive. Similarly, restricting pronoun use to a ‘he/she’ binary erases the identity and lived experience of nonbinary and transgender students. The instructional choices we make as language arts teachers have consequences, and they can serve to either uplift or harm our students. Grammar instruction, like language, is a political act.

So where does that leave the grammar police?
As a teacher, my goal is to create an inclusive, representative, and equitable language arts curriculum, and to empower my students to believe that their voices matter.  And I want rigor, and great test scores, and all those other teachery things that signify success in the classroom.  Yes, I know 'teachery' isn’t a real word. I’m making a point.  Acquiring more prestigious language is a powerful tool, and being able to use ‘correct’ (ie: Standard English) grammar offers access to white (male) dominated arenas such as board rooms, court rooms, and politics.  Using precise grammar in the right context is a power tool!  I want my students to own that tool, without violating or erasing their identities in the process.  And of course, I also want them to develop into culturally competent critical thinkers.
Here are some ideas I have for how I plan to achieve that while continuing to offer a robust grammar curriculum:
1. Decenter Standard English grammar
  • Rename grammar class as ‘Standard English’ grammar class.  Explain that there are other English grammar rules, but the standard rules are the ones we need to know for standardized tests and writing academic papers
  • Teach and learn about how grammar has changed over time.  Maybe it's just me, but this is actually pretty interesting, and it connects nicely with a structured word inquiry approach to vocabulary.  Check out this graph of the use of kneeled and knelt over time, and this one hinting at a rise in activism and a reduction in rebellion.
  • Reject a deficit perspective.  When I come across nonstandard grammar usage, I won't rush to correct it. Instead, I'll ask the author why they made that choice. Even if the grammar choice turns out not to have been a conscious choice at all, this approach confers agency and respects linguistically diverse students.
  • Speak up when I hear tone policing or dominant linguistic narratives being used as a form of control.  I want to model for my students that meaning matters most, and that we all have a role in confronting the grammar police.  Correcting someone’s grammar when you understand them perfectly is a method of flexing your power and privilege, and that does not have a place in an inclusive classroom.
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2. Provide diverse, multimodal linguistic mirrors and windows
  • I'll incorporate the stories of linguistically and culturally diverse communities into all aspects of the curriculum, and stop limiting grammar to grammar class. I can notice the grammar choices that authors make, especially authors of color, and examine the different patterns of oral speech that we encounter, without qualifying or apologizing for them.  If an accent is hard for me to understand, I'll make that part of the conversation and own the difficulty instead of blaming the speaker.  Staying silent about linguistic differences implies that there is something shameful or impoverished about them.
  • I can amplify ‘own voices’ by including a variety of voices into my classroom curriculum and community, using quotes, short videos, and visitors to expose students to linguistic and cultural diversity, and ensure that stories are told in people's own words.
  • I can uplift oral and presentational traditions. Storytelling traditions are highly valued in many cultures, and they require unique and specific language skills. ​We can enjoy them and compare them, thinking about how different syntactic and structural choices add to the story?

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3. Teach code switching as a valuable skill 
  • The language we use to build relationships, find compromise, or show connection is different to the language we might use to win an argument or make a point in the most efficient way possible. This is a feature of our flexible grammar system!  I can model how to code switch tone and language, whether we are writing an email to the principal, persuading peers to vote for something, or telling a story at the dinner table.  Upspeak and qualifiers are great for making connections and building partnerships.  Precision and clarity are better for debating or making a point.  I'll make sure students who can switch between multiple codes know their worth!
  • Whenever we start a new writing unit, we'll begin with purpose, asking ‘what language might suit this particular audience and purpose?’ and listen to the students’ ideas. I can show them that grammar is something that they can make choices about, and that their choices can have a powerful impact on their readers.

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4. Teach students to think about grammar through a critical literacy lens

  • Whether we are reading textbooks or enjoying a read aloud, the words people use to describe others and events are based in implicit cultural biases, so  I'll make an examination of those biases an integral part of each reading day.   I'll teach my students to ask:
    • Whose voices are being valued and devalued in this text?
    • How are they being valued or devalued?
    • Whose voices are being silenced?

