11 Guidelines for Teaching with Discourse Circles

Discourse circles involve students in structured, evidence-based conversations around challenging statements.  This article provides guidelines that can be used to conduct a discourse circle in conjunction with many science texts.

Here is a quick overview of how the discourse circle will work:

11 Guidelines for Teaching with Discourse Circles

1.  Select a text that provides evidence both for and against a statement. In science, good choices include books about human impact on the environment, books that mention scientific debates, and books about the history of science.
2. Craft a statement for which students can find evidence to both support and contradict it. Write the statement on a Preparing for a Discourse Circle copymaster (PDF sample below) and make a copy for each student. The following are some guidelines to use when writing discourse-circle statements:ŸŸŸŸ
   ∙ The text must provide evidence both for and against the statement.
   ∙ The statement should not be obviously true or obviously false.
   ∙ Students should be able to choose either position without developing misconceptions about the topic.
   ∙ The statement should relate to important concepts in the text.

   Here are two examples of discourse-circle statements:

   Students like us can help prevent oil from spilling in the ocean.
   The stomach is the most important organ in the digestive system.

3. Make a class chart titled “Discourse-Circle Directions” that lists the directions for a discourse circle. (See the box above.)