The connection between thinking and speaking is real, sort of like the connection between dating and holding hands.
I say this because there is really no way to be thoughtful about something or understanding of something if you are not verbalizing it somehow, usually by talking to someone around you. Of course, this replaying of the things we know comes in other forms that we find in schools like debate, journaling, and even note-taking.
No matter how it plays out, we simply cannot complete the comprehension loop if students are not required to verbalize their learning somehow. This is a critical reality for teachers if we are ever going to realize the dream of equity for all students in acquiring the next-generation skills that they need.
The intentionality of equity: Accountable talk and thinking
Let’s consider how this might look in a classroom. Let’s say students are reading a text of their own choosing or the entire class is reading the same text (or even a chapter in a textbook). As a teacher, I learned quickly that I could not count on the kids to stay attuned to any text or lesson unless I held them accountable for their thinking.
One trick a teacher might use is placing a sticky note at the end of every two or three pages of the text that reads: “Stop Here. Think. Reflect.” I even placed these notes in the classroom novels we had available for kids during their independent reading time. It simply asked them to pause along the way and to think, process, reflect and cement their understanding of what they had just read or heard – skills that good learners do naturally.
- The question: If it were a whole-group lesson, I might then pose a question that forced the class to THINK about what they just read. If it were a fiction text, the question might be something like: Why does the author introduce a new character here? What role do you suspect this character will play in moving the plot forward or in rounding out the other characters? The questions were always something like that.
- The task: Now, take one minute to THINK about your response and then write a one-sentence response on the back of the sticky. Get ready to discuss your answer with a partner, read aloud if called upon and/or turn in as you leave today.
The intentionality of rigor: Summarizing as a place to start
This notion of planned, purposeful lessons that make students think, discuss, and debate (and that leave no students out) is not new but is still not routine in many of our classrooms.
Marzano does a fine job in giving us plenty of evidence for the importance of this type of activity and for helping us to frame what we mean by thinking that is “rigorous.” The most obvious example of this type of activity is summarizing, something that we should see in every classroom almost every day.
Summarizing is a higher-order skill that requires students to make “sense” of what they are learning and to re-state it accurately to others, via a turn-and-talk, graphic organizer, quick-write or other activity. Here’s how Marzano decribes the steps:
- Process (what you have heard or read)
- Analyze (the information)
- Identify (the critical content)
- Assimilate (the content in some meaningful way)
That’s why I am a big fan of graphic organizers (when used correctly) and advanced literary devices (when used correctly) like metaphor and analogy (and not just in English classes) as techniques for processing and summarizing key content. There are countless ways to get students to think about and discuss content and there are many creative ways to hold students accountable for their thinking.
No matter how we do it, it is imperative that students talk about their learning, discuss their conclusions, defend their findings and connect those things to other content they have learned. These are the moments when teaching becomes learning, sort of like when holding hands becomes dating.