  • I'll teach my students editing skills, and also teach them to know when editing is not required. We should not question or correct other people’s grammar when:
    • Their words are used in quotes or dialogue
    • When we have not been invited to
    • When we understand what they mean anyway

Rethink assessment to make it more asset-based
  • I'll start with what a student is doing well. What standard English grammatical rules are they using correctly?
  • I can name and notice grammar choices that amplify a student's meaning and message. "You added an adverb here, which helped me picture what you were describing."  "You chose to write this in the present tense, which makes your story suspenseful and immediate!"
  • I can scaffold and personalize grammar learning by picking specific aspects of grammar to work on with each student or small group, and focus on that for feedback, rather than highlighting every grammar error
Language is power, and grammar is the machinery of language. It is ours to adjust according to the worlds we want to speak into existence.  When my students see grammar on the schedule, I want them to feel that sense of power and opportunity, instead of the usual groans of boredom.  I think I can do that by defunding the grammar police, and expending more energy expanding our grammar horizons.
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Teaching from the Inside, Out

6/13/2017

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Emotional Intelligence is at the heart of academic performance, because: 
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  • Children need to be in the right emotional state for optimal learning (not too high, not too low)
  • Emotionally literate kids are more able to solve conflicts, collaborate with peers, and encounter new or challenging situations with resilience.
  • Emotionally balanced kids make for a happy classroom ​
If you believe that learning grows out of curiosity, confidence, and joy, you can't separate the social and the emotional from the academic.  Children need to feel safe and accepted, in order for them to be willing to look outside themselves, reach that little bit further, and connect with their world, instead of simply reacting to it.  ​

​Since it is so valuable, we can’t leave the development of EI to chance - we must actively seek to teach it to our students.  It is a teachable skill, just like Math or Reading.

At our school, we teach it as Social Emotional Learning, based on the work by IFSEL.  And just like math and reading, some children find it easy to learn, while others need explicit instruction and plenty of practice.  We address this by including SEL as part of our curriculum, and it has a scope and sequence as you move through the grades.  
The goal is for the students to develop a vocabulary for recognizing and talking about emotions, and then creating a toolbox for regulating them, and moving successfully through the social arena.

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By 4th and 5th Grade, students are starting to care more about what their friends think of them than ever before.  As their teacher, my role is to create a safe social space for them, and to provide opportunities for them to practice their SEL skills in context.
Opportunities for applying EI don’t just occur at 1:40 on Wednesday afternoons, during SEL class!

​Oftentimes, they happen on the playground, or in the middle of a collaborative project in Social Studies.  And some social emotional milestones are so relevant to certain age groups, that it makes sense to explore them proactively with students, transforming SEL from a series of lessons to be learned into a voyage of discovery that each class makes anew. 
This post is all about some ways that I have tried to proactively integrate SEL into the learning life of our classroom.  This is SEL planned into the scope and sequence of our academic curriculum, separate from, but complimentary to, our regular SEL lessons and Class Meetings. ​

Pick One Thread, and Weave it into Everything

1. Teaching Teamwork To 4th Graders

In 4th Grade, we investigated teamwork all year long, as part of an integrated, backwards designed unit.

​For example, in our first Math Unit of the year, the students practiced place value with a game of Nice, ... or Nasty?  In the first round, students competed to create the greatest 5 digit number by rolling dice in turns, applying what they had been learning about Place Value.  In the second round, they could give digits they didn't like to their competitors. Some even teamed up to take one person down!  In the final version, each group worked together as a team to create the largest number possible.  Afterwards, we talked about the Math, but we also talked about the difference between cooperation and competition.  Not that one is wrong and one is right, but that they generate different feelings, and it helps to recognize the difference.  All subjects can provide authentic settings for Social Emotional Learning.
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​Here, the students reflected on what they learned over the course of the year.

