Are You Watching?

Have you ever taken a moment during a class to watch your students? I mean, really watch them? Kids don’t have great poker faces during school hours, and observing their faces and body language can provide you with plenty of feedback about how well your students are being hooked by your lesson.

It’s one thing to watch students while you are the one doing the talking. Depending on how charismatic an orator you are, you may see a dutiful few who are making eye contact and nodding along with you, a roomful of eager listeners waiting to be filled up with your brilliance, or a bunch of catatonic teens fighting off slumber (and, likely, some who have given up the fight and have succumbed to a nap at their desks). Regardless of how they look, if you’re the one doing the talking in your room, you’re also the one doing most or all of the thinking. That’s not the goal.

In an ideal classroom, we limit teacher talk and shift the cognitive load to our students. Asking students to talk about the content definitely increases student engagement, but it still offers educators plenty of opportunity to look at their students to assess the degree of engagement. Sometimes, students who are supposed to be engaged in partner or small-group classroom conversation actually look like this: 

Staring blankly at the paper in front of them. Slack-jawed. Ignoring one another entirely. Yawning. Expressionless faces. Flat, lifeless conversation.

The mere act of giving students something to talk about doesn’t mean they will eagerly talk about it. I’m guilty—and perhaps you are, too—of providing students something to talk about without giving them a reason to talk about it. Talking about a worksheet doesn’t remove the fact that there’s a worksheet in front of them. Pair-sharing an answer to a dull question only makes it slightly less dull.

When I give students a conversational task, I want to see faces like these:

Smiling. Maybe laughing, Bright-eyed. Animated. Showing visible signs of thinking. Leaning forward. Lively conversation.   

When we give students something provocative, worthwhile, challenging, and intriguing to think about, we pique their curiosity, ignite their interests, and spark their inquiry. If your students don’t appear joyful about their learning, why not? I hope it bothers you and spurs you to think: What can I do to change that?

Here are a few questions to consider if you want to ramp up the engagement level of the student talk in your classroom:

• Am I asking students to talk about something they care about?
• If the topic is not intrinsically interesting, what can I do to build their curiosity?
• Did I tap into their need to express opinions, connect to their experiences, and have fun?
• Does the task have an element of playfulness, or is it a drudgery?
• Did I provide an accessible entry point for students to begin the conversation or learning, or have I provided insufficient scaffolding to allow them to approach the learning without intimidation?
• Is the task clear? Do they know what they are supposed to be doing?
• Is the task complex and open-ended rather than simplistic? In other words, does the activity warrant conversation and exploration, or is it a one-and-done, quickly answerable question?
• Did I do everything I can do sell the learning to my students so they have maximum buy-in?
• If the assignment is not one I designed myself, did I take ownership of the assignment or introduce it as something “they” want my students to do?
• Are you asking your students to talk about concepts at a level that is above their maturity or interest level?
• Are the students going to do something worthwhile and interesting with what they discuss?
• Do my students see the benefit of talking about this topic, believing that they get smarter through interaction with others?  

A good gauge for judging your students’ engagement in your observations is to compare what you observe when your students are interacting socially with friends to what you see when you ask them to talk in your classroom. The difference could look like this:

“Friend talk” is lively, joyful, playful, noisy, animated, casual, comfortable, and pleasurable. Sadly, some “school talk” is silent, dour, filled with pauses, lifeless, drab, uninspired, mechanical, and tedious.

“School talk” with probably never look exactly like “friend talk.” And it probably shouldn’t. It it does, your students probably aren’t really talking about what you’ve asked them to. They’ve abandoned the conversation topic and are now chatting about what they did last weekend. I’m not satisfied, however, with students in academic conversations looking like they are attending a funeral and are struggling to find something to say about the deceased. I want school talk to look more like friend talk than that. I can usually accomplish that by carefully considering what I have my learners talk about and what I ask them to do in their pairs, triads, or quads.

