Language & Literacy

In working with teachers of diverse urban students, we are developing a paired activity that trains students to have extended conversations about an academic topic. Academic conversations help students to develop their abilities to engage in focused academic discourse in pairs. Conversations can develop language, thinking, and content understandings. Teachers emphasize the importance of several features of meaningful, adult-like conversations after reading fiction and expository texts. These features include active listening, prompting for elaboration and examples, supporting points with evidence, applying ideas to life, building on what a partner has said, and synthesizing at the close of the conversation. Scaffolds for developing these features include hand motions, symbols, and note cards, which are used for learning academic conversation moves and deepening understandings of complex texts and related topics. A sample conversation is included here.

Juan: I think it was about greed.
Ana: Can you elaborate that?
Juan: Like, Columbus only touched the gold that they were wearing and not their skin. That maybe means that the people don't matter, just the gold.
Ana: I add to that idea that the Columbus people took over the islands and made the boy's people into slaves. And they probably wanted to steal all the gold and kill people, like pirates. What do you think?
Juan: Yeah, but pirates mostly attack other ships.
Ana (thumbing through his cards) So how can we apply this to our life?
Juan: I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't be pirates. (laugh)
Ana: Or maybe we shouldn't be greedy.
Juan: Yeah, we shouldn't think that because we have more guns and ships, or that we are bigger, that we have the..uhhh.
Ana: the right?
Juan: Yeah, the right to take over other people and take their stuff and land.
Karen: Can you elaborate with some modern examples?
Juan: Maybe, like at school there are bullies and they shouldn't beat up others and take their money and things.
Ana: And what about when armies go in to take the country next to it for oil or land? I hear that still happens. But I wonder should they fight back?
Juan: I dunno. We get in trouble when we fight back at school. Sometimes the fights get worse. Why are bullies like that?
Karen announces that they have one more minute.
Juan (finding the card with the house symbol on it) How can we summarize our conversation?
Ana: We can say we thought the story teaches us that people are more important than money, that greed is bad.
Juan: And bullying isn't right,
Karen: Another term for not right is unjust.
Ana: OK, unjust, but we are still not sure if people should fight back when that happens.
Karen: Great, you two have uncovered a great theme and question that comes up over and over throughout history. I will ask you to share it in a moment.

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In our analyses of conversation transcripts like this one, we noticed several themes that have plausible links to the scaffolding and practicing of Academic Conversations:

Students improved at extending and deepening conversations. In each row of the rubric the average scores for students in both classes improved over time. In February most students were briefly retelling parts of the story in their conversations; by June they were finding and discussing meaningful themes in both fiction and nonfiction texts and thinking about how to apply them to their lives.
Students used new vocabulary and academic terms to construct and communicate big ideas, not just to create disconnected sentences that earned them points or praise.
Students became more independent thinkers and talkers. Unlike whole class discussions that are often controlled by the teacher, students in pairs learned to shape and support their conversations on their own.
Whole class and group discussions improved. Students (and teachers) used many of the prompts from their cards during whole class discussions. Students in June responded to each other more often without depending on the teacher to mediate every comment. Students connected to and built off the ideas of others with less “popcorning” of isolated ideas.

We also saw atypical growth in: writing (more use of evidence to support ideas), thinking skills (multiple interpretations & applications), and the use of academic vocabulary in authentic talk. There was more engagement (participation) with more engagement (motivation and interest). In June, students engaged in more minutes per hour of class in on-task talk, and the length of their utterances increased. Students also felt that the other students and the teacher increasingly valued their ideas. The quality of history and science talk also improved in one class when the teacher had students use the cards to converse about nonfiction texts.

