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Discussion and Cooperative Learning in English Language Arts

Lawrence Donohue

Manhattan College

EDUC 376: Curriculum and Methods of Teaching English Grades 7-12

Sr. Mary Ann Jacobs

Oct. 14, 2020

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Discussion and Cooperative Learning in English Language Arts

In my experience as a student in English language arts classes throughout middle

school, high school, and college, it seems as though one of the common forms of pedagogy in

this discipline involves lecture and whole-class discussions. It is common for an English

language arts teacher to stand before a class and teach their interpretation of a text that the

class has read. Alternatively, they may engage the class in a discussion that mostly involves

questions that lead the students to arrive at the teacher’s preferred interpretation. Nancy L.

Chick (2009, p. 42) refers to this approach to teaching as “professorial packing.” Chick (2009, p.

43) states that professorial packing is “in essence packing the text (and the students) with the

professor’s own interpretation, rather than teaching the students themselves to unpack texts.”

Considering the subject-specific components of ELA require students to be able to interpret,

respond to, and construct meaning from complex texts, this teacher-centered approach to ELA

instruction is problematic.

Personally, as a student, I often enjoyed the lecture-based ELA classes. I found it

interesting to hear other perspectives on the texts we have read. However, I also see how this

could have prevented my classmates and I from learning how to interpret and unpack the texts

ourselves. Regarding class discussions, I’ve always noticed that they were most beneficial

when questions were open-ended and when my teachers led the class in constructing our own

meaning. I also found it to be beneficial, both in my own classes and in classes I have observed

as field work, when teachers would have the students work together in groups to respond to or

construct meaning from texts. In my field experience, specifically, I was able to notice how

involved and engaged students became in their lessons after having the chance to discuss with

their groups and share their ideas. I want to be sure my own students can feel as excited to

learn and read as these students did.

When thinking about designing my own signature pedagogy, I wanted to find ways to

allow students to truly learn how to construct meaning, interpret, and respond to the texts they
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read. In my research, I looked for studies that showed how this can be achieved through

cooperative discussions among students, in which I would be able to guide the students in their

learning while still allowing them to learn for themselves and from each other.

Four studies I found helpful were “Discussion-Based Approaches to Developing

Understanding: Classroom Instruction and Student Performance in Middle and High School

English” (Applebee et al., 2003); “Reading Instruction in Secondary English Language Arts

Classrooms” (Lawrence et al., 2008); “Do those who talk more learn more? The relationship

between student classroom talk and student achievement” (Sedova et al., 2019); and “Quality of

educational dialogue and association with students’ academic performance” (Muhonen et al.,

2018).

Research

In their study, Applebee et al. (2003, p. 696) aimed to examine the relationships between

student literacy performance and a number of variables related to discussion-based

approaches, such as “variables reflecting dialogic approaches to instruction, an emphasis on

envisionment building, extended curricular conversations, and high academic demands,” as well

as how these variables interact with students’ grade levels, performance levels, school context,

and race/ethnicity. The study was conducted with 974 middle and high school students across

19 urban and suburban American schools (Applebee et al., 2003).

Applebee et al. (2003) began their study by administering an initial literacy assessment

to the students at the beginning of the school year. In each of the 64 classrooms that

participated in the study, the researchers then observed four lessons in which a discussion

about a work of literature occurred (Applebee et al., 2003). The observers recorded evidence of

dialogic instruction by checking for questions that showed “open discussion” (defined as “free

exchange of information among students and/or between at least three participants [which may

include the teacher] that lasts longer than 30 seconds”), “authentic teacher questions” (meaning

the teacher did not expect a predetermined answer), and “questions with uptake” that
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incorporated something said by a previous speaker (Applebee et al., 2003, pp. 690-700). The

lessons were also rated on envisionment-building, based on aspects such as if all students were

treated as having important contributions and if activities were treated as time to develop

understanding (Applebee et al., 2003). Finally, Applebee et al. (2003) conducted a final literacy

assessment towards the end of the school year.

