Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings

by Jeff Zwiers, Marie Crawford (Contributor)

Conversing with others has given insights to different perspectives, helped build ideas, and solve problems. Academic conversations push students to think and learn in lasting ways. Academic conversations are back-and-forth dialogues in which students focus on a topic and explore it by building, challenging, and negotiating relevant ideas. In Academic Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings authors Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford address the challenges teachers face when trying to bring thoughtful, respectful, and focused conversations into the classroom. They identify five core communications skills needed to help students hold productive academic conversation across content Elaborating and Clarifying Supporting Ideas with Evidence Building On and/or Challenging Ideas Paraphrasing Synthesizing This book shows teachers how to weave the cultivation of academic conversation skills and conversations into current teaching approaches. More specifically, it describes how to use conversations to build the Academic vocabulary and grammar Critical thinking skills such as persuasion, interpretation, consideration of multiple perspectives, evaluation, and application Literacy skills such as questioning, predicting, connecting to prior knowledge, and summarizing An academic classroom environment brimming with respect for others' ideas, equity of voice, engagement, and mutual support The ideas in this book stem from many hours of classroom practice, research, and video analysis across grade levels and content areas. Readers will find numerous practical activities for working on each conversation skill, crafting conversation-worthy tasks, and using conversations to teach and assess. Academic Conversations offers an in-depth approach to helping students develop into the future parents, teachers, and leaders who will collaborate to build a better world.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Professional Development, Nonfiction, Language, Reference, Psychology

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings by Jeff Zwiers is built on the idea that some of the best learning that occurs for all of us happens in conversations and that a powerful way to improve student learning and increase transfer skills across curriculum (and into life) is through teaching the skills involved in engaging in conversations about content areas. These conversations won't just happen and author Jeff Zwiers offers many strategies intended to foster the development of effective communication skills.

A good conversation involves empathy, active listening, willingness to consider new perspectives, ability to use relevant language (often content- or discipline-specific terminology), the patience to wrestle with deep questions and the ability to collaborate with others. Teaching students the necessary language to conduct an effective conversation as well as how to listen actively and open one's mind to hear others' perspectives and experiences as well as providing many opportunities to practice these skills is a challenge that can, if met, lead to deeper learning and understanding on the part of students than memorization or isolated learning can.

The book provides many assessments and rubrics along with the strategies offered and is often inspirational. It's a book I need to study more carefully and attempt to actually integrate into classroom practice (although I admit I am very intimidated about doing so).

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't you just love irony? Our students talk, talk, talk -- sometimes to the point where teachers are begging them to keep quiet so they can get on already with the lesson. There's the rub (and also the irony), as our old friend the Bard would say. Teachers could actually be channeling that energy by teaching something called "conversational skills" -- the kind used for academic (and later, career) purposes. Hmn. Now there's a thought. What if talk is the lesson. Academic talk instead of blah, blah, blah talk, I mean.

This book, then, will teach you how to teach THEM to speak... well... intelligently. The five core skills taught are to elaborate and clarify; to support ideas with examples; to build on and/or challenge a partner's ideas; to paraphrase; and to synthesize conversation points. The book provides lots of prompts and response stems. Thus, if one student says a short story is "awesome" or "boring," the skilled partner will immediately respond with a clarification prompt: "What do you mean when you say awesome?" Or if Partner B makes a wild claim, Partner A has learned enough about supporting ideas to say, "Where in the text does that idea come from?" How sweet would it be to hear those words coming out of a student's mouth, eh? Sugar-plum sweet, I'd venture.

The book is full of activities, rubrics, advice, suggestions, formative and summative assessments, and all that good stuff. It's a whole new world, really, one I hadn't given much thought to. Zwiers favors pairs for this work and for good reason -- at all times, at least half of the students in the room are talking. None of this riding coattails like you see with group discussions.

It's not just a book for English teachers, either. Zwiers dedicates entire chapters not only to ELA, but to history and science as well. Good for grades 5-12, the ideas in this practical book, if adopted by an entire school, would pay off in a big way. I guess by now you've figured out that I heartily endorse this book. I only wish it came out over the summer so I could get it up and running in September. But hey, late November is better than May, right? Right.

[Melissa Espiritu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is helpful but it was a tedious read. It could have been about fifty or so pages shorter. The first two chapters focus on convincing the reader on why Academic Discourse and conversations are good for students. But instead of feeling like it's setting a pedagogical framework for the rest of the chapters, it just feels like the writer's preaching to the choir. Those two chapters are composed of a list of arguments that briefly outline the benefits of academic discourse. The whole time you sort of feel like saying, "Of course! Why else would I pick this book up if I wasn't convinced that I need more Academic Discourse in my classroom?" After that, however, you do get to the good stuff. They have tons of academic discourse activities to use for many different purposes. It's almost dizzying trying to pick just a few to try out with your students. Some chapters focus on general discussion skills students need to develop, which is great because you can adapt these strategies to any content area. Then you get these awesome content specific chapters that help you find small was to squeeze in discussion strategies in areas of your content you would not have considered. I do recommend this book, just skim the first chapter or two.

