Summer Literacy Seminar

Spoken interactions between teachers and students and among students are at the heart of learning. Our oral language is the model upon which students build as they learn to articulate their ideas, explore questions and explain their thinking, yet we don’t often stop to scrutinize our discourse with students. In this seminar, we’ll explore ways in which we can make relatively minor modifications in our oral language patterns that will lead to significant changes in the sophistication of students’ discourse. We’ll investigate ways in which we can we encourage student talk that reflects their understanding of texts and concepts more accurately.

Participants will begin by discussing the Outcomes of Understanding, a set of markers that indicate whether students understand deeply. They will have an opportunity to view video of teachers who have made changes in their oral language patterns that lead to deeper understanding for students. In addition, participants will learn about an observation tool they can use with colleagues to analyze classroom discourse and will receive several tools students can use to reflect on their oral language interactions with other students.

The Seminar will be based on Ellin’s new Heinemann publication, Talk About Understanding: Rethinking Classroom Talk to Enhance Comprehension (Heinemann, 2011).

Credit