Not coincidentally,  different levels of engagement produce a perceptible noise-level shift, too. Disengaged classroom talk is very quiet. Engaged classroom talk is somewhat louder. Social talk rises to a significantly louder volume level. By simply listening, it’s easy to tell when students are “done” discussing.  

If you haven’t stopped teaching to look—really look—at your students lately, I invite you to quit working so hard, step back, and observe. If you like what you see, keep doing it. If the students’ “school talk” faces look like they’d rather be anywhere else but in your classroom, maybe you can tweak what you’re doing so that your students clamor to talk with one another about the exciting things they’re learning.     

What Student-Focused Talk Looks Like

I received some positive responses to last week’s article explaining my beliefs about student talk. I also heard some questions about what this kind of talk looks like and how to make it happen in a classroom. As a follow-up, this week I am providing several scenarios to help you identify some of the ways you can shift your instructional focus to incorporate more conversation into your teaching practice.

Scenario 1:  

Teacher-Talk Approach:  The students are reading the Prologue of Romeo and Juliet. The teacher reads the text aloud and asks students to read along. Then, the teacher rereads the passage line by line, explaining what each line means. At the end, the teacher asks, “Does everybody get it?”  The students dutifully reply, “Yes.”  “Any questions?”  Silence.

Student-Talk Approach:  The teacher reads the 14 lines of the Prologue silently as the students follow along. Then, she asks the students to read it along with her in unison. Students then read back through the passage silently, underlining all the phrases they understand. Then, the teacher asks them to discuss with a partner, first talking about the things they understand. Then, she asks them to identify the places they are confused and talk about why, specifically, these places are difficult, formulating questions about their points of confusion. Each pair of students joins with another pair and discusses the points of confusion, clarifying where possible. The remaining questions then go to the entire class and teacher for discussion and explanation.  

Craig’s notes:  In this scenario, the students read aloud in unison, which allows all to practice fluent oral reading with a safety net (and without subjecting the students to having to listen to befuddled peers butcher Shakespeare). Then, students are doing the comprehension work with a partner, modeling the things that good readers do as they decipher difficult text. Allowing the students to struggle reinforces a growth mindset and helps dispel the idea that the teacher will swoop in to provide correct answers at the slightest sign of difficulty.  

Scenario 2:  

Teacher-Talk Approach: Government students read a chapter explaining the three branches of the U.S. government. They individually complete a study guide with questions that highlight the most important points in the chapter. Students may use the study guides on an open-note quiz to check for understanding.

Student-Talk Approach:  Prior to reading an explanation of the three branches of the U.S. government, students talk in four-person table groups about the following: “What would happen if the U.S. legislature passed a law that violated the Constitution? What would happen if the President tried to overstep his or her power?” After students discuss, the teacher encourages them to look for the answers as they read the chapter. Then, students complete a two-minute quickwrite and talk in pairs about this question: “What is the difference between the separation of powers and checks and balances?” The teacher asks students to answer the question individually in writing on a notecard as a ticket out the door.

Craig’s notes: The teacher in the student-talk scenario follows a variation of Nancy Motley’s Talk Read Talk Write strategy. Students first talk about the topic in order to activate prior knowledge and give a focus for their reading. The second talk involves a common misunderstanding of students and provides students the opportunity to wrestle verbally with this potentially confusing distinction between two related topics. The teacher’s question requires complex thinking rather than a simple regurgitation of facts or definitions. Allowing students to complete the quickwrite before discussing helps them clarify their thoughts. Finally, the exit card allows the teacher to monitor individual students’ understanding and to use that to guide the next day’s instruction.

Scenario 3:  

Teacher-Talk Approach: A teacher gives a lecture with accompanying PowerPoint slideshow. Students take notes from the slides to use to study for the upcoming test.

