With a Little Help from My Friends

Grounded in research-based practice, this book will help all teachers make classroom learning more interactive and conversation-based. Drawing on their work with more than 800 teachers and administrators from 29 districts and 2 countries, the authors present a pedagogical model that challenges teachers to promote emotionally safe classroom environments, activate the assets they and their students bring to the classroom, and modify the way they plan and implement their lessons to better support the linguistic, cognitive, and social–emotional development of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. The text includes teacher-tested tools for lesson planning and for scaffolding collaborative student learning activities across grade levels and content areas. With a Little Help from My Friends will be an invaluable resource for educators interested in increasing all students’ social–emotional skills while also improving their linguistic and academic development.

Book Features:

• Shows teachers how to integrate collaborative conversations to support content instruction, avoiding one-size-fits-all solutions.
• Promotes students’ development and practice of social-emotional skills while simultaneously engaging them in content learning.
• Provides teacher-tested tools and practical strategies that can be applied across grade levels and integrated within existing curricula.
• Operationalizes research showing that conversation promotes empathy.
• Includes user-friendly features such as authentic examples from the field and reflective activities that help readers apply and extend their learning.
• Offers a companion online platform complete with supplemental materials such as planning aids, sample lesson plans, videos, and downloadable resources.

Paula J. Mellom is the associate director of the Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education (CLASE). Rebecca K. Hixon is a postdoctoral research and teaching associate for CLASE. Jodi P. Weber is the assistant director of professional development for CLASE. CLASE is a research and development center housed within the University of Georgia’s College of Education.

"The authors remind us that we are working too hard in our roles as providers of knowledge and literacy. Rather, a focus on collaborative interactions among students better enables their autonomy, mutual learning, and self-directed paths to meaning and knowledge. The teacher onus is reduced, yet students’ ownership and confidence are bolstered in more socioconstructive and effectual ways. This work is a must read for all educators!” —Socorro G. Herrera, Kansas State University and author of Accelerating Literacy for Diverse Learners

“In With a Little Help from My Friends, Mellom and colleagues challenge the narrative by highlighting the learning assets that teachers and students can access, through use of a powerful framing that builds on the experiences shared by teachers and their emergent bilingual learners. Based on the authors’ multiyear study of their large-scale teacher professional development project, they describe a system of classroom practice that centers discourse-rich pedagogies. This book makes an important contribution to the growing field of culturally and linguistically sustaining instructional strategies.”
—Cory Buxton, College of Education, Oregon State University

“With a Little Help from My Friends offers an original approach to understanding and facilitating classroom interaction. Every step along the way, Mellom and her colleagues encourage readers to value the linguistic and cultural diversity that teachers and students inevitably bring to classroom interactions. The authors’ detailed model for achieving 'joint productive activity' transforms the mysterious alchemy of 'great teaching' into a thoughtful, collaborative, and mindful process all teachers can use to engage students in learning.”
—Betsy R. Rymes, Penn Graduate School of Education

Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Preface xi
Sociocultural Context of Today and Why We Need This Conversation-Based System xi
Evolution of the Arch Model for Collaborative Conversation-Based Instruction xii
How to Navigate this Book xvii

1. Introduction 1
Why Conversation as a Means of Instruction? 1
The Arch of Collaborative, Conversation-Based Instruction 11

2. Laying the Foundation: Creating a Safe Classroom Environment 15
The Affective Filter and Its Importance in the Classroom 15
Creating Norms for Collaborative Conversations 16
The Importance of Teaching Social–Emotional Skills  
in Facilitating Academic Engagement 23

3. Building the Columns: Accessing and Capitalizing on Teachers’ and Students’ Assets  25
Reframing Our Outlook: Funds of Knowledge Are Assets Not Deficits 25
Home Language 27
Background Knowledge and Experience 30
Social Interaction Skills 33
Content Literacy Skills 36
Motivations 38
Aptitudes 39
Reviewing Our Assets: The Columns of Strength 45

4. Framing the Scaffolding: Providing Differentiated Support 46
Listening 47
Purposeful Planning 54
Task Cards 56
Complex Questioning 65
Habits of Collaboration Tools 71
The Scaffolding and Social–Emotional Learning (SEL)  78

5. Integrating the Voussoir Blocks: Enacting Meaningful, Complex, Collaborative, Conversation-Based Lessons 81
Language and Literacy 82
Contextualization 95
Challenging and Complex Activities 108
Collaboration 115
Purposeful Conversation 123

6. Placing the Keystone: Designing the Joint Productive Activity (JPA)  130
The JPA: The Keystone That Holds the Arch System Together 131
Building a Joint Productive Activity (JPA) 138
Considerations for Getting Started 163

References  167

Index 175

About the Authors 186