Beyond Accountable Talk
I don’t have an issue with students not wanting to
participate. For the most part, they all
always want to add their perspective into our class discussions. The issue is
their inability to articulate their thoughts eloquently, intelligently, and
respectfully. At the start of the school year, I provided my students with a
list of accountable-talk sentence starters.
Accountable-Talk
Sentence Starters
I agree…
I disagree…
I want to add…
Can you explain…?
I have a question
about…
What I heard you say
is…?
Can you show me where…?
I do not understand
________, can you repeat it in a different way?
Thank you…
Can you give me a few
moments to process this?
My evidence is…
In the text, I read…
My research shows…
I can make a connection
to how you said…
This reminds me of…
I predict…
It’s explicit enough to
see…
I understand your
perspective but in my own opinion…
I don’t know but I will
find out…
Most of them have seamlessly implemented the phrases
into their vocabulary but right after they use the sentence starters, they get
stuck. Their sentences lose meaning, they don’t make clear connections, and
they usually just stop like – “umm, yeah…” or “y’all know what I meant.” Simple
prompts such as, “No, finish your sentence”, only seem to frustrate them and
cause them to visibly show their anger. But what are they so mad at? Not
knowing how to articulate their thoughts or being pushed to do so? I believe it’s
a little bit of both. I know this because I, too, can identify with the feeling
of having the knowledge in my mind but not knowing exactly how to say it.
In the Black community, “Nah’mean?” and “Know what I’m
saying?” are the most acceptable cop-outs ever. We abuse them so frequently that
we allow them to enable the habit of not fully explaining ourselves. In order
to discontinue this habit among my students, the only thing I can do is teach
them: replacement strategies, ways to pull prior knowledge before they speak,
and the art of pacing one’s self while conversing with others.
Next
week, I will be rolling out my Beyond Accountable Talk series:
Part
I- Replacement
Strategies
Part
II - Inserting
Prior Knowledge
Part
III - Pacing
One’s Self While Conversing with Others
This is so powerful, even to us as adults. 😘
ReplyDeleteI cannot wait for you to blog about the series! This is extremely beneficial in and out of the classroom.
ReplyDelete