Carla M. Firetto

What REALLY Works Optimizing Classroom Discussions to Promote Comprehension and Critical-Analytic Thinking

Many American students struggle to perform even basic comprehension of text, such as locating information, determining the main idea, or supporting details of a story. Even more students are inadequately prepared to complete more complex tasks, such as critically or analytically interpreting information in text or making reasoned decisions from reading. Although many reasons undergird students’ comprehension challenges, evidence-based instructional approaches can promote students’ comprehension and critical-analytic thinking. Teacher-facilitated, small-group discussions can promote students’ comprehension and critical-analytic thinking about, around, and with both oral and written discourse.

Intratextual Persuasive Messages as Catalysts for HigherOrder Thinking An Exploratory Investigation

Facilitating students’ acquisition of higherorder thinking skills is imperative in the 21st century. Although some types of text have been shown to enhance higherorder thinking, the effects of many novel forms of text have yet to be investigated. As such, the purpose of the present study was to explore the extent to which a relatively novel form of text (i.e., intratextual persuasive message) served as a catalyst for students’ higherorder thinking as evidenced in the quantity, quality, and content of their arguments before and after reading. The findings revealed that the quantity of students’ arguments increased from prereading to postreading and the content of the reasons provided by the students was more in line with those of the authors, whereas the quality of students’ arguments decreased over time. Interestingly, relatively few students altered their position on the central question from the text. Rather, the nature of the data indicated that students engaged in case-building as they read the text. As a result, the intratextual persuasive message was only minimally effective at enhancing students’ higherorder thinking. Implications for research and practice are forwarded.

How Can Teachers Facilitate Productive Small-Group Talk? An Integrated Taxonomy of Teacher Discourse Moves

Small-group discussions in which teachers and students interact with text are common in language arts classrooms. As documented in the extant literature, teacher discourse moves affect how the discussion unfolds and the resulting quality of the talk. What is not present in the literature is a unified lexicon or taxonomy for defining and classifying the various kinds of discourse moves teachers routinely enact during small-group discussions to promote comprehension. As such, the purpose of the present review is (a) to synthesize research on teacher discourse moves across the various discussion approaches that aim to promote high-level comprehension and (b) to forward an integrated taxonomy of teacher discourse moves. The taxonomy was developed and iteratively refined through card-sorting activities and used as a coding rubric for classroom discussions. This integrated taxonomy is a noteworthy advancement for practitioners to facilitate their classroom discussions and for researchers studying the effects of small-group discussions.

Quality Talk: Developing Students’ Discourse to Promote High-level Comprehension:

Students often struggle to comprehend complex text. In response, we conducted an initial, year-long study of Quality Talk, a teacher-facilitated, small-group discussion approach designed to enhance students’ basic and high-level comprehension, in two fourth-grade classrooms. Specifically, teachers delivered instructional mini-lessons on discourse elements (e.g., questioning or argumentation) and conducted weekly text-based discussions in their language arts classes. Analysis of the videorecorded discussions showed decreases in teacher-initiated discourse elements, indicating a release of responsibility to students, whereas students’ discourse reflected increased critical-analytic thinking (e.g., elaborated explanations or exploratory talk). Importantly, statistically and practically significant increases were evidenced on written measures of students’ basic and high-level comprehension, indicating the promise of small-group discourse as a way to foster individual student learning outcomes.