Engage+in+Discussion

=Engage Students in Discussion= by Laura Swanson

__**How does discussion increase students' literal and inferential understanding of texts?**__
//According to Samuels and Farstrup (2011):// -Discussion promotes greater rates of active participation among students. -Promotes higher levels of reading comprehension. -Text-based discussion that involves collaborative reasoning (i.e. listening and linking to other's ideas, providing evidence from text to support one's thinking) increases higher level thinking skills and overall engagement in reading rather than techniques requiring students to respond to and evaluate read texts (p. 72).

__**Research Based Strategy for Classroom Practice: Questioning the Author (QtA)**__
A group at the University of Pittsburgh (Beck, McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, & Worthy, 1996) developed a comprehension technique that involved thinking about the writer's purpose while writing. They developed a set of questions that could help to guide students and teachers through a text.

-improved understanding of the texts to which this questioning is applied -improved understanding of texts students encounter indepdently -critical stance of texts in general
 * Desired outcomes of this approach:**

-teachers can learn to transform their text discussions from traditional to more student-centered (in turn follow suit towards 21st century skills). -students assume a greater role in the discussions by initiating more interactions with peers. -students are more successful at higher level comprehenson and monitoring their comprehension.
 * The data on this approach:**

=**How will this work in my classroom?**= Here is an example of a lesson demonstrating questioning techniques: media type="youtube" key="LZxb8v4uei0" height="349" width="425"

This strategy is designed to encourage students to think beyond the words on the page and to consider the author's intent for the selection and his or her success at communicating it. The idea of "questioning" the author is a way to evaluate how well a selection of text stands on its own, not simply an invitation to "challenge" a writer. Students are looking at the author's intent, his craft, his clarity, his organization...in short, if the author has done well, students can say so, and they can identify why they say so. Likewise, if students are struggling over a selection of text, it may be because it hasn't been written very clearly. Students can see this, and say so, but then they are invited to improve on it. (Retreived from [])

The standard format involves five questions. Students read a selection of text (one or more paragraphs, but generally not as much as a whole page), and then answer these questions:
 * 1) What is the author trying to tell you?
 * 2) Why is the author telling you that?
 * 3) Does the author say it clearly?
 * 4) How could the author have said things more clearly?
 * 5) What would you say instead?

=__**Practice:**__= If the author were the owner of the restaurant, though, she would probably want her employees to wash their hands for a similar reason, only in her case she is concerned about different consequences. If people who eat at her restaurant get sick because employees weren't clean, then it would hurt her business. A customer might also express the same sentiment as the Health Department or restaurant owner, but his motivation would simply be that he doesn't wish to get sick because of unsanitary practices by employees. ||
 * Here's a selection that's offered on [|http://www.readingquest.org/strat/qta.html] ****to** **give an example of this strategy:**
 * **What is the author trying to tell you?** || The author is telling me that I must be clean before I can work at my job; in particular, I have to wash my hands whether I'm just starting work or if I've just been to the bathroom. ||
 * **Why is the author telling you that?** || I think it has to do with who the author is; in this case, I think the author is the Health Department, which is responsible for sanitation issues in restaurants. To keep customers of an eating establishment from getting sick and to reduce the transmission of disease, employees who handle food or utensils or plates have to make sure they have clean hands.
 * **Why is the author telling you that?** || I think it has to do with who the author is; in this case, I think the author is the Health Department, which is responsible for sanitation issues in restaurants. To keep customers of an eating establishment from getting sick and to reduce the transmission of disease, employees who handle food or utensils or plates have to make sure they have clean hands.
 * **Is it said clearly?** || It seems pretty clear and straight-forward. ||
 * **How might the author have written it more clearly?** || Well, it has a real legalistic sound to it. That's probably necessary because of a uniform health code and the nature of governmental agencies and the way that they communicate. You can hear the unspoken tagline: "By Order of the Health Department." In this case, it's probably written pretty clearly and might be hard to improve upon. It does seem a little wordy. For instance, if you tell someone to wash his hands, do you have to remind him to do so with soap and warm water? ||
 * **What would you have wanted to say instead?** || "Please don't make me eat your germs. Wash your hands before touching my food!" ||

Additional resource for classroom applications:
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