Walk and Talk

(Joel G.)

Rationale

     Neuroscientists have demonstrated through brain imaging studies that when students are talking about an issue, their brains are much more active as opposed to just seeing or thinking about an issue (Carter, 1999).  Using Walk and Talk as a literacy strategy encourages students to talk about an issue with a fellow classmate in a confortable and non-threatening environment.  This strategy can be used as a pre-reading or post reading activity. 

Procedure

AS A PRE-READING STRATEGY...

A.  The teacher will introduce the topic that students will focus on for the day.

B.  Three to five open ended questions about the topic will be written on the overhead projector or the white board for students to see, and the teacher will read the questions out loud to the students.

C.  Students will be asked to choose 2 of the 5 questions to focus on.  They will then be given 10 minutes to write a paragraph response to each of the questions that they choose.  Students can do this on a sheet of note book paper or a class journal.

D.  The teacher will pair students up when they are through writing out their responses.  Before students are allowed to Walk and Talk, the ground rules for the activity must be set.

1. Students will stay in the designated Walk and Talk area.

2. Students must talk about the topic at hand only.

3. Students must stay engaged in the topic for the entire Walk and Talk.  If they run out of things to talk about, they will begin to ask each other questions about the topic of the day and try to answer each others questions appropriately.

4. Students will stay in control of their behavior during the Walk and Talk. 

E.  Students are now given the opportunity to Walk and Talk with their partners for a designated amount of time.  Students may bring their written responses to the questions with them, but are asked not to read their partner the responses directly from their paragraphs.  They can use them only to refer to.

F.  When the Walk and Talk time is over, students are given the opportunity to debrief in class.  Students will be asked to tell the class one thing that their pair talked about in the Walk and Talk and why he/she felt that it was an important peice of information to the topic of the day.

G.  Students now engage in a teacher selected text that further reinforces the topic of the day.

AS A POST-READING STRATEGY 

Follow the outline for the pre-reading strategy above.  The main difference is that the text is read before the Walk and Talk activity takes place.  Questions that the teacher poses to students can now be more indepth and based on the text, as students have now read the text and can analyze or question what they have read. 

References

 Carter, R. (1999). Mapping the Mind. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Other Procedures

During Reading:

1. The teacher specifies a certain point to which students are expected to read. Once students reach that point, questions are introduced and students respond in writing to the questions. The questions could ask about students' previous predictions and whether they were right or not, predictions for the next section, or reactions to certain events, characters, or ideas introduced in that section.

2.  The students then repeat the Walk and Talk as outlined above.

3.  After they Walk and Talk, students de-brief and then begin to read the next assigned section. The Walk and Talk could be repeated and used to break up the reading as often or as seldom as the teacher wishes. This might be very effective with complex texts that students need time and help to comprehend and discuss.

--contributed by Jennifer Farrell

During/ After Reading:  Walking Montage

Inspired by a Jeffrey Wilhelm activity.

1. Give students a reading focus--maybe it's an answer to one of these questions, or maybe it's a particularly stylish sentence or phrase. 

2.  Direct them to copy the passage that caught their attention onto a notecard.

3.  With a small group or a whole class if the size is manageable, direct students to pretend that what they've written on their notecard is a line of poetry.  They should walk around to find a way to put the lines of poetry in order.

4.  Once the notecards are in order, line them up and have them read off their cards.

5.  In small groups, they should revise the language on the cards by adding words or making "poetic" changes.  They could also choose one or two cards for repetition.

6.  Line them up to recite again, and as a class decide on an appropriate title for the poem.

7.  Discuss whether or not the poem or "montage" that was created captures the main idea (or mood, tone, or style) of the original text.

:)  Jen B.