How do you run a text-based discussion?
A text-based discussion is a class conversation where the text answers the questions. Students ask and answer questions about what they read, offer an insight, and point at the line that backs it. A paraeducator supports it by prompting those questions, drawing an idea out of each student, and asking for the evidence.
Text-based discussions in plain words
A text-based discussion is a class conversation in which the text answers the questions. Students ask and answer questions about what they read, offer an insight, and point at the line that backs it, so two people can check the same sentence. An ordinary conversation settles its questions from memory or from taste instead.
ETS names three moves that keep a discussion on the text. The first is the prompt: prompting students to ask and respond to questions. A prompt that holds the class on the text names something the passage states, such as what a character did or what a paragraph explains. One that leaves the text behind asks what anyone thinks.
The second move is the insight: encouraging a student to provide one. A good response returns an answer with a place in it: "The class was not only counting bees on Thursday; it was gathering what it needed to decide what to plant next, and that work starts in the first sentence." The student adds the idea the evidence points to and still says where the answer sits, not only what it is.
The third move is the evidence: having students cite textual evidence, which is the one they skip. Ask for the line. A student who claims something and cannot find the line has made it up or remembers it from somewhere else.
ETS lists supporting engagement in text-based discussions among the topics for the Reading & Writing subtest (5758).
Why a paraeducator uses this in class
A paraeducator is often the one who keeps the discussion moving while the teacher works with another group, so the three moves matter more here. Without them a discussion becomes a room full of opinions at the same volume.
The moves also show where a student is stuck. A student who cannot answer the prompt is missing the detail. One who answers from memory has not opened the page. One who answers well but cannot find a line is reading between the lines, and a follow-up question works there: "Which word in that sentence tells you that?"
Worked example
A small group has read a passage about a school garden: On Thursday the students counted the bees, marked the plants the bees visited, and drew a map of the beds. The map showed bees near the purple flowers, so the class planted more the next spring.
- Open with a prompt the passage can answer: "Find the sentence about the map. What did the map show?" The first answer is already on the page.
- Take the answer with its place: "Bees near the purple flowers, in the second sentence." Read it aloud, and the class works on a sentence they have all heard.
- Ask the follow-up that stays on the text: "The passage says the class planted more of those flowers the next spring. What makes that sensible?" That carries the class from what the text says to why.
- Ask for another insight and name the turn: "Does anyone see a different detail in that paragraph?" Then give the turn to a student who has not spoken, and ask what the sentence about the marked plants adds.
Close by asking for the line twice and then saying what the passage says: "The class counted bees, mapped the beds, found bees near the purple flowers, and planted more." The first ask finds the sentence, the second finds the reason inside it, and anyone can check that closing summary against the page.
Practice questions
Question 1: choosing the prompt
You are opening a discussion of the garden passage. Which prompt keeps the class on the text: "Do you like gardens?" or "What did the class count on Thursday?"
Show the answer
"What did the class count on Thursday?", because the passage states it and every answer can be checked. "Do you like gardens?" asks for a preference the passage never mentions, so the class answers from taste.
Question 2: returning to the text
A student says, "The bees liked the purple flowers because purple is a color bees like." The passage says only that the map showed bees near them. What do you say?
Show the answer
Ask for the sentence: "Find the one about the bees and the purple flowers and read it." It reports what the map showed, not that the bees liked the color. The reason is the student's and the sentence is the text's.
Question 3: from detail to insight
A student says, "The class counted the bees on Thursday," and the passage also says the class planted more of the purple flowers the next spring. Which follow-up turns that detail into an insight?
Show the answer
"The map showed bees near the purple flowers, so why do you think the class planted more?" It links the map to the decision that follows, so the class works on the whole passage instead of one line.
Continue learning
- Supporting details: the sentences a student points at.
- Helping students read: the support a student needs first.
- Drawing conclusions: what a class works out from the sentences.
Try it on a full practice test
Once you can keep a class on the page, work through the free ParaPathways practice test.
Our study book covers every skill on both subtests, in English and Spanish.
Sources
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