Student-Talk Approach: The teacher delivers the lecture while students take notes on the right column of a page of Cornell Notes. The PowerPoint (if one is used) contains only images and occasionally important words, so students have to take their own notes based on what the teacher says. Every ten minutes, the teacher stops to allow students to work with a partner to compare notes. The partners verbally recreate the preceding portion of the lecture using their notes--adding to, clarifying, or correcting their notes, as needed. For homework, students review and revise their notes--circling key terms, underlining important ideas, adding symbols, charts, pictures, or other marginalia to process what they learned. The next day in class, students work in pairs to review their notes and create higher-level questions about the topics in the left column of the Cornell Notes. These questions can be used for small-group discussion over the notes. For homework, students review their notes and questions and write a summary of the notes at the bottom of their Cornell Notes. At the beginning of the next class period, students share their summaries with a partner before moving on.  

Craig’s notes:  Welcome to my high school education, except back in the day we used an overhead instead of PowerPoint. Sadly, lecturing is still a frequently overused (and largely ineffective) teaching method. When lecturing must occur, best practice says that teachers should stop and allow students to process approximately every 10 minutes. This provides a state change (which wakes up the brain) and helps the students digest the material. The student-talk approach above takes the class through the multiple stages of the Focused Note-Taking process in which students revisit the material collaboratively in multiple ways--review and revision, questioning, summarizing. This models the necessary repetitions to move the students toward long-term understanding of the content. Yes, it takes longer, but the students will actually understand and remember what they learned. For more on Cornell Notes, read this.

Scenario 4:

Teacher-Talk Approach: A math teacher works a problem that many students missed on a test to show the class how to solve it correctly.

Student-Talk Approach:  The math teacher displays the attempt of a fictional student who solved the problematic problem incorrectly. In pairs, students look at what the student did and try to explain where the student went wrong. What was this student’s misunderstanding or mistake? After students discuss, the teacher calls upon a student to share what he and his partner discussed.

Craig’s notes: Teacher talk usually involves passive students. In the student-talk approach, the onus of the learning is on the kids as they wrangle with the problem and try to explain the thought processes of the solver. Practicing this sort of discussion can help the students become more adept at diagnosing their own missteps as they solve problems individually later. Another effective approach is to have one student explain to another how she solved a problem and to allow the other student to verify whether the student’s explanation and solution are correct. Often, students can explain concepts to one another in language that is more accessible than the teacher’s attempts.

Scenario Five:  

Teacher-Talk Approach: Students have been working for several days on an essay in class, and, as she did the day before, the teacher begins the period by asking students to take out the assignment sheet and the rubric and follow along as she reminds them of the most important points.

Student-Talk Approach: Since students have heard this once already, the teacher asks the students to take out their assignment sheet and rubrics and to talk with a partner. Partner A explains the assignment to Partner B for 30 seconds. Partner B responds using a sentence stem the teacher has put on the board, “What I heard you saying is…and I also want to point out...” and then re-summarizes what Partner A originally said, adding some additional important information. The teacher asks the pairs to look at the rubric. Partner B begins with the stem, “In order to do well on this essay…” and explains the criteria for an outstanding essay according to the rubric. Partner A responds using this teacher-provided stem: “Some things you should avoid doing are…” and uses the rubric to elaborate. Students then begin work on their essays individually.

Craig’s notes: When teachers “go over” assignment sheets and rubrics, students often hear the “waah waaah waaa-wah waaaah” of Charlie Brown’s teacher. Just because we said it, doesn’t mean they got it.  One way to prompt students to look more closely at instructions and rubrics is by asking them to explain things to one another in their own words. The sentence stems provided by the teacher give students a guide for how to use academic register in summarization. These are especially effective for English language learners but work well for all students. Nearly every teenager can use a little practice in how classroom talk differs from informal talk among peers in non-academic settings. As the students are explaining the rubric and assignment sheet to one another, the teacher can monitor the discussions to identify points that require clarification for the entire class.

