Thursday, August 29, 2013

My Partner Said
My Partner Wondered

Earlier this week as I walked by one of our new enthusiastic teachers I noticed some of my gifted and advanced kids participating in the classroom discussion. As I continued to observe it became more and more apparent that the discussion was mostly between two students and the teacher. I thought back to when I had a classroom and how there were kids who pretty much dominated most of the speaking time while many of the quieter, more reflective students never inserted their voice into the stream of thinking. I wish I would have known Linda Hoyt's "My Partner Said" Strategy and its variation, "My Partner Wondered." 

The Idaho Core includes Speaking and Listening Standards. Truthfully, there have always been similar standards but now we must leverage speaking and listening in our collaborative classrooms to facilitate reading, writing, and math thinking. We need to utilize strategies so students learn to listen and speak. All students need a voice in our classrooms.

The Idaho Core Speaking and Listening Anchor Standard states:

Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Therefore, we must engage even our reluctant speakers and cultivate listening skills. We have shared "My Partner Said" in many of our trainings and in our work in classrooms, but we have many new teachers. And, it's always a good reminder for us veteran teachers! Here are the anchor charts for the two strategies:

We know some of our G/T students tend to know the answers and are used to speaking (and even overspeaking!) while other students passively let them. Also, a few students take a while to articulate their thoughts. Using Linda Hoyt's strategies will help balance out our classroom discussions.

The wonderful, new teacher I mentioned in the first paragraph found me later this week to tell me how successful the strategy worked. She said that at first the dominant speakers said their partners had nothing to say but they had some important information to share. Well, of course they did, as some of these kids are used to speaking up without having to listen to the ideas of others! With determined nudging and consistent practice, other students are starting to speak up and all students are having to listen and encourage responses, in order to know what their partners said. 

On a side note, I sat in Cheryl Forse's classroom this morning and had the chance to be an elbow partner. When I shared out what my partner said I saw a pleased look on the face of my fellow partner. The next time we had to turn and talk, he made sure to talk more than he had the first time.  I think he was hoping I'd share his ideas again.

Speaking of Linda Hoyt, we are giving away one of her excellent books, which includes many writing strategies for non-fiction. But you have to follow our blog by tomorrow!  

Stay tuned for our announcement of the lucky winner tomorrow.