Maximizing Access and Participation in WordGen Classrooms

Encouraging Student Participation in Discussions
  • Partner with especially quiet students occasionally. Show interest in their thoughts then and at other times throughout the unit.
  • Encourage reluctant speakers to share out from a partner or small group discussion, or assign them a brief text to read aloud.
  • Provide all students with their own copy of student talk moves, or display the student talk moves prominently in the classroom.
  • Have students turn to face each other during oral exchanges.
  • Allow for students to stop and jot their response to a question or topic before sharing aloud. Students can then have a choice of reading aloud what they wrote or sharing without using what they wrote. This can be done when sharing with a partner, small group, or whole group.
  • For English Learners in early stages of English acquisition, welcome oral expression in the home language and partner them with a bilingual student who knows the home language.
  • Have students use talking chips. Assign 3-5 chips each time. Require that all students use at least one chip to say anything they choose (e.g., ask a question, ask for clarification, rephrase what someone said, make a comment, agree or disagree, read something they wrote).
  • Provide many opportunities for low-stakes oral expression through choral reading, echo reading, and focus word chants.
  • Structure discussions or debates so that sharing happens first with a Turn and Talk partner and is followed by sharing in a small group formed with two Turn and Talk pairs.
  • Instead of a Turn and Talk or small group sharing to address a lesson discussion question, use the “Survey Your Peers” activity on the website.
  • Display sentence frames in the classroom. Keep them displayed until you see most students have become proficient using them. Consider having desk, group, and/or table copies.
Turn and Talk
  • Pair students with partners of differing strengths.
  • Rehearse the Turn and Talk routine until students own it, keeping in mind that you may need to rehearse again or troubleshoot unforeseen issues at different points during the year.
  • Try to always circulate while students Turn and Talk to learn about each student’s perspectives, especially shy students or those uncomfortable sharing in small or whole group.
Small Group Discussion
  • Assign students with different strengths to each group (e.g., reading skill, bilingual ability, oral expression).
  • Rehearse the routine until students own it, keeping in mind that you may need to rehearse again or troubleshoot unforeseen issues at different points during the academic year.
  • Consider having them stay with the same group for at least a whole unit. To promote a sense of community, have each group choose a group name related to the unit theme.
  • Choose one student from each group to report or share out what the group discussed or produced. Don’t tell them who will be the reporter until it is time to share, so that all students are accountable for listening and asking questions to better understand. If needed, give students a couple of minutes to stop and jot what they will report from their group before it is time for the reporting.
Building Perspective-Taking
  • Compare and contrast the perspectives described in the unit.
  • With a Turn and Talk partner or in small groups, have students pretend to hold one of the perspectives described in the unit while responding to a discussion question.
  • Provide frequent opportunities for students to jot and share with a partner their own perspective throughout the unit and how it may have changed.
  • Provide a variety of ways for students to share their perspectives. Some examples include: illustrations/sketches, quick writes, poems, advertisement, dramatization.
  • Model and provide guided practice throughout the unit for identifying and paraphrasing evidence from WordGen texts to support their perspectives in preparation for the debate/discussion at the end of the unit.
  • Guide students in reflecting the strength of their conviction of the various perspectives using the “Opinion Continuum” activity on the WordGen website.
  • Guide students in reflecting on the strength of the supporting evidence of their perspective using the “Rating Reasons” and “Weighing the Evidence” support on the WordGen website.
  • Have students work in pairs to choose a topic of interest that may have opposing perspectives and generate reasons to support each perspective using the “Opposite Perspectives” activity on the WordGen website.
  • Perspective Chair: At the beginning or middle of the unit, have students choose a position and share their position and reasons and/or evidence with a partner. After both partners have shared, have students switch chairs and share their partner’s perspective and supporting evidence. Allow time for students to share their partner’s perspective in whole class or small group.
  • Have students interview school staff, family, or friends on their perspectives about the unit topic. Have them quick-write or share about this in pairs, small groups, or whole group. Sort the perspectives for similarities and differences and/or based on their alignment with the perspectives described in the unit.
Promoting Academic Language Development & Use
  • Use focus word chants daily.
  • Have students work with partners to identify any forms of the focus words from the current or past WordGen texts. Require that they read aloud the sentences that include these words. Challenge them to rephrase each of these sentences aloud. Model and provide guided practice for this process first.
