Less than a minute into the discussion students have made two profound statements: 

1. the first student says the thing we call a seed is partly alive (on the inside) and partly dead (the shell). 
   
   
2. And the second student says “if the thing it creates is alive, then it has to be alive.” In other words, no Frankenstein’s monster that comes to life from inanimate parts. 

With these two provocative statements on the floor, the teacher stops and has students talk with a partner. So every student has a chance to say what’s on their mind, and to rehearse their argument. Now they’re all in the game—not just the couple who got the floor.

Notice how the teacher stays in a questioning stance rather than acting as an authority. Because she’s not letting on that she knows the answer to her question, students have the chance to try out their ideas. 

There’s always a bit of a dilemma when a teacher turns the discussion over to the students: what if they go down an unproductive path? What this teacher skillfully does is asks questions that challenge their thinking and that steer them down the path that she intends without taking away their ownership of their learning.

The student just said it makes sense that seeds needs water and sun,  but she doesn’t complete the argument by saying that this does not mean that they are not alive. The teacher makes a decision to step in and paraphrase, but she walks a delicate line; she leaves the student as the authority. She says, “I’ll paraphrase and you tell me if I’m right.” She does restate, but she also adds that important last bit. 

This can be a very helpful move as long as the teacher does not take ownership away from the student. It would also be possible to ask the student follow up questions to get the student to articulate her position fully: that needing water and sun doesn’t mean it’s not alive. But a teacher is always making spur of the moment judgements about when to take that additional time, and about how to manage the enthusiasm of the entire group.

We see a lot of hand gestures, which means this class developed norms early on. Hand gestures for “I agree”, “I disagree” and “I would like to build onto your point” can be very helpful in whole-class discussions because they allow students to be part of the conversation, even though they are not the one speaking. Of course, students can be distracting to the speaker when they become overly enthusiastic, as we see here, prompting the teacher to rein them in.

The powerful argument this 2nd grader makes is effectively tying together points others have made. 

• First she makes an analogy: when we are born, we are alive, but we need food and water to live, just like a plant needs water and sunlight. 
  
  
• She then makes a generalization: every living thing needs something to be able to live. 

There are two really fundamental questions she’s answering that we want all students to be asking themselves: Is what I’m trying to understand like anything else I know? and Is this an anomaly, or is there a general principle at work here. 

These two questions help us to make sense of the world at any age, and in any context. We see this student having made a very powerful argument by integrating ideas of others—something that would not have happened without the opportunity for discussion.

Many students have begun feeling more comfortable in their belief that a seed is alive. 

This final move by the teacher, asking students to think about the seeds that have been in her cupboard for years, challenges that comfort. Note that the teacher has students go back to their seats, where they will again jot down their ideas. This back and forth between individual thinking and classroom discussion ensures that every student is actively thinking (so the class isn’t gliding on the thinking of a few), but allows students to enrich their own ideas with those of their classmates.

So, the rich discussion that we witness here is rooted in two things: (1) a highly discussable question: there are good arguments to be made both for a seed being alive and not alive; and (2) a classroom culture that has been carefully built to engage all students in thoughtful discussion. 

You may have noticed that we heard from quite a few different students. We do not have the dominance of a couple students that we often see in classrooms. No student had an opportunity to check out or hide; every one of them had to put their thinking in writing, they had to take a position on the continuum, and they talked in pairs. It takes some work early in the school year to establish expectations; but once established, we can see the deep thinking students can produce.