In my current internship placement, after I had finished up an instructional unit over rhetoric, I wanted to transition from analyzing examples of rhetoric to understanding how rhetoric influences and shapes our daily lives. Specifically, my PLC and I had decided to have students create documentaries in groups that dismantle a specific stereotype. Our end-goal was not just for a documentary, but for students to understand that we‒as a school‒are a community, and that we are connected with one another in more ways that we may think.

 

I had started my students with writing a “Just Because” poem, where they identified a stereotype that others may classify them as, and they listed characteristics that accompanied that stereotype. I noticed, however, that many of my students gravitated toward similar, rather generic stereotypes and characteristics, such as “Just Because I’m an Athlete” or “Just Because I’m a Girl.” In order to have my students think beyond generic stereotypes, I wanted them to think about issues that they themselves dealt with, and things that I would not necessarily know.

 

I knew that coming in during my second semester placement that it would be more difficult to form those closer bonds with my students, and asking them to be vulnerable in front of me‒someone they have only known since the beginning of January‒would be difficult for them. I decided that in order to help alleviate the reservation my students felt that I would implement a silent discussion.

 

A silent discussion is used as an instructional activity to promote dialogic learning with students. Students are given a discussion question, a quote, or a statement in which they must respond in writing to. Students are able to move freely around the room, answering the prompt, giving opinions or evidence to support their answers. Most importantly, however, this strategy allows for students to respond to their classmates’ statements and pose questions to one another. For my silent discussion, I wrote six statements on different butcher paper and required my students to respond to at least three statements, as well as respond to at least two of their classmates’ responses. They were required to write their name next to each entry.

 

I intended for the statements to be definitive, as I wanted to elicit a strong response with my students. In order to move into our unit of stereotyping, some of the statements posed were: “All older people are set in their ways,” “My friends have ignored or joined in when others have made fun of me,” and “My parents have expectations for my future that I don’t agree with.” I used these questions so students could explore parts of themselves in which they feel as though they have been ignored or placed unfairly into a social or behavioral category that they did not agree with.

 

This dialogic tool addresses Domain 3 of Danielson’s Framework for Teaching, especially in regard to 3a and 3b. In terms of 3a: communicating with students, I wanted to provide a space where I could also communicate an idea with my students, and for this reason, I also participated in the silent discussion, writing my own responses and commenting on other students’ answers. I found this to be a way in which I could model my expectations for learning and participating, and I used this as an opportunity to clear up any questions in terms of content. For 3b: using questioning and discussion techniques, I think silent discussions work well because the quality of statements and questions is critical to this strategy. If statements only elicit a “yes” or “no” response, without room for explanation, most students will feel disengaged from the activity. One of the most important things about silent discussions, however, is that student participation is vital for the conversation to take place. Students who otherwise would not share their thoughts or ideas are now participating in an open environment where they can take agency in their learning; they are the ones who are taking control of the conversation, without my help, to develop their understandings. I saw students participate and pose thoughtful questions to their peers that I would have not thought of originally.

 

I believe that this type of student-directed dialogic talk supports student learning because the answers that were written on the papers were thoughtful, and required self-reflectiveness on behalf of every student. According to Juzwik’s Inspiring Dialogue: Talking to Learn in the English Classroom (2013), “research robustly correlates dialogic instructional practices with literary achievement gains in reading comprehension, literary analysis, and argumentative writing.” Beyond this, I found that this dialogic tool fostered a more reflective, empathic classroom environment. After we finished our silent discussion, I took time to have students share their thoughts, questions, or wonderings with the rest of the class. I was able to share moments in my own life in which I have been stereotyped or judged, which in turn created a safer environment where very reluctant students shared moments in their lives in which they have been hurt by others. I saw students who never talked to one another begin to engage in conversations about their lives, and I was impressed by their maturity and understanding.

 

I find that my job as a facilitator of classroom discussion is to give my students the proper scaffolding to engage in discussions that require students to be self-reflective, honest, and understanding of their peers. Students are not always given a voice within the classroom, and I find that silent discussions can be used as a scaffold for whole-class conversations. When students take the time to write out their thoughts and read others’ comments, they will be more inclined to listen to others’ viewpoints before responding immediately in other dialogic settings, such as socratic circles. Meaningful discussion does not always come naturally to students, nor does it come naturally to adults, and I believe that providing students with frequent opportunities to engage in silent discussions will help confident students be reflective in their conversation, and help more shy students gain the confidence that their voice does matter.

 

Juzwick, M. M., Borsheim-Black, C., et. al, (2013). Inspiring

Dialogue: Talking to learn in the English classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, Teachers College, Columbia University.