Applebee et al. (2003) found that students in classrooms that showed greater emphasis

on discussion-based approaches and higher academic demands scored higher on the

end-of-year literacy assessments. This finding was consistent among students of diverse

genders, socioeconomic statuses, academic levels, races/ethnicities, grade levels, school

locations (urban or suburban), and initial literacy levels (Applebee et al., 2003).

In the paper “Reading Instruction in Secondary English Language Arts Classrooms,”

Lawrence et al. (2008) recount three research studies to examine the relationship between

teachers’ instructional choices and the literacy development of students in secondary ELA

classes. For the purpose of this paper, I will be focusing on Study 2, which was conducted by a

New Jersey high school teacher named Ms. Robinson. The participants of this study were six

16-17-year-old students who were reading below grade level (Lawrence et al., 2008). Most

students also admitted that they did not like to read and did not see reading as important

(Lawrence et al., 2008). Robinson aimed to explore the students’ reading comprehension and

their dyadic peer talk as they read the novel ​Monster​ (Lawrence et al., 2008).

The students were grouped into dyadic pairs that would meet for 20-25 minutes each

day to discuss the assigned text, which they were to read before each discussion (Lawrence et

al., 2008). Each discussion, the dyads would first respond to the text in an unstructured format

in which the students responded to the text “any way they wished” (Lawrence et al., 2008, p.

52). For example, one student, Amy debated about the text with her classmate Harry (Lawrence

et al., 2008). Next, the dyads responded to the text through a semi-structured format, in which
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the students responded to three open-ended teacher-made questions about critical issues in the

text (Lawrence et al., 2008).

The researchers found that the students used the dyads to construct meaning of the text

by discussing issues within the text, discussing the text’s personal relevance, making

connections to other media, and discussing social issues relevant to the text (Lawrence et al.,

2008). It should be noted that two limitations of this study are that Robinson did not conduct any

reading comprehension tests to collect quantitative data, and there is the possibility of bias, as

Robinson is the students’ teacher.

In a study by Sedova et al. (2019), researchers sought to examine the connection

between individual active student participation and student achievement in language arts

classes. The participants included 639 ninth-grade students in Czech middle schools (Sedova et

al., 2019). Sedova et al. (2019) examined both the relationship between a student’s

achievement and whether they were in a talk-intensive classroom and the relationship between

a student’s achievement and the particular student’s level of productive participation in

classroom talk.

In each of the 32 classes involved in the study, the researchers observed two lessons

(Sedova et al., 2019). The researchers measured the quantity and quality of individual student

participation. Sedova et al. (2019, p. 4) only took into account “utterances that were part of

whole-class teaching that involved interactions between the teacher and students and among

students” and utterances that involved “thought and reasoning,” defined as resembling a

sentence and including explanation. The researchers did not include student talk, such as

reading aloud, individual work, or group work (Sedova et al., 2019). To measure student

achievement, the researchers used results from standardized reading literacy tests.

The researchers found that students who were in talk-intensive classes had better

results on reading literacy tests, but this was only to a limited extent (Sedova et al., 2019). A

stronger connection was found between students’ individual participation and their
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achievements (Sedova et al., 2019). Sedova et al. (2019) found that students who participated

frequently by talking and arguing in class had better results on the reading literacy tests.

Muhonen et al. (2018, p. 67) aimed to examine the relationship between students’

academic performance (measured by grades) and “the quality of educational dialogue in

whole-class lessons.” They also sought to inspect “the quality of teacher-initiated and

student-initiated dialogic teaching patterns” in language arts and physics/chemistry lessons

(Muhonen et al., 2018, p. 67). The participants of this study were 46 teachers and 608

sixth-grade students in Finland (Muhonen et at., 2018).