I could keep writing these scenarios for days, but I’d rather let you do some of the thinking yourselves. I encourage you to find a colleague and have some productive talk as you brainstorm ways to get your students to do more of the talking in your own classes. I think you’ll be pleased at the level of student engagement that will occur after the students grow accustomed to talking--and thinking--about what they are learning.

Eleven Beliefs About Student Talk

The more I observe students in schools, the more convinced I am that the best way to transform an ordinary classroom into a vibrant hive of learning is to let the kids talk. Most young people are naturally social and enjoy interacting with their peers. Why not figure out ways to channel those inclinations into productive educational conversations? To give you something to ponder on this topic, I’ve composed a list of eleven of my beliefs about student talk:

1. The people doing the talking are the people doing the thinking.

If you, the teacher, are doing most of the talking in class, you are probably physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the day. Furthermore, you may have no idea whether your students know or understand anything you said to them. If you plan lessons that require students to do more talking, your students will be doing the thinking, which means they will be doing the learning, too.    

2.  Structured student conversation should occur multiple times in every instructional period.

This belief has two key components: the conversation should 1) be structured and 2) occur repeatedly. 1) Structure:  Free-form conversation (“Discuss this in your table groups…”) quickly degenerates into off-task chatting. Adding some structure (more specific topics or questions to address, sentence starters or frames, time limits, explicit rules about how the speaking is supposed to proceed, roles for each member of the conversation) will ensure that the talk time is effective. 2) Repeat occurrence:  Learners need brain breaks, and student talk is a great way to reset brains and reinforce understanding before, during, and after cognitive activities. Stopping to allow a two-minute partner share during a lecture not only allows students to explain what they’ve learned but it also wakes them up. Paired conversation could occur after every question the teacher asks during a class. A well-designed lesson provides numerous opportunities for students to talk to one another.        

3.  Full-class discussions, if they have to occur at all, should take place after the students have talked in pairs or other small groups.

I am not a fan of the full-class discussions. I didn’t enjoy them when I was in school. I don’t enjoy them now in professional learning scenarios as an adult. Full-class discussions are a boring beatdown. It’s a back-and-forth dialogue between a teacher or presenter and a handful of interested participants. Everyone else has mentally checked out or is waiting for that one blabbermouth to shut up. If you must have full-group discussions, at least let your students talk about the question or topic beforehand in smaller groupings where everyone can participate. That’s when the real learning occurs. The subsequent large-group discussion can be a quick check for understanding and an opportunity for students to ask the questions that came up as they were talking with their partners.  

4.  Students write like they speak. Teaching students to speak in academic register improves their speaking and writing abilities.

We don’t speak the same way in every situation. What might be appropriate with friends in a casual setting isn’t the way people speak in an academic or professional environment. Most adults have learned to speak in various language registers: formal, informal, academic, parental, etc. Teaching students to speak like experts gives them an automatic edge in the world. I’ve graded many a paper from a student who writes in teenspeak, their writing peppered with likes and you knows. Who can blame them if they have no awareness of shifting between language registers for various purposes? When you provide your students with templates for academic speech, show them how to link ideas together with transitional words and phrases, and equip them with academic vocabulary in your subject, you are teaching them a new language that, once it becomes more automatic, will transfer into their writing.    

5.  If I can explain it, I probably understand it.

Have you ever had that experience where you read about something or listen to someone explain a topic and then realize, when you attempt to tell someone else about it, that you have some significant gaps in your comprehension? Students shouldn’t discover they don’t understand something as they are taking a test over that topic. Asking students to explain concepts to one another allows them to check their own understanding. (I love the idea of one student explaining a topic and the other student paraphrasing what that person said after listening to the explanation.) The more you ask students to talk about your subject, the stronger their understanding will become.  