​Each student had internalized a different aspect of teamwork, and some were able to share what they needed to work on!

2. Lessons in Leadership (not Loudership)

Here, 5th graders developed a more nuanced definition of leadership, tried out different leadership roles, and investigated the relationship between effective leadership and productive collaboration. This year-long project had 4 strands:
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  • An SEL curriculum of games and role play, with a leadership theme
 
  • Reflections about leadership integrated into the academic curriculum, especially Reading and Social Studies
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  • Weekly meetings for students to nominate their peers for Leadership Points, with time to discuss different styles of leadership, and the subtle differences between kindness and leadership.
 
  • Celebrating Success: Students with 10 Leadership Points claimed a reward tied to leadership, such as helping out in another classroom
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3. Practicing Perspective-Taking

Not so much a unit, as a lens through which to create unit plans.  4th and 5th Grade is the perfect time to show kids how to understand and identify alternative points of view.  At the start of the year, each student receives a pair of Perspectacles; plastic party favor glasses to put on when trying out an alternative perspective.  They add humor to something that can feel scary and hard, and they enable young students to name perspectives without feeling like they have to own them.  The physical act of taking the perspectacles on and off scaffolds the perspective-taking process. 
What is Perspective?

The ability to put oneself in another's shoes.

AFFECT    +     COGNITION

Affect:

Empathy.  
The ability to feel for another person by making a personal connection

Cognition:
Thinking.
​The ability to understand and explain why a person might act in a certain way.



Why Teach It?
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1. It is developmentally appropriate

Through the elementary years, children shift away from egocentric thought. An increased ability to understand perspective is linked to cognitive, social, and moral development.
2. It is key for success in social relationships
Successful collaboration requires students to understand other points of view, and perspective-taking also decreases propensity for prejudice and stereotyping.
3. It is highly motivating
When students are invited to imagine walking in another person's shoes. they become more curious and engaged in their learning.
4. It is an important critical-thinking skill
The ability to consider multiple perspectives is a higher order thinking skill, important for evaluation and decision-making.
In Reading, Perspective-taking means...
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Interpreting an author's message and analyzing character motivations.
In Writing, 
​Perspective-taking means...
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Writing for a purpose, and holding  your audience in mind.
In Social Studies, 
Perspective-taking means...

Critical and Historical Thinking

Mini-Units That Match The Class Make-Up

As part of this unit about Anxiety, we read Justin Case, by Rachel Vail, and gave that fictional 4th Grade Worrier advice, based on what we were learning in class.
At the end, we created our own Patronuses - Harry Potter's defensive charm against the Dementors.  In our case, our Dementors were Anxiety and Self-Doubt.  We used the quiz below to think about what animals to choose, and then created our own versions in the Tinkering Lab.  Most kids combined animals to create their perfect blend of traits - a talisman for them to call on when needed.

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Diversity, Difference, Disability, or Disadvantage?  It's the Context that Counts!

6/11/2017

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"Do we say learning difference or learning disability?" one of my 4th Grade students asked, in the midst of a simulation about learning and attention issues, courtesy of the amazing Understood.org.  I said something along the lines of, "You'd need to ask the person - it all depends on their perspective," and left it at that.  But the question stuck with me.  It does matter which term we choose, because it frames our own perspective about the children we are teaching.  It also matters how a student feels about the way that they learn; brain research and the work by Carol Dweck and Jo Boaler show clear links between mindset and achievement.  Curiosity and joy arise from authentic confidence and, in my classroom, I have the power and the responsibility to create the classroom environment that frames every child's mindset positively.  

This year, 50% of my students were classified as requiring learning support, for Dyslexia, ADHD, Anxiety, and Language Processing Disorders.  While there are some structural and systemic questions to be answered about why so many, every student matters, so how should we ensure that 'atypical' students access the educational experience they deserve?  What makes learning valued, visible, and accessible when a student doesn't play by the expected rules of engagement?  What comes next is not a list of what actually happened all year, although I wish it was.  It is a list of what should have happened. And it is a manifesto for an inclusive, growth mindset, classroom environment.
 1. Demystify the Learning Process
If school feels hard, it is easy to develop a learned helplessness. Equipping all students with knowledge about how and why brains learn is empowering, and kids find it fascinating!  Show them what their brains are most likely to pay attention to, how to create long term memories, what happens to our brains when we are anxious, etc.  Show them how brains can differ, and what those differences might mean for how they learn.