  • Use choral or echo reading when time allows without sacrificing comprehension of the text. Give students time to read the text silently before reading it together.
  • Assign text or portions of text from students’ previous WordGen lessons for fluency practice.
  • Use text or portions of text from students’ previous WordGen lessons to highlight academic language features. Chart these features and leave them up for reference.
  • Acknowledge the presence of academic language features, including focus words, in other curricular areas or in events inside and outside of school.
  • Encourage students to be academic language detectives and share examples of academic language features they encounter. Put up a chart on which these examples can be showcased.
  • Do an academic language feature scavenger hunt. Have students work in small groups to search through classroom and online resources for illustrations of an academic language feature (e.g., nominalizations). Have them record the examples and sources. When sharing their findings with the whole class, each student must read one of the examples found by his/her group.
  • Go through a page or section of text and highlight colloquial language and academic language in two different colors. As a class, rephrase colloquial language into a more academic language form. As the year progresses, have students do this with a partner or in small groups. 
  • Go through a section of text from the unit and guide students in converting sentences or phrases written in academic language into more colloquial language. Reread the text. Guide students in comparing and contrasting the original text with the transformed one. Emphasize that, while the main ideas don’t change, academic language forms provide greater precision and nuance in the expression of these ideas.
  • Have students go through their own or their partner’s WordGen essay from a previous unit and identify places where the meaning can be clearer. Have them think about what phrases or sentences could be confusing and work together to clarify meaning. After helping each other rephrase to communicate more precisely, have them rewrite their essays and share them in small groups. Model and provide shared practice for this first, using WordGen essays volunteered by students. (If you implemented WordGen last year and kept some student essays, use these anonymously, with the students’ permission.)
  • Have students rehearse for the debate by working in pairs reading off their debate prompt prewriting graphic organizer using connectives and complete sentences.
  • Use the “Taking It Up a Level” activity on the WordGen website.
Promoting Argumentative Writing Development
  • Allow students to respond to discussion or Turn and Talk questions in writing before sharing aloud.
  • Periodically use articles or texts from WordGen units and guide students in identifying the claim, supporting evidence, and any statements that address counterclaims. Color code these by highlighting or underlining. Scaffold this experience so that students can eventually do this with a partner, in small groups, and/or independently.
  • Compose an essay in whole group using shared writing. In shared writing, the teacher is the scribe of ideas generated by students through a rich discussion about what to write in response to the debate question. The teacher guides the structure of the writing by asking open-ended questions. Color code the claims, supporting evidence, and the statements that address counterclaims. As a class, read the completed essay and keep it up as a reference for future units.
  • Using interactive writing, compose an essay in whole group about one of the least popular or most challenging perspective. In interactive writing, the teacher “shares the pen” with students to write ideas generated by the class through a rich discussion about what to write in response to the debate question. The teacher guides the structure of the writing by asking open-ended questions. Require that students volunteer a sentence or idea orally before going up to write it. Color code the claims, supporting evidence, and the statements that address counterclaims. As a class, read the completed essay and keep it up as a reference for future units.
  • Fill in the argumentative writing graphic organizer, such as "Planning your writing" or "Writing Support Option" as a class and provide guided practice on how to read off the entire graphic organizer before writing the essay. Scaffold student learning so they can do this with partners, in small groups, and/or independently.
  • Give students time to read their writing aloud.
  • Allow students, especially those in the early stages of English acquisition or in dual language programs, to write in their home language and/or in English and their home language. Teach them to use a translator to rewrite non-English text in English.
  • As a whole group, generate a word bank of unit-relevant words that students may want to use in their writing. As an added scaffold, make a sketch that illustrates each word’s meaning.
  • Sorting Evidence: Write the claim and supporting evidence of the least popular perspective in sentence strips and display on a pocket chart. Color code the claims, supporting evidence, and the statements that address counterclaims. Using the final product, model and provide guided practice in orally stating their claim and supporting evidence using the sentence strips. For fun, organize the evidence in different ways and model or provide guided practice sharing orally using the newly organized product(s). Scaffold the learning so this can be done in partners or small groups when students are ready.
  • Periodically use students’ writing from any WordGen unit for lessons on editing, revising, and producing a polished final piece of argumentative writing.
  • Showcase their writing!
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