Page 214 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

186 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
are facing each other. Some classrooms have an area of the room, often with a carpet, in which students can sit on the floor in a circle to engage in a discussion. In small or crowded classrooms, with some work and creativity, temporary physical spaces support- ive of discussion can be made (i.e., by pushing desks or tables to the perimeter of the classroom).
A community culture supportive of free expression of ideas is also critical to fostering productive classroom discourse, particularly discussion. In a classroom where students feel comfortable with and trust each other enough to take risks in the kinds of things they say, substantive discussion (including civil disagreements) can occur. Students need to understand that even though they may disagree with one another, they can still be friends (a notion young children, in particular, have difficulty with). Teachers can model civil disagreement with other students or even with another teacher. Building a community supportive of free expression takes weeks, and even months; thus, discus- sions on controversial topics or discussions in which there may be heated disagreement are better timed later in the school year.
Providing students with the linguistic tools to participate in discussion is also helpful for promoting thoughtful and substantive exchange of ideas. Even if students are in a classroom supportive of discussion, they often are unfamiliar with the language used to start one, take a stand on an issue, respond to another student’s idea, or summarize the discussion. Students benefit from being provided “sentence stems” to help them begin expressing their ideas. For
” helps students frame their because ” or ” helps students structure their response to a fellow classmate. A sentence stem such as, “There are different perspectives on this issue” or Some people think because , and some people
example, a sentence stem such as, “I believe that arguments. A sentence stem such as, “I agree with “I disagree with because
think because
.” helps students summarize the discussion.
Technology Tips
One inhibitor to students’ participation in discussion is their reluctance to talk in large group settings. While participating in whole class discussions is a critical skill, some students benefit from alternative forms of discussion. For upper ele- mentary students, consider creating an online discussion forum where students can express their opinions and ideas in a format in which they can take their time to formulate thoughts.
Assessing Discussion
A deterrent to incorporating discussion (and other forms of classroom discourse) into the curriculum is that discussion is difficult to assess: not everyone talks in a given dis- cussion, and it is difficult to assess the students who do contribute to the discussion where conversation is quick and often overlaps among students. However, we hope that the fact that discussions are difficult to assess does not prevent you from including them in your instruction. Harris (2002, p. 213) identifies discrete discussion skills and offers a process for assessing them. Some of the substantive skills are using disciplinary knowledge; elaborating statements with explanations, reasons, or evidence; arguing by
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