6.  Students need think time and writing time before they speak.

I’ve been guilty many times of posing a question to the entire class and instantly beginning a discussion over the topic. Of course, there was always one eager quick-thinker who jumped in to answer the question instantly. Many of the other students were still trying to form an answer as I was moving on to another question. Most, I fear, never even bothered with the thinking because they knew someone else would beat them to it. I learned to try this instead: I posed a thought-provoking question and allowed students a minute or two to write their response in their interactive notebook. Then, I asked students to discuss in pairs before calling on a few students at random to share their answers with the class. Providing that think time helped struggling students come up with something to say and gave all students a chance to develop deeper thoughts on paper instead of responding quickly in a more superficial way.

7.   Student talk doesn’t have to be a big deal if it’s an everyday occurrence.

Once my student became accustomed to interacting with one another, they knew what to do and did it willingly and automatically. I established “elbow partners” and “quads” so that there was no confusion when I asked them to turn and talk.  

8.  Students become more confident sharing their ideas with the class if they have had time to rehearse them with a smaller group first.

Speaking in front of the class is a fate worse than death for many students. Part of their trepidation comes from a fear of being wrong or of being made fun of for a “stupid” answer. When students have an opportunity to try out their responses in front of a significantly smaller audience, they become more confident when asked to share with the whole class. They also learn from the responses from others and may use what they’ve learned to refine their own response if called upon to share.   

9.  Putting a grade on student talk makes the talk inauthentic.

In the real world, we aren’t graded on the frequency or quality of our speaking in meetings and conversations. The value of conversations and discussions comes from the exchange of ideas, building onto these ideas, civil cognitive conflict, and the resulting learning that occurs. When teachers decide to grade discussions, the talk becomes selfish, with each student seeking to demonstrate whatever skills will earn the desired grade. Make the talk itself the reward. Emphasize the learning that occurs. Reinforce the moves the students make that you’d like to see more of in future discussions.  

10.  To effectively facilitate student talk, teachers have to plan ahead.

Low-level, closed-ended questions and topics don’t generate much conversation or student interest. Take the time to prepare stimulating ideas for students to talk about. Examine your lesson plans for the perfect moments to incorporate a check-in conversation or an open-ended question to spur further exploration. Bounce ideas off your colleagues in planning sessions to infuse speaking experiences throughout the lesson cycle to engage students at many levels.

11.  Students won’t get better at speaking if they don’t have frequent practice.

Don’t throw up your hands in defeat after the first attempt at promoting student conversation fizzles. “Our kids can’t…” is the phrase that killed more learning than any other one. I won’t get better at learning to speak Spanish if I don’t practice speaking with others. Similarly, students won’t get better at speaking unless they do it all the time. And the quality of their speaking won’t improve if teachers don’t give them practice speaking like experts. It may not be pretty at first. If you’ve attended the fall concert of first-year orchestra students, you know what I mean. But keep at it, and pretty soon you’ll have a symphony of conversation occurring automatically in your classroom.  

Socratic Seminar FAQs

Conducting your first Socratic Seminar can be a scary endeavor.  Like the first time you tried to clear a hurdle in track, play a piano sonata, cook a soufflé, program a VCR (remember those?), fold a fitted sheet, stand in the tree pose in yoga, or knit a scarf, there’s always potential for disaster and room for improvement.  I’ve assembled a few Frequently Asked Questions about Socratic Seminars to help ease you into the idea and encourage you to try this with your students soon!

Q.  What’s a Socratic Seminar?

A. Good question! I’ll give you the short answer and let you do some exploring on your own if you want to know more. A Socratic Seminar is a student-led discussion—usually about a text—with the goal of deepening the collective understanding of the participants. It gets its name from Socrates, the Greek philosopher who was put to death for corrupting the minds of Athenian youth by making them think. Socrates also asked questions, which is something students do during the seminar; they question the text and one another to explore the topic more deeply. Typical Socratic Seminars take place with the class in one giant circle, but variations exist, such as the Fishbowl (two concentric circles), Pilot-Copilot Formation (discussed later), and several smaller Socratic Seminars simultaneously taking place in one classroom. It’s important to distinguish the Socratic Seminar from a debate; there are no sides, and this isn’t a place for arguing. Cheesy as it sounds, everyone’s a winner in a Socratic Seminar if they come out knowing more than they did before they began.

