Several weeks ago at a literacy conference in
Waco, I heard an impressive set of speakers talk for three days about reading
and writing. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed a barrage of
tweets detailing many of my takeaways from this rich learning experience. My
tweets and retweets were digital-age “Amens” as these literacy gurus preached
about the importance of student choice in reading, providing authentic reading
and writing experiences, ways teachers can support and promote reading, and
growing students to become more literate, discerning citizens.
One thing I didn’t tweet was an offhand comment
made by one of the presenters. Just before he asked us to turn and talk with a
neighbor about a question he posed, the speaker said, “Don’t you think we’ve
kind of overdone ‘Turn and Talk’ in schools?” He said it as if the pair-share
were some sort of plague spreading maliciously though classrooms, killing learning
by forcing students to interact with one another. According to him, America’s
teachers are Turn-and-Talking their students to death. Turn and Talk, he seemed
to believe, is as passé as bottle flipping and fidget spinners.
As an educator who spends hours each week in
classrooms, I have to respectfully disagree with the notion that we are asking
students to talk with a neighbor too frequently or that the strategy is losing
its power. The undisputed truth about classroom talk is that in most
classrooms, teachers still do the majority of the talking. Full-class
discussions usually involve only a fraction of the students and don’t give
every kid the chance to work through the ideas on their own. The idea that we
are asking our students to share too frequently seems absurd to me, but, having
spent several days listening and agreeing with this particular literacy expert,
I am trying to figure out where his opinion is coming from.
I’ve identified several ways Turn and Talk might
go bad; let’s call them Turn and Talk Traps. Perhaps this student talk
naysayer has experienced these pitfalls and is objecting based on his
observations.
Making Turn and Talk a Thing: There’s a danger when using any learning strategy that the
strategy itself may become something bigger than it ought to be. We make it a
“thing” rather than just providing a topic, question, or prompt and asking our
kids to talk with one another about it. When this happens, we risk the danger
of making our strategies bigger than the learning they are supposed to
facilitate. We turn them into elaborate productions. We say things like,
“Okay, kids, we are about to do a Turn and Talk,” as if we are saying, “Now
it’s time to do a triple axel followed by a double lutz and a quadruple
salchow.” Students don’t necessarily need to know the terminology behind every
teacher move we make. Turning to a neighbor and talking about your learning can
(and probably should) be a seamless part of our daily lessons, a habit we get
into because we know that all our students—not just a few—deserve the
opportunity to talk through and test out their ideas so they can develop
complex understandings of their own and the learning will stick. Instead of
“doing a Turn and Talk,” simply ask students to turn to a neighbor and talk. It’s
really simple and effective.
Nebulous Talk:
Another misstep is asking students to turn and talk without giving them
direction or parameters for their discussion. This leaves them with
uncertainty: What am I supposed to talk about? How long? When am I supposed
to talk, and when am I supposed to listen? Who talks first? I’ve been
guilty of stopping my lesson at what seems to be an appropriate spot and asking
my students to discuss the content with their table neighbor. A handful of
students talk while the others visit about their weekend or simply stare at one
another, unsure of exactly what they are expected to say. Sometimes I’ve
provided way too much time for my nebulous classroom talk so there is no sense
of urgency about getting to the discussion. Student talk should be focused,
succinct, and accompanied by clear expectations. Carefully planned questions
can provide a spark for meaningful talk. Sentence frames and stems offer some
structure and help students develop more sophisticated academic language. Talk
can be timed; roles of each partner can be clarified. When the teacher has a
clear plan for what is supposed to happen during this talk time, students don’t
see this as an arduous add-on to their day.
Turn and Talk Without a Follow Up: Paired student talk probably shouldn’t be an end in itself, but
it can be meaningful as a lead-in to something else. For instance, posing a
question to the entire class and allowing students to discuss it with a partner
before opening it up to the full class gives students confidence to respond
because they’ve tried their ideas out on a partner. Turn and Talk can precede
student writing, aid students in summarizing and clarifying information in the
midst of a lecture or video, serve as closure to a lesson (followed by a
share-out of key takeaways), allow students to refine their own notes through
comparison with another student’s, assist students in figuring out how to
approach a problem, or help students set a personal goal or objective for the
day. The way to make student talk worthwhile is to show students that it’s an
integral part to their learning process and will improve their chances of
success in our classrooms.
I’m sticking to my original stance. We haven’t
done Turn and Talk to death. Perhaps we’ve done it poorly from time to time.
When it’s done well—which isn’t that difficult to pull off with a little
planning—paired student talk can be one of the most powerful tools for
empowering students to make their learning meaningful, grow in their understanding,
and clarify and reinforce their thinking. We could do a whole lot worse than
making Turn and Talk our go-to strategy in the classroom.
What are your thoughts about incorporating
student talk in your classroom? Turn to someone nearby and discuss that
question for a minute. Afterwards, you can put some of these ideas into
practice.
