Collaborative Conversations

Purpose

This protocol provides students the opportunity to engage in a group conversation where they build on group members’ ideas with new or different details. This kind of conversation builds speaking and listening skills, serves as a scaffold for future writing or speaking and listening tasks, and provides teachers with data on students’ progress toward SL.1 and select language standards.

Materials 

  • Optional: student work
  • Optional: sentence starter(s)

Procedure

1. Move students into small groups.
2. Pose or post a question or prompt.
3. Signal students to begin discussing by having one group member respond to the question or prompt, offering his or her ideas to the group.
4. Encourage remaining group members to take turns responding to the initial group member’s ideas.
5. Have students continue to engage in the conversation, offering new ideas and building on one another’s ideas until it is time to regroup.

Variations

  • Students use examples from their work to engage in a conversation.
  • Students use sentence starter(s) as a support during the conversation.

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