| Content Talk |
A statement, problem, question, or fact is posted for students to see. Students are given time to consider the content then asked to share their responses. The teacher follows students’ sharing with guiding questions such as:
- Who thought about this another way?
- Where was your approach similar?
- What information is missing?
- How does this connect to previous learning?
Teachers will set an expectation and the classroom will set “norms” for use of academic vocabulary and discussion. |
Give students an essential question at the beginning of a unit. Provide time for students to think about an/or write a response to the essential question, then follow the classroom “norms” for sharing ideas. |
| Think, Pair, Share |
This instructional routine is useful in many contexts where the purpose is to give all students enough time to think about a prompt and form a response before they are expected to try to verbalize their thinking. First they have an opportunity to share their thinking in a low-stakes way with one partner, so that when they share with the class they can feel calm and confident, as well as say something meaningful that might advance everyone’s understanding. Additionally, the teacher has an opportunity to eavesdrop on the partner conversations so that they can purposefully select students to share with the class. |
Give 2 minutes of quiet work time and then invite students to share their thinking with their partner, followed by whole-class discussion.
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| Stop & Jot |
This processing activity gives students the opportunity to respond to questions in writing at different points throughout the lesson. |
- Stop: Ask students to draw a rectangle on the page where they are taking notes for the day. This will serve as their “stop box.”
- Jot: At least once during a lesson, stop and ask an important question for students to respond to in their “stop box.”
- Share: Reconvene and ask volunteers to share one or two responses with the whole class, or model your own response. These boxes also help students later by serving as a study tool, highlighting important information about the topic.
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| Annotation |
Regular annotation norms allow students to mirror the process of “natural reading” by setting a purpose for reading even without the guidance of a teacher or prompt. This encourages students to be active readers and builds the habit of interrogating text for central idea and/or theme. |
During every first read, students annotate for:
- Characters and traits
- Setting
- Conflict
- *The most important detail*
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| Guided Discussion |
Guided discussions allow students to collaboratively make meaning of the text, while avoiding a “crowd sourcing” an answer that allows some students to uncritically copy the thinking of their peers. Guided discussions are taught through the establishment of very specific, learner-centric norms, which the teacher monitors throughout the class. |
Example: Accountable talk sentence frames, note-taking norms for non-speakers, conduct norms for speakers and non-speakers, question frames for participants to ask, participation norms |
| Notice and Wonder |
Students are presented with a resource (text, video, audio) then asked, “What do you notice?” and “What do you wonder?” Students are given a few minutes to think of things they notice and things they wonder then share them with a partner. Next, the teacher asks several students to share things they noticed and things they wondered; these are recorded by the teacher for all to see. The teacher might use guiding questions related to the content to prompt further “notice” and “wondering.” |
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| Open Middle |
This Instructional Routine requires students to share their thinking with tasks the include the following:
- a “closed beginning” meaning that they all start with the same known beginning.
- a “closed end” meaning that they all end with the same known ending.
- an “open middle” meaning that there are multiple ways to approach the work.
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ELA: Write a poem that utilizes 4 figurative language techniques and develops the theme, “Blood is thicker than water.” |
| Compare and Connect |
Foster students’ meta-awareness as they identify, compare, and contrast different approaches, representations, and usages of language. Teachers should model using the think aloud instructional method to demonstrate why one might do or say it this way, how to question an idea, thinking about how an idea compares or connects to other ideas or language. Students should be prompted to reflect and respond. This routine supports meta-cognitive and meta-linguistic awareness, and also supports content-area conversations. |
ELA: Provide students with two different texts that develop the same theme, and model how to use literary elements to analyze how each author develop the theme in their respective texts. |