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2. Make Thinking Visible
As teachers, we often ask our students to think about things, but we don't always show them how to actually do that.  When your brain thinks very fast or very slowly, or it is hard for you to process language, 'thinking' questions can shut you out of the conversation.  The Visible Thinking Framework from Project Zero names the types of thinking students need to do to build understanding, and then offers routines for accessing each kind of thinking.  They offer everyone the time and structure they need to process new information for themselves.
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3. Make Clear What Students Need To Do To Be Successful
If you have ADHD, you know you have trouble with attention, but that can mean different things in different situations.  Sometimes it means that you pay attention to too many things. And sometimes to the wrong things. It helps when you get information about what you are aiming for, and feedback about whether you were successful.  In Math, it means reading the directions carefully, being accurate with your facts and digits, and organizing your work clearly.
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4. Incentivize Goal Behaviors
But, if you have ADHD, reading directions carefully, staying organized, and maintaining accuracy is exactly what is hard for you!  Students with ADHD need incentives to prioritize this​ kind of work, and all students need their extra effort and attention acknowledged. Sometimes, that might mean rewards or tally charts, but mostly what students want is to feel validated as effective learners.  Scoring systems that reward attention to detail and effort as much as correct answers can be highly motivating and equitable.
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5. Add in some targeted small group instruction.
While I prefer a universal classroom design approach, sometimes it helps to group students who face similar issues, especially if they develop their own support network as a result. 
6. Offer Universal Scaffolds
Everybody benefits from scaffolds like graphic organizers, visuals, vocabulary preview, and sentence frames, so why not make them freely available? By making learning supports a desirable commodity, and even fun to use, nobody feels shame.  Nobody does their best work when they are feeling self-conscious, and students are unlikely to take risks when their teacher has singled them out as unable to manage without support.  
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7. Find Authentic Opportunities to Flip The Perspective.
It is common knowledge that people with dyslexia tend to be good at seeing the bigger picture, and often have great spatial awareness.  So maybe they can lead when it comes to summarizing or mapping activities.  People with ADHD tend to do things fast, like to multi-task, and can think outside of the box.  Just what you need for problem-solving activities or fast-paced competitions! Anxious students are often great at completing long term assignments on time, and can help with organization and scheduling.  What may be a disadvantage in one setting can be advantageous in another.  The trick for a teacher is to identify opportunities for everyone's learning profile to shine.
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“Tell me and I forget.
Teach me and I learn.
​Involve me and I remember.”
- Benjamin Franklin
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The Joys of a Mispelt Youth

10/12/2015

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No, I didn't mean misspent, although I might have, and I do know that's not how you spell 'misspelled'.  However, it's exactly how it sounds, and that is the problem that the majority of 5th Graders have when they write: they still write the words phonetically, sounding them out as they go along, and completely forgetting to apply the spelling rules they have learned, and aced, on their weekly spelling tests.  This is partly because they are not as motivated by accuracy as they are by getting their ideas out on paper.  But is also because they don't yet have a sense of the reasons behind the spelling patterns they should be applying, or that there are some basic building blocks that they can leverage to turn verbs into nouns, adjectives into adverbs, and even to create new words that fit the accepted patterns of the English language.  
This is the Derivational Relations stage of spelling instruction, where spellers learn that words related in meaning are often related in spelling, discover the basic morphemes of English language, and begin to be able to break words apart into their prefixes, roots, and suffixes.

