Everyone Deserves a Thinking Partner...Especially Students!
Last week I wrote about a simple truth— we are smarter together. I also stated that learners, of all ages, deserve a THINKING PARTNER or multiple THINKING PARTNERSHIPS. If you want to read or re-read some of the big take-aways that thinking partnerships inspire, click HERE.
Everyone deserves a thinking partner…especially students! Facilitating a process where kiddos find THINKING PARTNERSHIPS has additional big take-aways, including some of these:
creating independence during reading & writing workshop
providing student-to-student support structures during workshop and across the school day
nurturing of new friendships & collaborations
increasing small group work (pairs, trios, 4-6 students) based on interests, inquiries, passions, habits, and needs.
Creating THINKING PARTNERSHIPS is the fun part! Finding different partnerships for different reasons to team up to support one another is important because one size fits all or one person fits all doesn’t work. Take a look at this planning grid—it can be used to drum up conversation and create connections for students to work with one another!
Reminder: Helping students revisit this planning grid regularly and switching up thinking partnerships often will increase the big take-aways listed above.
If you’d like to read more about Thinking Partners, check out Chapter 2 in my book What Are You Grouping For? How to Guide Small Groups Based on Readers—Not the Book.