Raise Your Voices

Raise Your Voices shows English language arts teachers how to prompt, sustain, connect, and assess classroom discussions, especially about issues that adolescents find consequential. The chapters explore the basics for facilitating discussion to support literacy learning and the principles for assessing the progress and effect of discussion.

In a collection of chapters from high school teachers and university researchers, Raise Your Voices offers English language arts teachers “one-stop shopping” to learn how to foster dialogic classrooms and how to prompt, sustain, connect, and assess classroom discussions, especially discussions about issues that adolescents find consequential. The chapters explore both the basics for facilitating discussion to support literacy learning and the principles for assessing the progress and effect of discussion and for including all students in lively dialogue. Taken together, the entries in this book envision the English language arts classroom as a supportive environment for authentic inquiry and for the genuine democratic processes involved in grappling together with tough perennial and contemporary issues.

Foreword

Carol D. Lee, Northwestern University

Acknowledgements

Editors’ Introduction to Raise Your Voices

Part I: Inviting Conversations

Editors’ Introduction to Part I

Chapter 1: Inquiry and Discussion

Thomas M. McCann, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois

Chapter 2: Authentic Discussion and Writing

Elizabeth E. Kahn, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois

Chapter 3: Discussion and Literature

Carolyn Calhoun Walter, Northern IllinoisUniversity

Chapter 4: Daily Classroom Discourse That Supports Speaking and Listening Goals

Kim Gwizdala, Glenbard West, High School, Glen Ellyn, Illinois

Part II: Reflecting on Practice to Foster Engagement and Learning

Editors’ Introduction to Part II

Chapter 5: Seeing and Hearing What Actually Happens

Dawn Forde, Adlai E. Stevenson High School, Lincolnshire, Illinois

Chapter 6: Inviting Student Reflection on Participation

Andrew Bouque, Adlai E. Stevenson High School, Lincolnshire, Illinois

Chapter 7: Planning, Managing, and Troubleshooting for Rich Discussions

Andrew Bouque and Dawn Forde, Adlai E. Stevenson High School, Lincolnshire, Illinois

Part III: Expanding Conversations

Editors’ Introduction to Part III

Chapter 8: Layers of Discussion

Lisa Whitmer, Larkin High School, Elgin, Illinois

Chapter 9: Extending the Conversation: Discussion-Based Inquiry Units

Julianna Cucci and Zanfina Rrahmani Muja, Maine Township High School District, DesPlaines, Illinois

Chapter 10: Digital Discussions

Nicole Boudreau Smith and Mark Patton, Adlai E. Stevenson High School, Lincolnshire, Illinois

Chapter 11: Discussion, Deliberation, and Democracy

Tamara Jaffe-Notier, Niles West High School, Skokie, Illinois

Part IV: Including Everyone in Conversations

Editors’ Introduction to Part IV

Chapter 12: Discussion with English Learners: Both Possible and Powerful

Barbara Alvarez, Huntley High School, Huntley, Illinois, and Shannon McMullen, Glenbard North High School, Carol Stream, Illinois

Chapter 13: Discussing Difference: Engaging Students with Learning Differences in Authentic Discussion

Claire Walter, Wolcott School, Chicago, Illinois

Chapter 14: “Talk isn’t Cheap in Here:” Discussion in Prison Classrooms

Deborah Appleman, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota

Chapter 15: A Place for Reticent Speakers

Patricia Dalton, Fremont High School, Sunnyvale, California

About the Editors

About the Contributors