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Hands Down, Speak Out

Listening and Talking Across Literacy and Math

Kassia Omohundro Wedekind author Christy Hermann Thompson author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Inc

Published:29th May '20

Should be back in stock very soon

Hands Down, Speak Out cover

Math coach, Kassia Omohundro Wedekind and literacy coach, Christy Hermann Thompson, have spent years comparing notes on how to build effective classroom communities across the content areas. How, they wondered, can we lay the groundwork for classroom conversations that are less teacher-directed and more conducive to student-to-student dialogue?

Their answers start with Hands-Down Conversations, an innovative discourse structure in which students' ideas and voices take the lead while teachers focus on listening and facilitating. In addition to classrom stories and examples, Christy and Kassia provide 28 micro-lessons designed to help K-5 students develop and excercise their speaking and listening muscles.

Inside Hands Down, Speak Out you'll learn how to:

  • Build talk communities that are accessible to everyone, especially those whose voices are often traditionally left out of classroom discourse.
  • Analyze classroom conversations in order to plan next steps for developing the classroom talk community
  • Plan and facilitate three types of conversations across literacy and math

Christy and Kassia believe that the development of dialogue skills is worth the investment of time not only becuase it has the power to deepen our understanding of literacy and mathematics, but also to deepen our understanding of ourselves, our communities, and the world.

“This book challenged me to think about facilitating discussions in a whole new way…So I urge you to gather a few colleagues, read this book together, and waste no time in growing and deepening your practice.”

—Elham Kazemi, coauthor of Intentional Talk: How to Structure and Lead Productive Mathematical Discussions and coeditor of Choral Counting & Counting Collections: Transforming the PreK-5 Math Classroom

“This work has the potential to transform learning communities and lift all individuals within the community. Today is the perfect day to get started!”

—Maria Nichols, author of Comprehension through Conversation and Building Bigger Ideas

“[Hands Down, Speak Out] is both a timely book and a timeless book…This is the kind of book that I believe will inform teaching and learning for years to come.”

—Vivian Maria Vasquez, author of Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children and Getting Beyond “I Like the Book”: Creating Space for Critical Literacy in K-6 Classrooms

ISBN: 9781625312693

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 600g

248 pages