The Academic Discussion Toolkit gives students practical, easy-to-use supports for preparing their ideas, joining conversations, asking questions, sharing evidence, making connections, and building on the thinking of others. Instead of simply expecting students to "participate," this resource provides a clear framework for what successful academic discussion can actually look and sound like.
 
Designed with student independence in mind, the toolkit includes discussion norms, a pre-discussion planning tool, and a large bank of sentence starters students can reference in real time. Students can use the supports as they build confidence, practice new communication skills, and gradually become more independent thinkers and communicators. The editable resource also makes it easy for teachers to adapt the tools to their own classroom needs.
 
Inside you'll find:
 
Educator guidance and ideas for gradual release
Ways to use the resource across classroom settings
Editable classroom supports
Discussion norms with space to add class-created expectations
A before-the-discussion preparation checklist
Space for students to prepare an idea, evidence, and a question
Sentence starters for sharing ideas
Supports for sharing observations and noticing patterns
Sentence stems for building on another person's thinking
Connection-making prompts
Question starters
Evidence and example sentence stems
 
Perfect for high school ELA, special education, inclusion classrooms, resource classes, advisory, small groups, intervention, Socratic seminars, collaborative learning, and any classroom where students need support finding the words to join the conversation.
 
Give students more than the direction to "participate." Give them the tools to know how.