Let's Discuss

This practical book explores evidence-based practices that K–12 educators can use to encourage and support the participation of all students in classroom discussion.

Research shows that when students participate in classroom discussions they grow cognitively, socially, and academically. Let's Discuss offers guidance for creating classrooms committed to student “talk” that is active and supports participation by more than just a few students. The authors, who have taught and worked with teachers at a wide range of grade levels, highlight core, research-informed strategies from multilingual education, literacy education, arts-education, and disability studies—all adaptable to different age students. This book balances intellectual and theoretical material with practical implementation advice, making it appropriate for education certification and literacy methods courses, as well as in a PLC or professional development context.

Book Features:

• Guidance on how to make classroom discussion inclusive, academic, and ambitious.
• High-leverage practices and concepts that have been widely used and researched in the fields of literacy teaching, multilingual studies, and literacy studies.
• Helpful “snapshots” of teaching practices at different grade-bands, exposing educators to core practices that are transferable across age levels.
• A strong focus on instructional practices rooted in dialog and dialogic education, such as exploratory talk, question generation, and collaborative reasoning.
• Appropriate for teachers of diverse populations of students, including multilingual learners and students with disabilities.

Jen Soalt is an education writer and curriculum designer who has worked as a teacher, reading specialist, literacy coach, and curriculum director in public schools and national education organizations. She is senior curriculum designer at CBL Partners. Andrea Avery is an educator, editor, and author of Sonata: A Memoir of Pain and the Piano and Visiting Composer: A Novella. She is curriculum editor at Springboard Collaborative.

“This text is everything our preservice and inservice teachers need to have a dialogic classroom, regardless of content or licensure level! Going beyond the classic ‘turn and talk’ or ‘think pair share’ to support learners of all abilities, language levels, and grade levels, it is filled with scaffolded and practical tips you could use the next day.”
—Jennie Baumann, assistant professor, literacy education, curriculum, and teaching, Auburn University

“This book is an essential resource for teachers, teacher educators, and scholars seeking to deepen their knowledge of dialogic teaching and equity. Grounded in research across grade levels, this book explores linguistically sustaining and accessible dialogic teaching practices, offers practical frameworks to promote equitable student participation, and supports continued professional growth and research. In this inspiring and actionable book, Jen Soalt and Andrea Avery meaningfully advance the conversation on dialogic teaching and educational equity.”
—Marcela Ossa Parra, assistant professor of bilingual education, Queens College, City University of New York

“With generative AI tools casting doubt on writing as a tool for developing and evaluating students' learning, discussion offers a compelling alternative means of insight into student thinking. This important text supports teachers in this shift by translating decades of research on discussion routines into clear and precise summaries, along with guidelines for practical implementation. Even more significantly, the book links these approaches to state-of-the art knowledge about inclusive practices such as translanguaging, multimodal arts-based education, and Universal Design for Learning, making the work especially valuable for teachers committed to enabling equitable student participation in their classrooms.”
—Sarah W. Beck, professor of English education, New York University

“This book uniquely integrates dialogic pedagogy with multiliteracies, translanguaging, and arts-based pedagogies. It offers teachers practical tools to support inclusive talk that honors students’ different ways of expression, thinking, and engagement in today’s ELA classrooms.”
—Jie Zhang, professor in bilingual and ESL education, University of Houston

“All students’ voices deserve to be heard. Fortunately, in this book, Soalt and Avery provide relevant insights and tools so that teachers of all settings, grade levels, and levels of experience can welcome diverse perspectives in classroom discussions.”
—Karissa J. Sywulka, director of the STL Teaching Fellows, Saint Louis University