ABSTRACT
This chapter describes ways to foster students’ languaging for building relations with peers in classroom discussions. This includes drawing on students’ familiar experiences to connect to topics or issues, asking open-ended questions, framing discussions around issues or themes that interest students, clarifying intentions for an interaction, and fostering ties between students. It also includes having students adopt tentative, open-ended stances on topics or issues that lead to students engaging in “exploratory talk” with others associated with adoption of alternative perspectives on a topic or issue. This requires that students engage in attentive listening to each other’s ideas to build on those ideas. Students also benefit from engaging in use of “playful talk” for building relations with each other, engaging in small-group discussions, and using writing to prepare for discussions. To foster students’ growth in their interactions over time, students could reflect on their own discussions as well as analyze discussion transcripts to identify those particular languaging actions that lead to change in how they interact with others.
