Talking bridges reading and writing, deepens understanding, and boosts student confidence. This blog shares three easy twists on Think-Pair-Share, a frequently-used academic talk routine, to make it easier to incorporate more (and deeper) student talk into your instruction.
Try these 3 talk routines in your classroom tomorrow!
Expert Jeff Zwiers explains this routine as an amped up Think-Pair-Share. Have students Think-Pair-Share not one, not two, but three (yes, three!) times. Why? Because in Stronger & Clearer, the goal is to ask students to rethink their responses in real time. Between each Think-Pair-Share, the teacher asks students to craft Stronger & Clearer responses, helping students reflect on both the content and the organization of their communication.
For example, students may select a stronger text excerpt to strengthen their point. Or, they might reflect on the overall organization of how they are speaking to be clearer. Anchor charts and sentence stems are helpful tools to support students as they strengthen and clarify their conversation.
Fourth grade teacher Lauren Proffitt incorporates academic talk into all subject areas. She says she uses simple routines over and over again. For Think-Write-Pair-Share, add one simple step to make it even more effective: Writing!
After students Think, have them Write to solidify their thinking. This helps students to focus more on the conversation and less on what they are going to say in their Pair-Share.
It creates space in their brain to process what a peer is sharing without the weight of their own thoughts bogging them down! This frees students to gather their thoughts and lightens their cognitive load to really listen to their partner. And as an added bonus, writing will help reduce anxiety for students who might stress or worry about the Pair-Share!
Students like knowing what to expect in this routine! Since they know what to do, they can focus on building the skills for academic talk AND deepening their content knowledge. A win-win!
K-2 science teacher Jami Witherell says this routine increases students' speaking and writing output. How? It helps students make sense of their learning in small chunks. Jami embeds this strategy into daily lesson plans so students have tons of opportunities throughout the lesson to unpack their learning through speaking (and writing, too!). For example, when Jami's students read a how-to visual about how tugboats work, they paused at key points to Think and Chat. She had them briefly Write after chatting to solidify their understanding. Writing helps students make sense of learning AND helps her, the teacher, assess their strengths and needs. Talk about a two-for!
Enhance a typical Think-Pair-Share by adding a bit of writing as reflection or extension at the END. Add this to your daily instruction by considering places throughout a lesson where students would benefit from pausing to briefly think, chat, and write after learning something new or important. Then, try Jami's easy-peasy academic talk routine!