Target Audience: Grades 3-8 teachers, special educators, counselors, and/or librarians who teach reading, language arts, humanities, and/or global citizenship.

So often we ask our students to discuss a wide variety of texts with partners, or in small groups, but we haven’t yet provided them with the necessary skills. How can we model these skills for our students in order to improve their purposeful talk? How can we put our students in the driver’s seat for leading discussions and engaging their peers? In this workshop you will learn how to use various protocols with students that will foster discussions in your classroom. We will also share, develop and practice these protocols so both teachers and students can do this important work with more depth and confidence.

Participants in this workshop will:
· Understand the components and processes for leading effective discussion groups in your classroom.
· Learn, practice and develop discussion protocols that foster rich classroom discussion.
· Connect powerful children’s literature to discussion opportunities for students.
· Understand and develop formative assessment techniques to monitor purposeful classroom dialogue.
· Walk away with the tools necessary to begin this work in your classroom tomorrow!