Making Thinking Visible:

What Makes You Say That?

Our Learning Targets:

➢ I will utilize the MTV strategy “What Makes You Say That?” to
support my ideas with evidence and reasoning.
➢ I will explore “What Makes You Say That?” and apply the strategy
to my own content area.
“What Makes You Say That?”
Thinking Routines: What Makes You Say That? Video

● This strategy helps students identify the basis for their thinking by asking them to
elaborate on the thinking that lies behind their responses (Ritchhart and Church).
● Can be used at any point in a unit or lesson, as reasoning occurs at all points during
the learning process-- not exclusive to beginnings, middles, or ends.
● The idea is to support one’s ideas with evidence. This practice may help students
consider multiple viewpoints and perspectives on a topic or idea.
● This strategy is especially powerful because it empowers the classroom community
because the teacher is not presented as the keeper of knowledge and correct
answers-- rather, all thinking is supported and explored as long as it is supported by
evidence.
○ The “correctness” of an answer can lie outside of an authority figure-- it lies in
the evidence one gathers to support it
 The magic
questions...
1. “What do you see that makes you say that?”
2. What do you know that makes you say that?
 Push for Elaboration with Evidence
As students share their ideas and justifications, it is important to
follow up by asking the key questions of this strategy: “What do
you see that makes you say that?” and “What do you know that
makes you say that?” These prompts are to elicit and support
students’ attempts at justification.

Step 1
Step 2
Set up/Make time
WMYST doesn’t need to be set up! The great
thing about this strategy is that it naturally
finds a place in response to students’
explanatory or interpretive comments.
However, for a more structured lesson,
teachers may set aside time just for discussion.
Step 3
Share the thinking
Teachers may choose to document student
thinking, but this strategy elicits challenging and
enriching discussion and makes thinking visible
by creating opportunities for students to share
their thought process.
 Whoa!
Transition time!
You’re an eighth grader all over again...
“Blackberries” (1987) Ellen Hunnicutt
Just before noon the husband came down the near slope of the
hill carrying his cap filled with blackberries. “They’re ripe now.
This week,” he said to his wife. “We chose the right week to
come.” He was a tall man, slender-limbed but thickening now
through the center of his body. He walked around the tent to
where the canvas water bag hung, spilled the berries into an
aluminium pan, and began to wash them gently.
“There isn’t any milk left,” his wife said. She was blond and
fragile, still pretty in a certain light and with a careful
arrangement of her features. “We finished the milk.” She sat up
from the blanket spread on the ground and laid aside the book
she had been reading. “Albert and Mae went to New York,” she
said. “It’s a tour. A theater tour.”
“You told me that,” he replied. “We can put these in cups.
Cups will make fine berry bowls.”
“There isn’t any milk.”
“I saw cattails,” he said. “You’d think there would be too much
woods for them. They need sun, but they’re there. You can slice
up cattail root and fry it. In butter. We have butter. It’s good.”
He divided the berries into two cups and set one cup on the
blanket beside his wife. He rummaged through the kitchen box
and found a spoon, then began to eat his berries slowly and
carefully, making them last.
“The tour covers everything,” she said. “You only pay once.
You pay one price.”
“There aren’t any bears here,” he said, “nor dangerous snakes.
It would be different if we were camped in a dangerous place.
It’s not like that here.”
The woman smoothed the blanket she was sitting on with
small, careful motions, as if making a bed. “It’s going to be
hot,” she said. “There aren’t any clouds, not even small ones.”
“We can swim,” he suggested, savoring his berries. “You
always liked swimming. You’re good at it.”
“No, I’m not,” she said. “I’m not good at it at all.”
“You look great in a bathing suit. You always did. We have
powdered milk.”
“It has a funny taste.”
“That green, silky bathing suit was the first one I ever saw
you in.”
“If we went down for milk we could go to the movie in the
village. It’s a musical. I looked when we drove through.”
“They’re probably only open on weekends,” he said. “A little
town like that. Powdered milk’s okay.”
“You don’t like it at home. You told me you don’t like
powdered milk.”
“I didn’t say that,” he replied. “Do you want me to go for the
cattail root?”
“It’s margarine,” she said. “We have margarine, not butter.”
“I’ll fry them up.”
“They’re probably protected, like trillium.”
“You can pick cattails,” he said. “Nobody cares about cattails.”
He went to the pile of fire logs and began splitting them,
crouching, the hatchet working in clean, economical strokes.
She watched him. He was good at splitting wood. The arc of
arm and shoulder swung smoothly to aim each blow. “The
summer’s almost over,” she said, taking one berry into her
mouth. She mashed it with her tongue, chewed and swallowed.
The sun passed its zenith and she saw a stripe of shadow appear
on the grass beside her husband, a silhouette slim as a boy,
tender as memory. She began to eat the berries in twos and
threes, picking them out with her fingers, forgoing a spoon.
“It’s almost September.”
He turned to look at her. “No it’s not,” he said. “It isn’t, and it’s
scarcely noon. We have lots of time.”