from Terry Hayek
Meaningful conversation can make learning more personal, immediate and emotional.
During meaningful conversations, students are forced to take responsibility for their positions, listen, analyze opposing viewpoints, and adapt their thinking on the fly.
There are many popular strategies for this type of conversation, each with slightly unique rules and applications. These include Socratic Discussions, Debriefing Talks, Debate and Literary Circles. Whichever strategy you use, students need support.
It is sometimes argued that this type of talk is preferred by students who are confident in expressing themselves verbally, and this is hard to argue with. But consider that academic writing favors gifted writers, traditional tests favor those who are comfortable proving what they know, learning through technology favors students with more diverse histories of technology use, and so on.
And all can benefit from scaffolding so that students receive different levels of support—perhaps unique levels of index cards with easier-to-use or more natural stems—so that they can be successful at some level.
If you have useful topics to talk about, let us know in the comments so we can update the list!
26 sentences for meaningful conversation in the classroom
Clarification
Could you introduce your thesis in one sentence?
Is it your position that…
To be clear, you are saying that…
I’m confused when you say Z, can you clarify?
Paraphrasing
In other words, you say…
So you’re saying that…
Is it fair to say that you believe…
I hear you say that…
Agreed
I agree with Y because…
Z’s point about X was important because…
The evidence for Z is overwhelming when you consider that…
X and I come from the same position.
Although I disagree with Y, I agree with Z that…
Disagreement
I see it differently because…
The evidence I’ve seen suggests otherwise.
Some of this is fact, but some of this is opinion.
I agree that Y, but we also have to consider that…
We see Z differently.
Upgrade
Y mentioned that…
Yes – and besides…
The author’s claim that Z is interesting because…
Adding to what X said,…
If we change the position of the Xs just a little, we can see that…
Generalization
Basically what I’m trying to say is…
My whole thought in one sentence is…
More than anything else, I believe that…
26 Essential Sentences for Higher Level Classroom Discussion