[Steve Limkeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If this book has a significant flaw, it is that it provides TOO MANY examples, belaboring the point until they’re almost begging you to skim toward the next relevant section. However, I did discover several thinking routines and activities that I’m looking forward to beginning with my classes and the framework and driving purpose of the book are solid: motivate students and guide them to have engaging academic conversations! That’s one of my favorite things about teaching (getting students excited to dialogue about their learning, explore ideas together, etc), so naturally I appreciate a book designed to help me refine that craft. The back third of the book goes into subject-specific suggestions, and I’d say I benefited most from those chapters zeroing in on history & language arts.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first started teaching I wanted practical examples of how to apply the theory to the classroom. This book has them.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guys I learned how to have a conversation!!!!

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Here's a review I wrote for my class, which is why it sounds so stuffy.)

Authors Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford both have extensive experience teaching children in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms as well as training teachers. As a teacher of middle-level language arts who is looking to make my classroom more student-centered, I found this book to be an excellent companion to the texts I’ve been reading on Socratic dialogues: The Teacher's Guide to Leading Student-Centered Discussions: Talking About Texts in the Classroom and Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School. As Zwiers and Crawford demonstrate, academic conversations don’t have to be full-fledged seminars and can be implemented easily into our classroom routines. This book could be useful for classroom teachers of any discipline or level, but would be most appropriate for teachers of language arts, science, or social studies and with students in grades three through twelve.

Chapter 1 argues the need for more, and better, oral academic language in school and details the many advantages of such conversation. An educated person can’t just know facts, the authors argue: They need to be able to consider facts critically and use them meaningfully to solve problems, usually cooperatively. The authors point out that such conversation is “most scarce where it is most needed”–in the classrooms that are the most linguistically and culturally diverse. Students from lower-income families, in particular, start school with less exposure to academic language than those students from higher-income families, so infusing academic conversations into your teaching is a matter of equity. Student-to-student interactions do occur in most classrooms, but they tend to lack depth. Using the techniques in this book, teachers can enable students to engage in successful academic conversations and reap their many benefits, including deep and lasting understanding of content; better developed academic language and vocabulary; improved skills in literacy, oral language, and critical thinking; and an increase in empathy, perspective-taking, self-discovery, self-regulation, confidence, engagement, and motivation.

In Chapter 2, Zwiers and Crawford explain how teachers can prepare students to engage in academic conversations. They encourage teachers to introduce students to this kind of exchange early in the school year. At first, teachers might provide students with specific discussion questions and tasks as scaffolding, but as students become more skilled and more confident, they will be able to converse more independently. Successful academic conversations involve five core skills: elaborating on and clarifying ideas, supporting ideas with examples, building on and/or challenging ideas, paraphrasing ideas, and synthesizing ideas. The following chapter, Chapter 3, contains guidelines and suggestions for helping students develop these five core skills. For example, to help students learn how to elaborate on and clarify ideas, the teacher could assign pairs to use an opinion continuum or other graphic organizer to guide their discussion. Alternatively, the teacher may ask students to do a “quick write” or “journal jumpstart” before conversing. To help students learn to support their ideas with examples, the authors recommend an activity called Quotation Negotiation. The teacher posts several themes or main ideas posted around the room and then gives pairs various quotations to categorize. An interesting activity to develop students’ ability to paraphrase is the Interview Grid. Students quickly answer questions orally and then paraphrase each others’ responses on a chart. After hearing a few responses, students use their charts to synthesize the responses and expand them into complete sentences.

In chapter 4, to help the teacher plan conversation experiences, the authors identify seven elements of effective conversation tasks and four bases on which conversations might be established. Chapter 5 discusses training students to have advanced conversations and covers asking useful questions, encouraging and complimenting conversation partners, and problem solving when a conversation deteriorates. In chapter 6, the authors focus on using conversation to help students develop academic grammar and vocabulary. Here, they recommend specific strategies such as combining, imitating, and building sentences and teaching students to use complex sentences and connectives. Of particular use in this chapter is a list of “tier two” or “mortar words”—general-use academic words that describe thinking processes as well as complex and abstract ideas. As the authors point out, students truly learn words only when they are given “repeated exposures and repeated opportunities to connect and authentically use the new words over time,” and academic conversations provide just those opportunities.

