Blog 10: Teaching Conversation and Discourse

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     In this chapter, Probst writes about discussion and how to get students to have meaningful conversations. He lists five dimensions of talk: storytelling, agenda setting, problem solving, brainstorming, and decision making. These are five ways that can help set a goal for a conversation. Probst also discusses ways to foster meaningful conversations in students. He suggests having students annotate the text they read and come up with their own questions, to which the teacher can link their own questions. Another technique is to have students freewrite after reading a text, which can help students translate their thinking into questions. As students move towards independence, a dialogue booklet can give students discussion starters to choose from or progress through. Finally, Probst discusses how to determine if a question is "good" by evaluating how interesting it is.
     I agree with the strategies Probst includes in this chapter for formulating meaningful discussions. I also think one great way to engage students that was not mentioned is to relate it to students' lives. This can help students understand why the discussion and the text matter to them. I disagree with the way Probst evaluates "good" questions. I think he has the right idea, but what is interesting to one student many not be interesting to another. Further, just becuase a student is interested in the descriptions of trees in a piece does not mean that this information is important to the text. I think a better term to evaluate questions by is importance. This can be defended by students. For example, a student may think that the color of a house is not important. But another student could defend their question by bringing up the presence of symbolism in a text. For these reasons, I think questions should be evaluated by their importance to the text, and not their level of interest to students or even the teacher.

Discussion Questions:
How can we respond to students' questions in order to touch on important topics without taking over the conversation?
What makes a "good" question?
Are there additional dimensions of talk that Probst did not touch on?

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