Mod 9 Discussion: Oral Language Support in My Classroom

Some key principles for academic discussion are staying on topic, being respectful, inclusive engagement, and maintaining eye contact. My students become experts in realizing how to conduct themselves in a discussion due to my tiered discussions. Students partner up and take turns in the discussion pit as their partner behind them takes notes and grades them on the rubric to provide feedback. Then they compare notes. Both partners are provided with a rubric, question stems, their text excerpt that they annotated together, and a note sheet. I do this cause it is so much easier to find and critique what another person is doing rather than yourself in the heat of the moment. After a few different sessions of this they become so much better at communicating and participating in academic discussion.