Talking with others about ideas and work is fundamental to learning. It gives us the opportunity to organize our thinking into coherent utterances, hear how our thinking sounds out loud, listen to how others respond and, often, hear others add to or expand on our thinking. But not all talk sustains learning. For classroom talk to promote learning it must be accountable to the learning community, to accurate and appropriate knowledge, and to rigorous thinking.
Accountable Talk is talk that seriously responds to and further develops what others in the group have said. It puts forth and demands knowledge that is accurate and relevant to the issue under discussion. Accountable Talk uses evidence appropriate to the discipline (e.g., proofs in mathematics, data from investigations in science, textual references in literature, documentary sources in history) and follows established norms of good reasoning. Accountable Talk sharpens students' thinking by reinforcing their ability to use and create knowledge.
from South Kingston Public Schools, Wakefield, Rhode Island
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