The researchers recorded 158 lessons, or two to four lessons per teacher (Muhonen et

al., 2018). Muhonen et al. (2018, p. 70) measured the quality of the teacher-student interactions

using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System-Secondary (CLASS-S), with a focus on the

CLASS-S dimensions of Instructional Dialogue (“purposeful content-focused discussion

between the teacher and students”) and Quality Feedback (which “captures the teacher's

extending and expanding of students' learning”). The students’ academic performance was

measured by their end-of-year grades, calculated by their teachers (Muhonen at al., 2018).

Muhonen et al. (2018) found that the quality of educational dialogue, based on its

CLASS-S rating, had a positive correlation with the students’ grades in both language arts and

physics/chemistry. This result remained consistent when the researchers controlled for students’

previous academic performance, gender, level of parental education, the class size, and the

teacher's professional experience (Muhonen et al., 2018). The researchers also found that while

teacher-initiated dialogues were most common in language arts classes, student-initiated

dialogues indicated higher quality (Muhonen et al., 2018).

Devising a Plan

When devising a plan for the strategy I will use to teach my content area, I wanted to

teach in a way that would allow students to learn and practice how to interpret, construct

meaning from, and respond to texts on their own while also listening to and working with the
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ideas of others. I plan to take a dialogic approach to instruction, as described by Applebee et al.

(2003). This approach would involve open discussion among myself and the students, the use

of authentic teacher questions, and the use of questions with uptake (Applebee et al., 2003).

Inspired by Robinson’s study, as discussed by Lawrence et al. (2008), I plan to place

students in small groups, in which they will discuss a text they have read earlier. Like in

Robinson’s study, I will tell the students to begin their group discussions with an unstructured

format, in which they will share their responses to the text with their group (Lawrence et al.,

2008). I will then direct the groups to a more structured discussion, in which they respond with

each other to three open-ended questions that I give them (Lawrence et al., 2008). These

questions will follow the criteria for authentic teacher questions, as described by Applebee et al.

(2003).

Unlike Robinson (Lawrence et al., 2008), I plan to group the students in groups of three,

rather than in dyadic pairs. I think this will better incorporate open discussion, as described by

Applebee et al. (2003). I also feel like groups of three may allow students to more easily actively

participate in the discussion by speaking and arguing with their groups in a similar way to the

whole-class discussions described by Sedova et al. (2019).

After students discuss within their groups, I plan to guide a content-focused whole-class

discussion, in which the students share what they discussed both in their initial responses and

in their responses to the questions I gave them. I plan to encourage the students to build on and

work with each other’s ideas. This may allow for the student-initiated dialogue discussed by

Muhonen et al (2018) and the use of questions with uptake (Applebee et al., 2003).

Executing the Plan

To execute my plan, I taught a 30-minute lesson on the ELA topic of point of view to my

colleagues. I attempted to use the signature pedagogy of using open-ended questions to lead

discussion in both whole-class discussions and small-group discussions.

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After a short period of direct instruction (3:00), I presented the students with a scene

from the film ​Monsters, Inc. ​(5:13). I then led a short whole-class discussion by presenting the

students with two open-ended, authentic teacher questions inspired by Robinson’s discussion

questions (Lawrence et al., 2008): “1) What did you think of this scene? 2) How would you

describe the tone or mood of the scene? How did it make you feel as an audience?” (9:59).

After the whole-class discussion, I presented the students with a passage from the short

story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe (12:10). As my colleagues did not have the

opportunity to read the story ahead of time, we read the passage as a class. I then divided the

students into groups of three and presented them with open-ended discussion questions, also

inspired by Robinson’s questions (Lawrence et al., 2008). While I initially planned to give them

three open-ended, authentic teacher questions, for time purposes, I gave two: “Respond to what

we have just read in any way you like” (I gave students the following examples of how they

might respond: “What’d you think of it? What did you like/dislike? Can you relate it to something

you know or have seen? etc.”) and “As a reader, how did this passage make you feel? How

might the difference between the characters’ perspectives and the readers’ perspectives have

influenced your feelings?” (18:11).

