Secrets to "WOW" Conversations In the Classroom

In today's schools, with fast-paced instruction and our "shhhs" in the hallway, the cafeteria, the classroom, we may be inadvertently creating too many "no chat zones".  Here are three tips to get targeted, conversations going in your classroom AND give students a chance to use words, practice presentation and dialogue, share their thinking and build community:

1.  Model what good conversation looks like.  Taking turns, actively listening, and using body language to respond with a nonverbal message that you are listening are all important techniques.  If we are so busy as teachers getting everyone to be QUIET, we leave little time for them to see what extended, thoughtful conversations look like.  The secret is that when you have strong, meaningful conversations going on in your classroom, discipline is less of a problem.  You can waste a lot of energy and classroom time if you are constantly calling students down.  Remember that QUIET doesn't equal learning.  If questions arise during a time when you don't allow discussion, accept the question, jot it down on the board and promise to get back to it at the end of class or through a blog or email later.

2.  Just as I hope you dedicate at least a small amount of time to reading aloud to your students each day (the activity with the most layers of instruction available simultaneously, no matter what the students' age), carve out a bit of time each day for targeted conversations.  One day it can involve conversation to establish prior knowledge on a new content area, the next students can be sharing about the books they are reading with a "turn and talk" approach (pair two students, turn them face-to-face and give them goals to accomplish in their short conversation on a given topic).  Still another day, use group conversation to brainstorm with your class on how to solve a classroom issue.  Have consistent, posted rules that students help create.  There is time for talking.

3.  When you give these doses (albeit small ones), you also allow students to release that verbal energy (I know about verbal energy),  In second grade, I was in trouble frequently because I didn't have a productive outlet for my need to chat.)  Think only five or ten minutes, consider that "dead time" in transitions like waiting to go to lunch or coming in from the playground, when your middle schoolers are just coming into class.  Keep a jar of "pondering questions" students can draw from and set the expectation that, as soon as they come in the class, they go to that jar, choose a slip and find a partner.  Don't always make those topics directly "academic":  they can be current events in social studies, estimation in math class or fun science in the news.  Mine those minutes to give children experience with language, comunication and thinking.

These tips will work whether you are teaching elementary, middle or high school.  Dr. Harzma and Griffith have provided great insight through their research on Fostering Problem-Solving and Creating Thinking in the Classroom.   The English Department at Virginia Tech has their own list of helpful tips.  You can find even more ideas for the little ones, including a teacher reflection tool, in my new Maupin title, Before They Read and at a recent blog on Teachers Are Sparklighters for Literacy Everyday.

Storytelling is also a form of conversation:  check out Maupin's new titles Performance Literacy Through Storytelling,