To accelerate their oral language development, English learners need school experiences that allow them to share their ideas, argue for them, refine them, and co-construct them with other students. Paired academic conversations can build the skills of communication in school that mainstream dialect speakers have gained at home since birth. So as we continue to work on academic conversations in other grade levels and subjects, and we hope that other educators will share their experiences and insights related to this type of work.
(future)




f t	. AC Tools Page Brief article on Academic Conversations Research article on AC assessment (forthcoming) Audio sample Grade 4 (forthcoming) Audio sample Grade 6 (forthcoming)
f t		Academic Conversations - Overview In working with teachers of diverse urban students, we are developing a paired activity that trains students to have extended conversations about an academic topic. Academic conversations help students to develop their abilities to engage in focused academic discourse in pairs. Conversations can develop language, thinking, and content understandings. Teachers emphasize the importance of several features of meaningful, adult-like conversations after reading fiction and expository texts. These features include active listening, prompting for elaboration and examples, supporting points with evidence, applying ideas to life, building on what a partner has said, and synthesizing at the close of the conversation. Scaffolds for developing these features include hand motions, symbols, and note cards, which are used for learning academic conversation moves and deepening understandings of complex texts and related topics. A sample conversation is included here. Juan: I think it was about greed. Ana: Can you elaborate that? Juan: Like, Columbus only touched the gold that they were wearing and not their skin. That maybe means that the people don't matter, just the gold. Ana: I add to that idea that the Columbus people took over the islands and made the boy's people into slaves. And they probably wanted to steal all the gold and kill people, like pirates. What do you think? Juan: Yeah, but pirates mostly attack other ships. Ana (thumbing through his cards) So how can we apply this to our life? Juan: I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't be pirates. (laugh) Ana: Or maybe we shouldn't be greedy. Juan: Yeah, we shouldn't think that because we have more guns and ships, or that we are bigger, that we have the..uhhh. Ana: the right? Juan: Yeah, the right to take over other people and take their stuff and land. Karen: Can you elaborate with some modern examples? Juan: Maybe, like at school there are bullies and they shouldn't beat up others and take their money and things. Ana: And what about when armies go in to take the country next to it for oil or land? I hear that still happens. But I wonder should they fight back? Juan: I dunno. We get in trouble when we fight back at school. Sometimes the fights get worse. Why are bullies like that? Karen announces that they have one more minute. Juan (finding the card with the house symbol on it) How can we summarize our conversation? Ana: We can say we thought the story teaches us that people are more important than money, that greed is bad. Juan: And bullying isn't right, Karen: Another term for not right is unjust. Ana: OK, unjust, but we are still not sure if people should fight back when that happens. Karen: Great, you two have uncovered a great theme and question that comes up over and over throughout history. I will ask you to share it in a moment. Click here for other AC transcripts In our analyses of conversation transcripts like this one, we noticed several themes that have plausible links to the scaffolding and practicing of Academic Conversations: Students improved at extending and deepening conversations. In each row of the rubric the average scores for students in both classes improved over time. In February most students were briefly retelling parts of the story in their conversations; by June they were finding and discussing meaningful themes in both fiction and nonfiction texts and thinking about how to apply them to their lives. Students used new vocabulary and academic terms to construct and communicate big ideas, not just to create disconnected sentences that earned them points or praise. Students became more independent thinkers and talkers. Unlike whole class discussions that are often controlled by the teacher, students in pairs learned to shape and support their conversations on their own. Whole class and group discussions improved. Students (and teachers) used many of the prompts from their cards during whole class discussions. Students in June responded to each other more often without depending on the teacher to mediate every comment. Students connected to and built off the ideas of others with less “popcorning” of isolated ideas. We also saw atypical growth in: writing (more use of evidence to support ideas), thinking skills (multiple interpretations & applications), and the use of academic vocabulary in authentic talk. There was more engagement (participation) with more engagement (motivation and interest). In June, students engaged in more minutes per hour of class in on-task talk, and the length of their utterances increased. Students also felt that the other students and the teacher increasingly valued their ideas. The quality of history and science talk also improved in one class when the teacher had students use the cards to converse about nonfiction texts. To accelerate their oral language development, English learners need school experiences that allow them to share their ideas, argue for them, refine them, and co-construct them with other students. Paired academic conversations can build the skills of communication in school that mainstream dialect speakers have gained at home since birth. So as we continue to work on academic conversations in other grade levels and subjects, and we hope that other educators will share their experiences and insights related to this type of work. (future)


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