Morpheme
The smallest meaningful unit of a language.
For example, the word Nonperishable is made up of 3 morphemes:
Non (not)
Perish (die)
Able (adjectival ending, meaning capable of)
Creative Spelling, Created Meaning
Some of our greatest writers have created new words in their stories.  We didn't need a dictionary to understand them partly because of their creators' expert use of context clues, but also because they followed the basic morphological rules of spelling:

To ​Apparate (vb)
Invented by JK Rowling
To teleport from one place to another 
(From the Latin 'appareo', meaning 'appear', with the suffix -ate, which commonly denotes verbs)

Inaudible (adj)
Invented by William Shakespeare
Impossible to hear
(From the Latin 'audire', meaning 'to hear', with the prefix in-, meaning 'not', and the suffix -ible, meaning 'capable of')

I find that sort of stuff fascinating, but your average 5th Graders would rather stick pins in their eyes than memorize lists of latin roots and unfixed affixes. And it's one thing to learn the list. It's a whole other story to start applying the rules in your writing.  And in the end, what really matters is that children recognize, and revel in, the power of vocabulary to create precise, powerful meaning. 
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Spelling instruction needs an injection of joy if we want 11 year olds to start to care about how words are spelled, and to experiment with the words they use in their writing.

So, here are some ways I have been experimenting with boosting my students' engagement with spelling by adding more inquiry and creativity to pique their curiosity and build their confidence in spelling and vocabulary:
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1. Examine a few, carefully-chosen, words closely
  • 4 target words per week that are relevant to our curriculum
  • How are they defined?
  • How are they constructed?
  • What are the affixes and roots?
  • What might make them tricky to spell?
  • How might we transform them into other parts of speech?

2. Make time for practice and reflection
  • Display target words on a word wall
  • Collect examples of when we have used them successfully in context
  • Look back every so often, to evaluate whether we are applying our new vocabulary in our writing​​
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It's ok to discover that we don't understand something yet!
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3. Add some creativity and experimentation!
  • Show the definitions in creative ways​
  • Create new vocabulary words using what we know about affixes​
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  • Play with morphemes and modular vocabulary flipbooks
  • Make predictions about definitions, using what we know about roots and affixes.
Maybe we won't be exposed to as many words this way, but I hope we will remember and apply those we do learn, and pick up some useful tools for writing and reading new words along the way!
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Leaning in to Listening

7/21/2015

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If there's one thing I know about 5th Graders, it's that they LOVE to talk.  From the moment they come in in the morning to the last "Bye!" at the end of the day, my only constant is their continuous desire to connect with one another through conversation.  In fact, most of them are quite happy to talk to themselves if no one else is listening and, in this 24/7 connected culture, the chat doesn't fade at the end of the school day, with nightly messages about cute kitten pictures, funny videos, and minecraft updates, and desperate late night emails about homework, or what to wear tomorrow.
5th Graders might think that talking is simply about building relationships, but I know it is much more than that.  Conversation builds critical thinking and negotiation skills.  It forces kids to entertain alternative perspectives and develop empathy.  It gives learners time to process new information and express it in a way that makes sense for themselves. It builds content understanding, and cultivates connections between different content areas. Dialogue provides an immediate feedback channel in the classroom;  through their conversations, children learn whether their ideas make sense, and if they are on track socially and academically, and those same conversations make it possible for me to find out what my students are thinking and understanding, what they are interested in, and what is confusing for them.  Conversation is the noisy, younger sibling of the inner dialogue that happens when thinking and learning are occurring.
However, you can't gather 20 ten year olds into a classroom and expect these kinds of powerful conversations to develop naturally!  For conversations to be marked by curiosity, confidence and joy, children need to be willing to share their ideas, to actively listen to each other, to know what might be relevant to share and how to listen and respond to each other in constructive ways, and they need to believe that their classmates respect and care about what they have to say. When they work, classroom conversations are powerful motivators and reinforcers for learning.  When they don't work, they are trigger points for teacher frustration and opportunities for shyer, quieter, slower processors and divergent thinkers to feel intimidated and excluded. 
Given all of that, I don't want to leave the development of a culture of conversation in my classroom to chance.  Here are the three key elements I try to incorporate in order to harness the happiness that is generated when 5th Graders really listen to each other.