The next three chapters discuss how to implement academic conversation in language arts, history, and science. Each chapter includes thinking skills, themes, activities, and assessment tools specific to that discipline. Finally, chapter 10 offers general strategies for assessing academic conversation, along with sample rubrics that can be adapted for use with any discipline or adapted for self or peer assessment. Although students are traditionally assessed in writing, the authors maintain that assessing students’ academic conversations can provide greater insight into both what students know and how they can apply what they know. The final brief chapter succinctly summarizes the content of the book with four reminders, and an appendix follows.

In short, Zwiers and Crawford argue convincingly that, as they state in the final chapter, “academic conversations can play a meaningful role…in preparing students for future success,” as “humanity grows from thinking together about life, solving problems, building relationships, and constructing meaning with others” (210). In addition to being clearly written and superbly organized, Academic Conversations contains a variety of charts, tables, and rubrics, not only in the appendix but also throughout the text. I wholly recommend this book to the target audience. Even the most accomplished teacher is likely to find something useful here.

[BookChampions · Rating 4 out of 5]

For all the practical ideas it boasts, Academic Conversations is a highly philosophical text. Had I stumbled upon this book ten years ago, I doubt I would have been able to translate Jeff Zwiers & Marie Crawford's ideas into tangible magic in the classroom. But no worries for me now, considering that this book has fallen into my hands at this stage in my teaching (my 13th year).

This book is a powerful challenge to pump up my student conversations--particularly those with students who are not practiced (even as juniors in high school) in academic discussion. It was a fine complement to my recent reading on critical thinking, and it left me with a ton of ideas. So while some of these "activities" are questionably translatable to my classroom as they currently stand, the lightbulb at the core of each activity comes through loud and clear. Now I am compelled to bend each activity to fit my students and my school.

On one more note, the lists of thinking skills, the sentence stems and model questions are invaluable.

[Syd L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book #39 of 2016.

Zwiers and Crawford weave philosophy, research, anecdotes, and activities together for a text that is fully accessible. The bottom line is that students are often most engaged when they are conversing, and engagement leads to better learning. This book backs this up with various studies and personal examples. It provides useful rubrics and graphic organizers. I loved that it has a chapter devoted to three different disciplines (literature, history, and science) as well as an entire one just about grammar.

I don't know if we will use hand motions in my classroom, but this certainly gave me a clearer vision of how to assess my class's conversations.

[Andrew Shipe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had this book for a few years because I've always had some difficulty making class discussion work well. After some feedback reinforcing that from my students this year, I decided to include Zwiers & Crawford in my summer reading.

Overall, the book was good, but the focus is more on paired conversation than on group discussion. I agree with the authors that paired conversation is an important activity to have your students master, and it can certainly be applied to small-group and/or project-based learning. However, I did not get a lot of new strategies for group discussion, so I will be going back to Barry Gilmore's Speaking Volumes for that.

[Kris Campea]

So far it's interesting. I would love, however, to do this as a book study; it's so frustrating trying to implement this into just my classroom when I know it's best practice.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a math teacher, there is a big part of me that says this is not my domain and that I am too busy to deal with that, what with all the demands of teaching my own content, not to mention what many would argue is the job of the social sciences' instructors; however, Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford have convinced me that I cannot ignore this any longer. What's more, they provide a clear argument that academic conversations will greatly improve student writing.

Although Zwiers' work focuses primarily on paired conversations, although throughout the book many types of large and small group discussions done in class. The authors favor this because at least half the students in the room are talking at any one time, and no student can "cruise" while more outgoing classmates do the heavy lifting.

One minor critique of the work is what is defined as the five core skills: elaborate and clarify; support ideas with examples; build on and/or challenge a partner's ideas; paraphrase; and synthesize conversation points. I am quick to pounce on any teaching book that is able to simplify something so complex to some key bullet points; however, after reading this book you come away with more than just some activities for students to engage in but meaningful reflective techniques and habits to push your and your students' thinking.

Academic Conversations offers practical strategies to promote deeper conversations about content information among students while strengthening their thinking and reasoning skills.

[DeAnne Varitek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Then irony of how we operate our classrooms is that we generally spend a lot of time trying to get our students quiet. I see a lot of teachers playing the educational equivalent of “Whack-a-mole” while they desperately try to teach or engage students in work. The reality is that our students seriously lack communication skills in multiple levels. This presents itself in many ways, including low literacy levels, disruptive school behaviors, and a disengagement in face to face interactions. Our work has never been more critical in this area.

This book is a how to and a must for any 6-12 teacher of a humanities course. Filled with concrete examples and the rationale behind the work, this book should be on every teacher’s desk. I see great implications for math, too!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classroom discussion strategies are a high priority, coming out of a school year in which students were more muted than engaging in conversation. The authors, Zwiers and Crawford, offer practical ideas and helpful tools for ramping up discussion in language arts, history, and science classes. I especially appreciate the graphic organizers presented in the book, which can be modified to support particular instructional focus. From one chapter to the next, the reader is reminded of the myriad ways discussion can be introduced in the curriculum and why conversation is essential to preparing students for college and workplace success. I look forward to implementing ideas from Academic Conversations in the coming year.

