Takeaways From EL Excellence Every Day Book Club

Here are the takeaways from the second section of the book:

1. When kids are engaged, when they are active co-constructors of their knowledge, then they are more likely to take ownership, to discover relevance, and to ask why and why not; they are more likely to feel inspired when they realize their voice matters and their questions count more than their answers. ~~Kylenn Beers & Robert e. Probst (2013, p. 27)
2. Internal experiences include students' thoughts and feelings. Active participation is what students do to engage in tasks. Both are important for engaging ELs in core classrooms.
3. Internal engagement is really the most important engagement as it is, in a nutshell, learning.
4. Students do not just sit and listen to the teacher but actively participate in lesson tasks.
5. Structuring active participation for all students is especially important in classrooms with ELs.
6. For deep engagement, always structure active participation in tandem with relevant texts, tasks, and topics!
7. Peer conversations are the most important strategy for everyday excellence with ELs.
8. Peer conversation structures put all in the active role of doing the thinking, talking, and responding to the tasks in our lessons.
9. Every time we ask questions and wait for volunteers, we widen the opportunity gap for ELs, for students who struggle with what we are teaching, and for any students who are hesitant to take social roles.
10. Daily opportunities to discuss academic ideas are essential for building academic language.
11. ELs need daily opportunities to take risks with language, make mistakes, and learn from the valuable feedback of real-world communication.
12. Every teacher can shift this trend by integrating conversations into academic lessons and using peer conversation structures to support and ensure active, equitable participation of all students.
13. Foster risk taking by giving students opportunities to build up ideas one-on-one with peers before sharing with the whole class.
14. Regular peer conversations in tandem with feedback help even the most reluctant participant to take new risks speaking in class.