We have them up and the students use them- sometimes frequently and sometimes on occasion- but are those sentence frames consistently helping your students expand their academic thinking and giving you ample opportunity to formatively asses understanding? If not, it’s time to take your sentence frames to the next level.

The CCSS for Speaking and Listening standard 1 requires that students “prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations….”  And this standard starts in kindergarten where students “follow agreed upon rules for discussions and continue that conversation through multiple exchanges.” Consider, how often do students in your room carry on an academic conversation through multiple exchanges?  When students, “make their thinking visible… they begin to take on the academic way with words.” Isn’t that what we crave from all our students in their writing, speaking and thinking?

Creating rich classroom conversations requires planning and preparation. Here are some of the key factors to consider:

1. Rich content to discuss and grapple with
2. Effective arrangement of seating and purposeful grouping
3. Established, modeled, and practiced routines and behavioral cues for interaction
4. Sentence starters and language patterns to begin, add on, disagree, clarify, elaborate and question
5. Frequent feedback on both content and speaking standards

If you are ready to take your sentence frames to the next level and have them work for you, using these guidelines to plan academic conversations around your content is the next step.  Be aware: students don’t become amazing orators overnight because all linguistic behavior is learned over time, through multiple exposures to modeling and practice- but it will happen. And when the accountable talk magic unfolds, it will cultivate motivation and deepen understanding in your students.

If you would like to discuss this further, co-plan a lesson or be given some time to watch a colleague execute an accountable talk lesson, contact me to set up a time. The article “Speaking Volumes” by Fisher and Frey is an excellent, quick read on the topic as well. Here is the link http://www.educationalleadership-digital.com/educationalleadership/201411?pg=5#pg21