Instructional Conversations: Dialogue about Rumors

     Last week I setup an instructional conversation with a few of my 2nd graders. Instructional conversations, unlike other discussions in class, are student led discussions that promote thinking and learning through talk. Before actually doing one in my class, I thought it would be the exact same as the small group discussions I have already done before, but I was a little off. By a little, I mean I had no idea how much I was controlling the discussions before and how little input and reflection I was giving my students to respond. I was amazed at how much my students were willing to talk about the book we used, which was "Mr. Peabody's Apples," by Madonna (yes, the singer).

Here is a link to the book if you are interested: http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Peabodys-Apples-Madonna/dp/0670058831/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398662689&sr=1-1&keywords=mr.+peabody%27s+apples

     The book is about a boy, Tommy, who spreads a rumor about his baseball couch, Mr. Peabody. One day he sees his coach take an apple from a store without paying for it, then he runs off to tell all is friends. Eventually, the entire town hears about what Tommy saw, but that's not the whole story. This is a great book to teach students the impact of a rumor and how it affects other people, so I thought it would be perfect for my classroom, especially after some incidents that have happened over the past few weeks.
     I wanted to make sure I had everything well planned before I gave the lesson, so I practiced many times, going through the lesson by myself and with my roommate. I tried to think of questions that were open-ended and furthered the discussion, so all of my talking points were "why" based questions. It allowed the students a chance to provide multiple answers for a single question rather than just having them respond to a right or wrong question. The three main questions I asked were: Why do you think Mr. Peabody asked Tommy to bring a pillow to the baseball field?, Why did Tommy tell everyone what he saw Mr. Peabody doing?, and Why is it important not to judge someone by what you see them doing?. 
     I was extremely surprised and proud of my students for doing the instructional conversation so well. I was nervous because when they have other classroom discussions there isn't much time spend on them talking to each other. They usually respond to a question provided by the teacher and then respond back to the teacher without really responding to their peers and building off each other's comments. They were able to connect the story to experiences they've had and also things they remember from other subjects, like Guidance.