Q.  What do I do with students who are shy or don’t have anything to say?

A.  Ideally, all students will participate in the discussion.  In reality, some students are terrified to share their ideas with others or to speak aloud in class.  The first solution is to do whatever you can to make sure your classroom is a supportive environment where all students feel safe contributing.  Another is to make sure students are prepared prior to the Socratic Seminar.  Spend some time with the text, giving the students clear guidelines for annotation and text marking.  Have them prepare questions ahead of time.  The more familiar they are with the piece, the more likely they will be to contribute.  When selecting a format for your Socratic Seminar, consider a Pilot-Copilot formation, which allows all students to participate as you pause to have each “cockpit crew” chat with one another about the topic at various times during the discussion.  Also, selecting an engaging text will encourage students to speak up because they’ll have an opinion and will want to be heard.  Giving students a chance to do a brief reflection or exit card at the end of the seminar will allow a reluctant student to share his or her ideas with you; if you talk individually with that student later and praise the ideas, you’ll build some confidence that may result in participation next time. 

Q.  Do I have to grade the Socratic Seminar?

A.  No.  I am a big advocate for reinforcing learning for the sake of learning.  When you ramp up the pressure by grading the number and/or quality of students’ participation, you’ll find that you lose the collaborative nature of the Socratic Seminar.  Students will quit listening to one another and will think only of themselves and their grade.  You know your students have missed the point of the Socratic Seminar when they rush up to you after class with a look of desperation to ask whether they spoke enough times and what grade they made.  Also, if you don’t have to worry about tracking and assessing comments for every student in the discussion, you can enjoy and appreciate the discussion yourself—it’s much more rewarding for everyone involved. 

     

Q.  If I don't grade the discussion as you suggested, then how do I keep the kids accountable?

A.  If you must attach a grade to the seminar, consider grading their pre-work (text marking and question preparation) and a reflection they complete after the seminar.  The post-discussion reflection could contain thoughts about the content of the discussion, the quality of the discussion itself, areas for improvement in the future, comments that the student was unable to make during the discussion, or whatever you deem important.  Participation can be a factor in your grade, but also consider adherence to the norms of discussion, nonverbal behavior, and other factors.   

Q.  I teach _____, and my kids won’t ever be able to do a Socratic Seminar because…

A.  You're right.  As long as you believe your kids won't be able to do it, they probably won’t.  But if you change your mind, I can tell you that Socratic Seminar works with all subjects and all levels of kids.  The level of student talk may not always rise to your standard of excellence at first, but with some coaching, practice, and debriefing, they'll improve.  If your students need more scaffolding, consider providing them with some discussion starter stems, possible ways to begin a comment in an academic discussion.  Spend some time afterward praising the things your students did well.  Offer tips and specific targets for improvement before each Socratic Seminar.  When Socratic Seminars become something you do frequently rather than just being a one-time special occasion event, you'll find that the students love them and will begin to talk like scholars.  (Oh, and, by the way, your question wasn't a question.)

Q.  Does the Socratic Seminar have to be a culminating activity at the end of a unit?

A.  Not at all.  This is a great way to have students examine a text or other material in detail before a writing assignment or activity.  I have a colleague in social studies who has her students participate in a Socratic Seminar to discuss a set of documents prior to writing an AP document-based question (DBQ).  This kind of discussion can ensure the students have thought about all aspects of a poem or short story before writing an essay on it in a literature class.  If you become accustomed to the idea of a Socratic Seminar’s purpose being to help the group come to a deeper shared understanding of the meaning of something, it’s logical to use this strategy at various points in a lesson cycle.  I find they're even useful as a preparatory activity for a unit to build anticipation and interest (like the time I brought in the world’s most hideous vase—four feet tall, chartreuse, fuzzy velour—and had a discussion about how we determine whether something is art).   

