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How to Engage Students in Academic Conversation

Jeff Zweirs and Marie Crawford’s book Academic Conversations inspired the need to make talk more productive for students.  Academic discussion helps all students to develop their reasoning, understand multiple perspectives, and deepen understanding of content. My Capstone focused on supporting English Language Learners (ELLs) because reading is more verbal than visual.  ELLs and struggling readers need the language supports necessary to understand what they are reading.  Academic conversations gives students another source for feedback regarding difficult or complex text.  The video below outlines the resources that Zweirs and Crawford developed for academic conversations.

How to Provide Language Supports for Students

​Students need to be explicitly taught how to speak and listen academically.  As they navigate their way through the difficult text out there carefully constructed academic conversations can provide support and feedback for students.  This video provides a great "how to" structure for collaborative academic discussions. 

Incorporating Technology Tools into Reading Comprehension: Rewordify

Rewordify is a fantastic FREE resource that will support you in providing feedback to student's on their reading comprehension.  It simplifies vocabulary for faster comprehension, teaches words within context, and allows students to work independently on a comprehending a text with support and suggestions.  Below video gives an overview of what it can support you with.  I have also created the below resources for you to use:
Rewordify Overview

Rewordify Student Log-In Template 

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