The students discussed these questions with their groups for seven minutes. As they

discussed, I checked in on each group to listen to what they were discussing. I did not

participate in their discussions except to answer the occasional question. I did not guide the

students’ discussions in any way other than the initial open-ended questions.

After the small-group discussions, we returned to a final whole-class discussion, in which

students shared what they had discussed in their groups (28:52). I also brought up some ideas I

heard students discussing to encourage participation and elaboration.

Assessment

To assess the students’ learning, I assigned a worksheet in which students were to read

a passage from ​The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn​ by Mark Twain. After reading the passage,
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students were asked to identify the point of view of the passage (Question 1, worth 1 point).

Next, they were asked to explain how the narrator’s perspective compares or contrasts with the

reader’s perspective (Question 2a, worth 2 points) and how this might create an effect (such as

mood or tone) in the text (Question 2b, worth 2 points). A full-credit assignment would achieve 5

points. It should be noted, however, that I will be omitting the results of Question 1​ ​from my

reflection. The topic of Question 1, identifying point of view, was not the focus of the 30-minute

lesson and results would mostly be based in students’ prior knowledge. Therefore, focusing

solely on questions 2a and 2b, a full-credit assessment would achieve 4 points.

Results and Reflection

In keeping with the research of Applebee et al. (2003), Robinson (Lawrence et al.,

2008), Sedova et al. (2019), and Muhonen et al. (2018), the execution of my planned signature

pedagogy led to promising qualitative results during the lesson itself.

During the initial short whole-class discussion on the scene from ​Monsters, Inc.​, students

were allowed the opportunity to think about and express insights and observations about the

text and, thus, to interpret and respond to the text on their own. One moment that showed this

was when a student responded to the first question by discussing how different audiences may

perceive the text in different ways (Donohue, 2020a, 10:11). This was not a discussion topic I

had expected to appear while planning my lesson. Rather, it was an insight that came about

through the student’s own unpacking of the text. The second question led another student to

discuss their own response to the text and interpret how the perspectives presented in the text

led to this response without any further guidance (Donohue, 2020a, 10:50).

The small-group discussions on “The Cask of Amontillado” seemed similarly effective in

getting students to unpack and construct meaning from the text. This was especially evident as

students shared their responses during the final whole-group discussion. One student for

example, made a connection between “The Cask of Amontillado” and the film ​The Lion King
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(Donohue, 2020c, 3:37), while another student discussed the text’s personal relevance by

connecting the passage to something from their own life (Donohue, 2020c, 4:29).

I believe these examples from the lesson illustrate the effectiveness of my planned

signature pedagogy. The open-ended and authentic nature of the discussion questions and the

opportunity to discuss these questions with small groups of classmates and the class as a

whole seems to have allowed for these students the opportunity to practice interpreting texts

and constructing meaning from texts by making connections. The open-ended questions

allowed the students to construct meaning and unpack texts on their own, while the discussions

allowed the students to learn from each other.

As for quantitative results, below is a chart of students’ scores on the assessment:

Student Question 1: Question 2a: Question 2b: Total out of 5 Total out of 4
Identify the How does the How might (omitting
POV of the narrator’s this create an question 1)
passage (1 perspective effect in the
point) compare or text? (2
contrast with points)
the reader’s
perspective?
(2 points)

Student A 1 1* 2 4 3

Student B 1 1* 0 2 1

Student C 0 2 2 4 4

Student D 0 2 2 4 4
* Note: I gave Student A and Student B one point rather than two or zero points for Question 2a because,
while they did make reference to the perspectives of both the narrator and the readers, they did not
compare or contrast the perspectives or note any differences.

The quantitative results of the assessment seem less conclusive than the qualitative

results I observed during the lesson itself. Two out of the four students I assessed, Student C

and Student D, achieved full scores and showed that they were able to accurately explain the

contrast between perspectives present in the text and how this contrast creates effects. Student
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A showed that she was able to explain how the different perspectives present in a text create

effects, but she did not explain how the perspectives differed. Student B recognized the different

perspectives present in the text but did not explain how they differed or how this difference

could create effects.

