Chapter 8 – Making

Discussions Critical

Krista Bowen, Kyle Jones, Kim Foster,

Debbie Aughey, and Corrie Tuttle

Setting up Edmodo1. If you already have an Edmodo account, sign in.

2. On the left side where it says “Groups,” select “join” and enter this code: 6bd4ey All lower case.

3. If you do not have an Edmodo account, go to www.edmodo.com

4. Where it says. “I’m a teacher” and “I’m a student,” select “I’m a teacher.”

5. Make an account for yourself. There will be some questions to complete and in some cases, you can

skip them and respond later. Enter the group code: 6bd4ey

6. You have joined a group called, “Making Discussions Critical”

7. If you want to use Edmodo for your classes during the year, your school district probably has a contact

person to get the group code for your school. In Cobb County, email angela.bacon@cobbk12.org and

ask for your school’s group code.

8. To add teachers as co-teachers, once you have made a group, give your co-teacher the group number.

He or she will join as a member. From the member tap, you can change the status of the member to

co-teacher. Now the teacher will have editing and posting rights in the group.

9. BYOD activity- create an assignment – not a quiz- post your open ended question. Ask students to

record all members of the group. Group posts their comments or collaborative response under one

name. Teacher can grade response by phone, iPad or computer. Teacher can also text feedback

comments to individuals or group members.

10. Small groups can also be made in Edmodo.

What Do Critical Discussions Look Like?

Brookfield (2012) cautions that discussion must not become centers of

personal response where participants passively accept anything as true.

Discussions must become safe spaces where participants:

● identify their own and their peers’ assumptions

● check the validity of assumptions; attempt to identify contexts in which

the assumptions are valid

● seek evidence to confirm or disprove generalizations

● generate as many perspectives as possible

● remain suspicious of early consensus

Aukerman (2012) further points to the qualities of “critical literacy as

dialogic engagement” –

● allows for multiple perspectives as part of Bakhtin’s notion of

heteroglossia: “a student’s own voice is structured and emerges in

conversation and constant tension with multiple other voices”

● embraces unruliness, multiplicity, contingency and ambiguity

● decenters the teacher’s interpretational authority

(stop disrupting discussion and arbitrating each response)

What Do Critical Discussions Look Like?

What Do Critical Discussions NOT Look Like?

Aukerman outlines three unintended practices that fly under the banner of

critical literacy but that actually limit students’ dialogic authority:

● “critical literacy as outcome” – teachers ask leading questions that

elicit validation of some predetermined critical literacy belief

● “critical literacy as procedure” – teachers extensively model the

process of critical inquiry therein reinforcing their position as textual

authority and students’ position as critical novice

● “critical literacy as personal response” – teachers lead to some

automatic and default response. For example, who wouldn’t be moved

by this situation of oppression?

My Wake Up Call

Applebee, Langer, Nystrand, & Gamoran’s (2003)

study of discussion practices across tracked

classrooms found that “the observed maximum for

average minutes of open discussion per hour in low-

track classes was 3.7, as opposed to 14.5 in high-

track classes” (p. 719).

Types of Critical Discussion

❖Circle of Voices: ➢ Gives everyone a chance to contribute

➢ Teaches the importance of active listening

❖Circular Response➢ Democratizes discussion participation

➢ Promotes continuity

➢ Gives people the experience of effort involved in

respectful listening

Types of Critical Discussion❖Chalk Talk

➢ Silent and visual way to engage in discussion without

speaking

➢ Effective way to unearth concerns of a wide range of

ideas

❖ Spot the Error➢ Encourages students to follow closely and think critically

about the teacher’s lesson

❖ Structured Silence➢ Periods of quiet contemplation mean to focus on

uncovering and checking assumptions, or considering

alternative assumptions

Types of Critical Discussion❖ Inferential Ladder- used to describe

the steps of reasoning that lead to actionTop Rung: Action Our action that we take based on these informed

beliefs

Third Rung: Causal Our assumptions we construct that help us to

form conclusions and develop strong beliefs.

Second Rung: Prescriptive Our selection and highlighting of certain

bits of information; what we chose to focus on given the meaning we

select

First Rung: Paradigmatic Our perceptions of the world; everything we

see happening around us that hits our five senses

Types of Critical Discussion

❖ Appreciative Pause➢ technique that focuses deliberately on behavior

➢ participants acknowledge how someone else’s

thoughts has contributed to their learning

❖ Post-it Appreciation➢ variance of the Appreciate Pause;used when

working in groups

➢ groups place post-it notes on other group’s work

which is placed throughout the room

Circle of Voices (Activity 1)

● Groups of 4 to 5 (Typically)

● 1 to 3 minutes of silent reflection on topic/question(s)

● One person speaks for up to a minute; each person

gets to speak uninterrupted; first round ends when each

person has spoken

● Round two discussion opens up, but you can only talk

about another person’s ideas that have already been

shared in the first round

Questions for Outside the Fishbowl

■ What assumptions are you observing that you share or

do not share with the participants in the fishbowl?

■ What do you think the people in the fishbowl might

have missed?

■ Whose views might have been overlooked by the

fishbowl?

Frida Kahlo (1939).

“Double Consciousness”

Questions for Inside the Fishbowl

■ What do you think is the most explicit assumption the artist of

the painting is making here?

■ Can you tell why you think your conclusion is valid? What’s

the most convincing piece of evidence that supports your

conclusion?

■ Let’s try to think of the most unlikely or off-the-wall ways of

understanding this, the weirder the better! What would they

be?

■ Whose perspective is missing in this piece of art and what

would the art look like if this perspective was included?

Break

Circular Response (Activity 2)

1. Watch video and take 30 sec to collect your

thoughts

2. First person speaks for up to a minute

3. Then the person on their left speaks for a

minute, but has to incorporate remarks from the

person on their right (who has just spoken)

4. Continue talking around the circle until

everyone has spoken including the person who

started

Circular Response

Structured Silence pg. 188 (Activity 3)

1. What was the most important point made in the last few minutes?

2. What was the most puzzling or confusing point made in the last few

minutes?

3. What question do we most need to address in the next period of our

discussion?

4. What new perspective or interpretation was suggested for you in the last few

min?

5. What assumptions that you hold about this topic were confirmed for you in

the last few min? Why?

6. What assumptions that you hold about this topic were challenged for you in

the last few min? Why was this?

Round 2

Go around the circle again either

asking questions about the opening

comments, clarifications sought, or new

idea introduced.

The Appreciative Pause (Activity 4)

Pause for about a minute. Take a moment and

acknowledge how something that someone

else said during the discussion contributed to

your learning!

Think about questions or comments that

caused you to think differently, clarified

something, identified an assumption, or even

intrigued you.

Wrap Up

Final Overview--Edmodo Debrief

Questions?