Turn and Talk: A Pathway to Amplifying Student Voices and Engagement

Why Turn and Talk: Teachers have been dreaming about rich whole-class discussions for centuries. We long for situations where every child has their hand waving in the air, students are all adding to each other’s thoughts and contributions, and everyone is listening with a full heart and open mind. The reality in my classroom—and in the classrooms of many other teachers I’ve worked with—has been that when we are in a whole-group situation, a few children carry the entire conversation. The quieter voices never reach the surface, and the gift of their would-be contributions is lost.

So…think of turn-and-talk or think-pair-share practices as one way of calling on the whole class and inviting more students along for the ride. The goal isn’t perfect answers. Instead, turn and talk practices are for low-risk tries, allowing children to feel more comfortable while inviting the whole group to try, think, and engage. 

For example, imagine you’ve just read a few pages of a beloved picture book and the class is working on inferring a character’s feelings. You might offer a prompt like, “Think about what just happened and zoom in on what the character said. Now look closely at the character’s face. Let’s put those together. How do you think they’re feeling right now? Thumbs up when you have an idea. It might sound something like, “I think the character feels ________ because _______.” Turn to your partner, and share your idea!”

Different Purposes for Turn and Talk:

• To practice a skill in a supportive and scaffolded environment

• To practice language with new academic vocabulary or sentence stems

• To formatively assess where students are in a particular skill

How Do I Know What to Listen For?

Sometimes, teachers ask if I have sample answers to questions I might ask students. This is an understandable desire. We all benefit from look-fors to guide our coaching. However, proceed with caution when thinking about creating samples. Keeping in mind that literacy is not about finding one correct answer, but instead, it’s about interpreting and coming to personal understandings, we must be mindful that we’re not internally swapping sample answers for “correct” answers.

To help steer us away from students playing “guess what the teacher is thinking,” a game I played often as a student, consider thinking about skill progressions for turn and talks rather than sample answers. Listening to student responses through the lens of a progression can offer you a sense of what students can do and what might come next rather than the binary of right and wrong answers. See a sample below:

The Little Things

When I first started trying turn and talk in my classroom, it was a mess. Sometimes my question was followed by crickets and empty stares. Other times, it was complete chaos- students were upset because they couldn’t find a partner, arguments arose over who was going first, conversations began about anything and everything but the question… I could go on and on. However, with a little time and refinement, I learned a few tiny tweaks that made all the difference.

• Use Sentence Stems

Offering students one possible way to phrase their answer adds a layer of language support. While this is supportive for all of our students, adding a layer of support with starter stems can give our multilingual learners a boost of confidence and encourage them to share their ideas. 

• When to Turn and Talk

Think about how gradual release plays into your interactions. Before asking students to try out a skill in a turn and talk, make sure you’ve done some modeling.

• Time

When inviting students to turn and talk, slow down. Tuck in bits of thinking time into your questioning or prompting. For example, when prompting students in the example above, the turn and talk prompt sounded like this:

• Say the main idea aloud.

• Look back and find a detail that matches that main idea. Put your thumb up when you’ve found one in this paragraph.

• Squeeze your brain and ask yourself, why does this one fit best?

• Get your sentence ready. It might sound like: “I choose _____ because ______.”

• The Power of Post-Its

Mixing in a few quick stop and jots with turn and talks allowed me to meet more students in a place of comfort. Not all students are comfortable verbalizing their ideas orally. When you have a group that is hesitant to talk, start with jots. Then, mix it up. (Gilmore & Goldberg, 2023)

• Long Term Partnerships

While sometimes a change of pace and partner is refreshing, in classrooms, I’ve found that having students sit with and talk to a consistent partner can lift the level of comfort and risk-taking. Sharing ideas is a vulnerable act and often requires relationships to be formed. If students have a consistent partner to talk to, you might just find that they speak much more readily! 

*Bonus Tip: You might decide to try groups of three rather than partners. This is especially helpful for students who are acquiring English because it allows students to contribute in nonverbal ways and add then their voices as they feel ready to.

• Keep It Quick

Remember, you can’t listen to everyone’s turn and talk! Once students get started, circulate to coach a partnership or two and then move on. Too much time means we move from engaged learning to conversations about what to play at recess or a mastered level on the latest video game.

Let the Students Lead

I’m all in for a good turn and talk, but remember it isn’t the only way we can invite engagement. Think about the learners in your classroom and lean into different ways they might engage with you and each other. You might decide to try literacy circles, “dinner table” style conversations, small group conversation clubs, sticky note tries, etc… In the end, our goal isn’t to perfect one method of engagement but to have a whole toolbox of engagement invitations ready to roll.

For even more fun ideas for boosting engagement in your classroom, check out Active Learning: 40 Teaching Methods to Engage Students in Every Class and Every Subject by Barry Gilmore and Gravity Goldberg. Chapter 4, Collaboration Structures, is full of easy-to-implement strategies that add joy and energy to learning.