Q. What kinds of works are suitable to discuss in a Socratic Seminar?

A.  You name it, and it can probably be discussed.  I've seen (or heard people tell of) successful seminars over films, artworks, political cartoons, novels, documentaries, political debates, television commercials, videos of a sports competition, websites, math problems, sets of statistics, maps, editorials, poems, plays, websites, musical performances, songs, music videos, and short stories.       

Q.  What’s the biggest mistake you've made with Socratic Seminars?

A.  My students were reading the 59-chapter, 450-page opus Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and we had—as a culminating assessment—a Socratic Seminar over the entire novel.  Our great expectation was that students answered one another’s questions while supplying relevant textual evidence from the novel (ie. direct quotations).  I spent a painful 90-minute block schedule period watching my hapless students dig desperately through that giant book they'd (allegedly) read once to find a quote to back up their ideas.  The pressure was immense, and only a few students with prodigious memories or incredible annotation skills emerged from the great quotation hunt unscathed.  The tension was palpable; tears were shed. I learned from that experience that choosing a text of a more manageable size allows everyone to be (literally) on the same page and participate in the discussion at a deeper, more thoughtful level.      

Q.  Do you have any final bits of advice?

A. Leave time to debrief the discussion and the process.  Allow students to talk about what flew and what flopped.  If you used an inner-outer circle (fishbowl) arrangement, solicit feedback from those in the outer circle about what went well and how things could have been better.  And even if your first Socratic Seminar is a disaster, try it again.  Let go of the reins and let the students talk.  You'll be surprised at how brilliant they can be.   

If you let them, they will talk…and they will say smart things. 

Hi, Teacher, It's Me

Hi, Teacher, it's me.

I'm the one who sits in the row on the side of your classroom, second seat from the back. I don't sit up in the front with the kids who cause trouble and don't do their work. You and I haven't talked much. I never raise my hand. But I show up every day.  I try to do my work. and I don't like to call attention to myself.  

I don't think I am very smart. Sometimes I think I understand what I'm learning. At other times, I'm not sure.

It helps when I talk about what I'm learning. Sometimes if I can explain it, then I know I understand it. 

But please don't call on me. When you call on me and I don't know the answer, that's the worst. 

I don't want the whole class to know that I'm not very smart.

We spend a lot of time in class talking. "Class discussion," you call it.  You do most of the talking, actually. And two or three of the other kids, the ones who raise their hands or blurt out answers. It's not really much of a discussion.   

Usually, you ask the questions, and those two or three kids answer them. If no one knows the answer, you answer it for us. 

Most days, I can just sit there and listen.  

Are you really tired at the end of the day from talking so much?

You work a lot harder than we do in your class. I don't think the others have figured out that if we just sit there, you will eventually do the thinking for us.

You know what would be helpful? Let me talk through my ideas with a classmate. I don't mind talking with a friend. I just don't want to share in front of everyone before I've had the chance to try out my answer on someone else.

I have another teacher who does this. He calls it "Think, Pair, Share." When there's a big question, instead of discussing it as a class, we first think for a minute about it individually. Sometimes we do a quick write. Then, we share our thoughts with someone else (that's the "Pair" part). After that, the teacher calls on some of us to share with the class. It's not so scary that way. My answer is our answer--mine and my partner's. When the teacher calls on us, it's okay for us to say what our partner said. I feel smarter then.

I hate to say it, but we need to work harder in your class. Not more homework. Homework is a pain, and you can just copy the answers from your friends in the cafeteria before school.  We should work harder in your class.

I may never tell you this, but I like it when you are prepared, when you make us work hard, when you let us talk to one another about what we are studying, and when you fill up the time with interesting activities where we are busy learning.

It's not so fun for us just to listen to you. Believe me, we listen to teachers all day. Try it sometime. It's the most boring thing in the world.

But it's school. Maybe school is supposed to be boring.