I think the inconclusivity of these assessment results may be due to the small sample

size of students who were assessed. However, even with the inconclusive quantitative results,

the students’ answers on the assessments showed qualitative evidence of interpreting,

responding to, and constructing meaning from texts, which is what I aimed to achieve with my

signature pedagogy.

For example, Student B contrasted the use of different perspectives in the ​Huckleberry

​ assage with “The Cask of Amontillado.” While he did not fully answer the questions, the
Finn p

connections he made between the two texts shows evidence of constructing meaning. Students

A, C, and D all showed evidence of interpreting the passage through their explanations of how

the perspectives create effects. Interestingly, Student C interpreted the passage as having an

“angry” and “hostile” tone while Students A and D interpreted the passage as “humorous” and

“comedic,” respectively. These differences in students’ interpretations show the students’ ability

to construct meaning and interpret texts independently.

Overall, it seems that my signature pedagogy was successful in encouraging students to

unpack, interpret, respond to, and construct meaning from various texts both collaboratively and

independently. The open-ended discussion questions, whole-class discussions, and

small-group discussions gave the students the opportunity to practice these skills. The students

showed evidence of these skills during the whole-class and small-group discussions and

through their assessments.

Limitations and Next Steps

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One limitation of this study was that the students were my colleagues and not actual

middle school or high school ELA students. Therefore, a next step in developing this signature

pedagogy will be to continue practicing this pedagogy with the intended grade level.

Another limitation was that the students were not familiar with the text, and this might

have affected their discussions and opportunity to learn from the discussions. A next step would

be to practice this signature pedagogy again with a real class of students who have already

read the text and have had time to think about the text before being expected to discuss it.

Finally, additional research and continued practice using this signature pedagogy will be

beneficial, as it will allow me to gather more information on diverse open-ended questions and

various methods of whole-class and small-group discussions. Using various discussion

questions and methods of discussion will allow teachers to further explore the effectiveness of

this signature pedagogy.

References

Applebee, A. N., Langer, J. A., Nystrand, M., & Gamoran, A. (2003). Discussion-Based

Approaches to Developing Understanding: Classroom Instruction and Student

Performance in Middle and High School English. ​American Educational Research

Journal, 40(​ 3), 685-730. ​https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312040003685

Chick, N. L. (2009). Unpacking a signature pedagogy in literary studies. ​Exploring signature

pedagogies: Approaches to teaching disciplinary habits of mind​, 36-55.

Donohue, L. [Lawrence Donohue]. (2020a, December 4). ​Ed376 - Donohue - Teaching

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Episode Part 1 [​ Video]. YouTube. ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4xxNoEENxM

Donohue, L. [Lawrence Donohue]. (2020b, December 4). ​Ed376 - Donohue - Teaching

Episode Part 2 [​ Video]. YouTube. ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inZAMS8KkXc

Donohue, L. [Lawrence Donohue]. (2020c, December 4). ​Ed376 - Donohue - Teaching

Episode Part 3 [​ Video]. YouTube. ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydfXIoJtl7M

Lawrence, S. A., Rabinowitz, R., & Perna, H. (2008). Reading Instruction in Secondary

English Language Arts Classrooms. ​Literacy Research and Instruction, 48​(1), 39-64.

https://doi.org/10.1080/19388070802226279

Muhonen, H., Pakarinen, E., Poikkeus, A., Lerkkanen, M., & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2018).

Quality of educational dialogue and association with students’ academic performance.

Learning and Instruction, 55​, 67-79. ​https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2017.09.007

Sedova, K., Sedlacek, M., Svaricek, R., Majcik, M., Navratilova, J., Drexlerova, A., Kychler, J.,

& Salamounova, Z. (2019). Do those who talk more learn more? The relationship

between student classroom talk and student achievement. ​Learning and Instruction, 63​,

1-11. ​https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2019.101217