How to Facilitate Meaningful Classroom Conversations across Disciplines, Grade Levels, and Digital Platforms

How can teachers facilitate meaningful classroom conversations in which students engage in shared inquiry, building on what others have written or said (even to disagree)? Such discussions can have many benefits: students can learn from each other, can bring their out-of-school ways of talking into classroom dialog, can make evidence-based, collaborative arguments, and can begin to communicate like historians, scientists, or other members of disciplinary communities. Yet classroom discussions often fail, teaching students implicitly that they have little to learn from school or each other, that their home-language practices are not welcome, that the loudest voice wins the argument, and that academic discourse is as mystifying and alien as the views of anyone who disagrees with them. Outside the classroom, dialog has never been more important. From climate-change summits or peace talks among neighboring nations, to clashes between rival ethnic groups or political-party mudslinging, to workplace conversations or a traffic stop on a dark street, we must learn to bring our own and others’ words into relationship with integrity or suffer the consequences. This book offers concepts, concrete classroom examples, and activities for teachers and students to transform classroom conversations into successful discussions across disciplines, grade levels, and digital platforms.

Mike Sherry has thought more deeply about discussion than anyone I know--and it shows in this book. He offers a clear vision of both the "how" and the "why" of classroom discussion. The book helped me see discussion in a new way, and it challenged me to reflect on how I can bring it to my own teaching. Any teacher, at any level or in any context, can learn from this book.--Anne Elrod Whitney, Sherry is expert at making visible the ways and reasons some traditional teaching practices hinder whole group discussion, despite our best intentions to do the opposite. Rooted in transcripts from real classrooms--across grade levels, subject areas, and teaching contexts--this book offers teachers detailed support for achieving higher quality classroom talk with their students. This book will be a go-to resource for me and the teachers I teach!--Carlin Borsheim-Black, associate professor, English language & literature; co-author, Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction for White Students, In this compelling volume, Michael Sherry uses dialogic theory in its proper historical conception, moving dialogism beyond its customary reduction to immediate interaction, and situating it more properly as a "conversation" taking place across time to produce genres and their conventions. I am impressed with his use of dialogic theory in robustly historical ways to investigate communicative and interactive possibilities in relation to how learning environments are organized and semiotically composed. His research thus goes beyond the study of what happened in a particular classroom, instead locating these classrooms in a historical context such that they serve as instantiations of speech conventions and social languages that comprise disciplinary discourse. A terrific outing that I hope finds a broad readership.--Peter Smagorinsky, Distinguished Research Professor of English Education, University of Georgia, Over the years, I've learned that I can count on Michael Sherry to offer fresh, in-depth insights on enduring concerns for teachers. This book is no exception. In his typical style, Michael offers a rich set of examples and data, then helps readers to notice and interpret the layers in ways that meaningfully change how we think about teaching and learning. 'Running a discussion' is one of the great challenges of good teaching. Michael equips readers with the insights to be effective in fostering discussions that help students learn how to learn.--Leah Zuidema, president, National Council of Teachers of English, How to Facilitate Meaningful Classroom Conversations offers teachers and teacher educators invaluable guidance on the complex dynamics of classroom dialogue and how to manage them productively, across disciplines, settings, and topics. The book is an extraordinary accomplishment: it communicates sophisticated ideas about discourse, interaction, learning and identity in an accessible, conversational manner; it grounds its exposition in vivid examples of real classroom discussions, thoughtfully analyzed; it offers readers dozens of practical activities and sensitive guidance on how to enact them; and it is beautifully written, at times even moving.--Adam Lefstein, professor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Michael B. Sherry, PhD, is Associate Professor of English Education at the University of South Florida. A former middle and high school literature and drama teacher, his research focuses on teacher response in whole-class discussions that promote participation from all students, including those who might otherwise be marginalized in classroom conversations.