Quality Talk About Text: Discussion Practices for Talking and Thinking About Text (Research-Informed Classroom)

Teachers know quality talk helps develop students’ intelligence. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been enough support in showing teachers how to plan for this kind of talk. In this book, authors Ian Wilkinson and Kristin Bourdage bring together research-proven approaches to talk about text and offer teachers different models based on the specific skills they want to develop in students. More than just one approach, theirs is a versatile collection of approaches that will develop and expand students’ knowledge and skills.

Ian and Kristin provide a menu of approaches to discussion about texts based on different purposes:

• talk about text to emphasize personal response
• talk about text to emphasize knowledge building
• talk about text to emphasize argumentation.

Organized in a way that allows teachers to dip in and out of the chapters as needed, you’ll be able to decide which discussion approaches are most closely aligned with the needs of the moment.

With a talk assessment tool, text examples to use with each discussion approach, and links to classroom videos that give you realistic models of what this can look like across a range of grades, you’ll have all the resources you need to discover the joys of quality talk about text.

Ian A. G. Wilkinson is a Professor of Literacy in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University, and Honorary Professor in the School of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Ian studies literacy learning and teaching with a particular focus on classroom talk, discussion, and dialogue. His work has appeared in publications such as Reading Research Quarterly, British Journal of Educational Psychology, American Educational Research Journal, Journal of Educational Psychology, The Elementary School Journal, The Reading Teacher, Learning and Instruction, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Language and Education. He is a former editor of Reading Research Quarterly, and co-author of Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading, and The Most Reasonable Answer: Helping Students Build Better Arguments Together.

Nell K. Duke, Ed.D., is a professor in literacy, language, and culture and also in the combined program in education and psychology at the University of Michigan. Duke received her Bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and her Masters and Doctoral degrees from Harvard University. Duke's work focuses on early literacy development, particularly among children living in economic poverty. Her specific areas of expertise include the development of informational reading and writing in young children, comprehension development and instruction in early schooling, and issues of equity in literacy education. She has served as Co-Principal Investigator of projects funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the George Lucas Educational Foundation, among other organizations. Duke has been named one of the most influential education scholars in the U.S. in EdWeek. In 2014, Duke was awarded the P. David Pearson Scholarly Influence Award from the Literacy Research Association, and in 2018 she received the International Literacy Association's William S. Gray Citation of Merit for outstanding contributions to research, theory, practice, and policy. She has also received the Michigan Reading Association Advocacy Award, the American Educational Research Association Early Career Award, the Literacy Research Association Early Career Achievement Award, the International Reading Association Dina Feitelson Research Award, the National Council of Teachers of English Promising Researcher Award, and the International Reading Association Outstanding Dissertation Award. Duke is author and co-author of numerous journal articles and book chapters. Her most recent book is Inside Information: Developing Powerful Readers and Writers of Informational Text through Project-based Instruction. She is co-author of the books Reading and Writing Informational Text in the Primary Grades: Research-Based Practices; Literacy and the Youngest Learner: Best Practices for Educators of Children from Birth to Five; Beyond Bedtime Stories: A Parent's Guide to Promoting Reading, Writing, and Other Literacy Skills From Birth to 5, now in its second edition; and Reading and Writing Genre with Purpose in K - 8 Classrooms. She is co-editor of the Handbook of Effective Literacy Instruction: Research-based Practice K to 8 and Literacy Research Methodologies. She is also editor of The Research-Informed Classroom book series and co-editor of the Not This, But That book series. Duke has taught preservice, inservice and doctoral courses in literacy education, speaks and consults widely on literacy education, and is an active member of several literacy-related organizations. Among other roles, she currently serves as advisor for the Public Broadcasting Service/Corporation for Public Broadcasting Ready to Learn initiative, an expert for NBC News Learn, and advisor to the Council of Chief State School Officers Early Literacy Networked Improvement Community. She has served as author or consultant on several educational programs, including Connect4Learning: The Pre-K Curriculum; Information in Action: Reading, Writing, and Researching with Informational Text; Engaging Families in Children's Literacy Development: A Complete Workshop Series; Buzz About IT (Informational Text); iOpeners; National Geographic Science K-2; and the DLM Early Childhood Express. Duke also has a strong interest in improving the quality of educational research training in the U.S.

Kristin Bourdage is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Education at Otterbein University, USA. Kristin's earliest teaching assignments were second grade and language arts/reading at the middle level. She currently teaches literacy pedagogy to preservice teachers and facilitates professional development for K-12 teachers in literacy methods, curriculum design, project-based learning, and discussion approaches. Kristin studies classroom talk and discussion. Her latest interests explore the way classroom talk engages students in social emotional development and civic discourse. Her research has appeared in publications such as Language Arts, Language and Education, chapters in edited texts, and the National Reading Conference Yearbook. Kristin presents her work at professional education conferences at state and national levels.