Depth

Time

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We came upon the question of whether an apple in a fruit bowl is dead or alive when reading "The Fourteenth Goldfish", by Jennifer Holm. I'm still not sure what I think about this, but this student was!
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I try to ask questions that are interesting, relevant, and which don't have one simple answer.  If you think that there is only one right answer, and the teacher already knows what that is, why would you take the risk of being wrong?  And you can't have a discussion if everyone wants to say the same thing!
I give space for thinking before sharing out so that students have time to think beyond the first ideas that pops into their head. This could be in the form of silent reflection, a journal entry, or a Think Pair Share. 
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I also make time for our conversations, and actively listen to what is being said. It's easy to get into a time squeeze at the end of a lesson, so I'm really careful to plan out time for speaking and listening. We record our ideas on chart paper or post-its, making sure that all ideas are given value. Online conversations, on platforms like kidblog, edmodo, and padlet, are also great ways to add time into the conversation equation.  These are great opportunities for assessment, as I can follow specific conversations and reflect on what they tell me about student learning.

Structure

Confident Conversationalists need to know how to add value to their discussions.  I use rubrics and routines to help the class practice coming up with original ideas, share them effectively, and actively listen to each other.  I make them accountable for listening to each other by picking sticks for representatives in the small groups to feed back to the whole class. It doesn't take too long, but is is a great way of ensuring that each group member synthesizes the discussion and feels responsible for understanding what was going on. 


Here are some of the ways that we make the art of conversation visible in 5L:


#5L Wonders is a hokey, home-made ipad, but I use it to ask an interesting question each morning.  Each student has to respond on an equally hokey smartphone. It sets a tone of curiosity, and the students get practice coming up with their own opinions.  It doesn't take long for the students to start making suggestions for the question of the day, and they are usually amazing!
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I would never have thought to ask the class to predict thematic patterns between our first and second class books!
'Yes, Because...And' is a great activity to play at the start of the year.  The students take turns to listen to an idea, explain why it is great, and then add on to it.  It's a fun way to practice active listening and constructive responding.  It's also a useful brainstorming tool for writing assignments, and a great way to kick off a group project where there are likely to be lots of competing ideas!  For example, you could start simple, with. "If I had a million dollars, I would buy a time machine."  Next in line responds, "YES! Because... then you could be in two places at once! And... I would make it big enough for my whole family" ... "YES! Because..."
Make Your Message Matter is a rubric for adding value to conversations.  We go through the various ways that we can respond to a comment in constructive ways.  I created stickers of the icons, and the students practice naming the kinds of responses they have given in written conversations, like chalk talks, at the start of the year, by sticking on the icon that matches their response.  We also use the rubric for online discussions, to support digital citizenship practice.
Conversation MATters is a routine for adding depth to small group discussions.  Each student is assigned a role to take during the discussion, from summarizing the main idea, to offering alternative perspectives and making connections, to asking participants to elaborate on their ideas.  Some of the roles are hard, and need some practice, especially the diversity and connections roles.  At the end, we might do a whole class share out, or jigsaw so that the different roles can listen to and learn from each other.  I created this mat towards the end of last year, and I was amazed at how it extended our conversations.  Everybody had a clear role that they would be held accountable for, and no one could get away with sharing their thoughts and then drifting off.  My higher level thinkers loved the challenge of pushing the conversation in interesting directions, the socially challenged benefitted from having clear rules for joining in, the slower processors had more time to think through their ideas because the conversations lasted longer, and the 'throw-away' thinkers had to slow down and justify their thinking instead of simply sharing the first thing that came into their heads.  I'm going to start earlier with it this year, and maybe extend it into writing - these roles would make great prompts for brainstorming responses to non-fiction and current events articles!
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    The Far Reach Teacher

    A 4th and 5th Grade teacher intent on creating a culture of learning, through encouraging curiosity, confidence and joy.

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