[Megan Knippenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be a must-read for twenty-first century educators. In an era where lecture and test simply is not cutting it to prepare students for life, we must shift our practice to teach students high-leverage skills. Conversation is one of these skills. As a writing teacher, a lot of what is presented here reminds me of assessing writing. Yet, the ability to converse effectively is just as important. I am looking forward to mindfully integrating material from this book into my practice during the next school year.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Academic conversation is an important topic for all teachers to be familiar with and to be intentional about including in the classroom. This book gives good information and direction for doing just that. While the ideas in the book are very helpful, the structure of the book is a bit repetitive, and the content is sometimes vague. Essentially, it feels like maybe there’s not enough separate, specific information to fill a whole book. This doesn’t negate the quality of the information, just the enjoyment of the read.

[Gina Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of practical ideas of how to bring more productive talk back into your classroom. Rubrics are included so students know the expectations of what academic talk should sound like. Ideas for posters to keep the conversation going. I also found the chapter on grammar and vocabulary affirming- this is something that I have known was so important , but I've often put on the back burner. This book changed how I will teach in the fall. I wrote noes all over it- it won't be sitting on a shelf!

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

An invaluable resource that emphasizes the teaching of oral academic language use. I wish I had been instructed more in the best use of conversation in school. Reading this helped me learn conversation techniques for my own use as well as educational use. Zwiers and Crawford make a lot of very good points here that I have long agreed with, phrased clearly and concisely.

Loved that the authors referenced Freire.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

My teaching goal is to engage students in effective academic conversations. Coming back to full in-person teaching, students are struggling to verbally communicate. This book has provided me with a lot of strategies. I have used about 3 of them, and it’s only September. This is one of the most applicable educational books I’ve ever read.

[Heather Stringham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zwiers and Crawford have written a book to help the current generation become better at conversation. They give clear guidelines and assistance to help teachers figure out the way to assist the speaking and listening skills that are needed in today's world.

[Andrew Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great work of research, but also extremely practical to build out from. Look forward to using these techniques to build academic conversations in science classes.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has some interesting ideas and strategies for encouraging conversations in the classroom, but it is a very dry, boring read.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

good info but echoes same sentiments as AVID so not much new for me

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zwiers and Crawford reinforce that crazy notion: Let them talk. Require them to think. :) As an educator who models/teaches, nurtures, and requires meaningful thinking and conversing in my classroom, I find this book a useful tool for those who would like to increase this practice in their own classrooms.

It's interesting how often teachers will say: "This will never work. Kids can't focus and discuss. There will be dozens of discipline issues."

It's our job to model, to practice with them, to be clear about expectations, and give students ample opportunities to practice without penalty. Procedures and practice.

It IS possible. :)

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I enjoyed most about this book is the fact that it combined examples that I could see in the classroom in with the text. I love the Conversations about History section, as a lover of history, despite not teaching that subject specifically. I was able to see things I was doing in the class already (what a relief!), as well as great next steps. There were so many amazing ideas about to foster academic conversations and to assess them. I only wish there was a version for very young school-age children, since much of the content is for older students.

[Rebecca Sofferman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a wealth of great tips and information about questioning techniques for the classroom. The primary focus of the book is encouraging students to use more academic language, and designing lessons that are more student-centered. Students are encouraged to question each other and drive the lessons. Questioning prompt and responses are outlined, and many tables and charts are interspersed. I read the Kindle version and I recommend the hard copy, as some of the most useful content was provided in large tables that were hard to read on a smaller screen.

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is stuffed with new ideas and activities. You could easily use it as the textbook for an education course, incorporating the conversations in your teaching bit by bit. No doubt it can yield great results, but it is a little overwhelming to think of the amount of coaching and modeling it would require to approach the sample student conversations found here. I plan on referring to this as a resource in my ELD and Spanish classes from now on.

[Teri · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want to start academic conversations in your class and you don't know where to start this is the book for you... if you are in grades 6 or above. It discusses structure of conversation, how to get it started in your classroom, how to have your students organize their conversations better. I would be hard-pressed to apply much of it specifically to elementary. In broad general strokes, sure, but in the details, I didn't find much application.

[Diz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book on how to encourage critical thinking in your classroom through conversations. It provides a lot of practical advice and ideas for activities. I also really liked that it covered different disciplines: language arts, history, and science. This really gives a good picture of how critical thinking can be applied across different courses, but also how it can be approached in distinct ways.

[Katie Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit tedious with all the various activities listed, but really, they will come in handy. I will be weaving in ideas and activities from this book into my class. While my class has always been about conversation, this brings conversing to a whole new level-one I know we should get our students to.