Kayla Response 2/4

I find it very interesting that a 5^th grade class has yet to establish response-centered talk within their classroom. I am in a 2^nd grade classroom and it is mainly led by the teacher who asks certain questions, much like you described. However, in my classroom I think this is scaffolding the students to learn how to discuss. Unlike in your classroom my teacher does ask questions that can have multiple answers however, the students are still supposed to raise their hands before shouting out. I see this as an important scaffolding technique to prepare the students to soon be able to discuss amongst themselves without being called on. First, as you described, the teacher needs to set the comfortable tone within the classroom. My teacher is doing this through starting off their discussion by asking questions and having multiple students raising their hands to answer. The students are learning to respond to each other in a civil way (through the teacher’s help of making them be patient to say their answer) and are becoming more comfortable to say their opinions with the class. The second step would be to let the students answer and respond to each other without the teacher calling on them. So although I see the way that your teacher could be scaffolding I think that 5^th graders should be to the point that they could have a response-centered talk.

Also, I wanted to point out the positives that response-centered talk has for the teacher. I agree with all of the benefits that you listed for the students. I think that the students can reach beyond their own ideas and learn a lot from each other through discussion. It is also very helpful from the teaching perspective because you can verbally hear students answers a take notes. Discussion is a great way to see what your students are grasping and where they may have some misconceptions. As the McGee article told us, it is a great way to assess your students’ comprehension. Through discussion you can truly see how students are interacting and understanding the text. Your 5^th grade classroom could greatly benefit from a response-centered talk. Your teacher could get a better understanding of what the students understand from the text through their conversations better than through answering questions that are most likely explicitly stated within the text. Simply because they can retell what happened in a story does not mean they are fully comprehending the text and understanding what the author is trying to say.

Overall, through this week’s readings and reading your blog I have a better understanding of the benefits of classroom talk. It has great benefits for both the students and their teacher. These readings and your blog have given me great ideas as to how to implement this in my classroom!