How do I help students prepare for a scientific discourse, sometimes called a Socratic dialogue?

In a KnowAtom classroom, scientific discourse is not a performance students put on for the teacher. It is a shared experience where students make sense of the world with one another.

Preparation for discourse, then, is not about readiness in a traditional school sense. It is not about fluency, confidence, or having an answer prepared ahead of time. Instead, preparation is about whether students have connected with an idea in a personally meaningful way and feel able to bring that thinking into a group space where it can interact with the thinking of others.

When discourse feels quiet or surface-level, the issue is rarely effort or motivation. More often, students have not yet developed the habits, structures, or confidence to hold onto their own thinking long enough to share it, or to see how their thinking can matter to a group. This article clarifies how preparation supports both individual sensemaking and collective understanding, and how KnowAtom lessons are designed to support this interplay.

Preparation for discourse lives between individual thinking and collective learning

Scientific understanding grows through a dynamic relationship between thinking alone and thinking together. Preparation for discourse is where that relationship is made visible.

Students need opportunities to notice, reflect, and form ideas privately. They also need a classroom culture where those ideas are welcomed as contributions to a shared learning experience, not judged as right or wrong.

Preparation for discourse sits at this intersection and involves distinct but complementary roles for teachers and students.

The teacher’s role: creating structures and confidence for contribution

From a teacher’s perspective, preparing students for discourse means helping them develop the tools and confidence to contribute authentic thinking to the group.

Teachers prepare the conditions for discourse by:

• Designing moments where students can pause and notice what stands out to them
• Offering simple, flexible ways to capture thinking so it does not disappear
• Signaling that partial, evolving ideas are not only acceptable but valuable

Rather than preparing students to speak, teachers are helping students learn how to bring their thinking into a shared space in ways that support the group’s sensemaking.

In KnowAtom lessons, this often sounds like:

• “Take a moment to sketch what caught your attention.”
• “Mark a part of your model you’re curious about or unsure of.”
• “Notice what you keep coming back to as we look at this.”

These moves communicate that student thinking is something the class will use together, not something students are expected to get right on their own.

The student’s role: bringing authentic thinking into the group

For students, preparation means engaging with a phenomenon deeply enough that something matters to them.

Prepared students:

• Notice ideas, patterns, or tensions that spark curiosity
• Capture those ideas in a way that feels meaningful to them
• Are willing to place that thinking into the group, knowing it may change
• Listen for how others’ ideas might extend, challenge, or reshape their own

This is an act of intellectual courage. Students are not expected to arrive with polished explanations. They are expected to arrive as participants in a thinking community.

Research on classroom discourse shows that students engage more fully when discussion is framed as collective sensemaking, where ideas are treated as shared resources rather than individual possessions (Michaels, O’Connor, & Resnick, 2008; Ritchhart, 2015).

What it actually means for a student to be “prepared”

A prepared student is not someone who knows what to say ahead of time. A prepared student is someone who has an idea they care about enough to bring into conversation.

That idea might be:

• An observation that keeps pulling their attention
• A pattern they are starting to notice
• A question that feels unresolved
• A claim they are unsure about but curious to explore

In strong KnowAtom discourse, students often say:

• “I keep noticing…”
• “I’m wondering if this connects to…”
• “I’m not sure yet, but I’m thinking…”

Preparation gives students a starting place for participation. Discourse gives them access to the thinking of others, which they can borrow from, build on, and adapt as they continue making sense of the phenomenon.

Shared texts and experiences as invitations into collective thinking

KnowAtom lessons offer many shared entry points into thinking, including investigations, images, videos, data sets, and read-alouds. These shared experiences create a common reference point, while still allowing students to take up ideas in personal ways.

Independent reading is not a prerequisite for preparation, especially in early grades. What matters is that students have encountered something they can think about and return to during discussion.

Research on disciplinary literacy emphasizes that discussion deepens when texts and shared experiences are treated as conversation partners, not sources of answers to repeat (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2017).

How this unfolds across grade levels

• Kindergarten – Living Things Change
  Students observe germinating seeds over several days. Before discourse, students draw what changed and circle a part that interests them. During discussion, students share drawings, noticing similarities and differences, and building understanding together.
• Grades 1–2 – Changing Seasons
  Students examine images and charts of daylight patterns through a shared class experience. Preparation may involve sketching one pattern they notice. During discourse, students listen for connections between their own observations and others’.
• Grades 3–5 – Shaping Earth’s Surface
  Students study images of erosion-shaped landforms. They prepare by annotating or sketching where change seems to be happening. In discourse, students compare ideas and refine explanations collectively.
• Grades 6–8 – Forests or Biodiversity
  Students analyze food web models or investigation data. Preparation often includes highlighting a relationship they are curious about. During discourse, students test ideas against peers’ reasoning and evidence.

Across grade levels, preparation helps students enter discourse with ideas they want to explore with others, not answers to defend.

Capturing thinking so it can circulate within the group

Short, low-stakes thinking artifacts allow ideas to move between individual minds and the collective conversation.

Research on visible thinking shows that when students externalize ideas, those ideas become available for group use, increasing participation and depth of discussion (Ritchhart, Church, & Morrison, 2011).

When artifacts are treated as temporary and revisable, students feel safer sharing. The focus shifts from who is right to what the group is learning.

Preparation and discourse as a continuous loop

In well-implemented KnowAtom lessons, preparation and discourse form a continuous cycle:

1. Students encounter a phenomenon
2. They notice and capture what matters to them
3. They bring that thinking into the group
4. The group’s thinking reshapes individual understanding
5. New questions and ideas emerge

Students learn that their thinking matters because it contributes to the group, and that the group matters because it helps them think more deeply than they could alone.

Over time, students internalize a powerful understanding:
When I engage honestly with an idea and share it with others, learning happens for all of us.

References

• Michaels, S., O’Connor, C., & Resnick, L. (2008). Deliberative discourse idealized and realized: Accountable talk in the classroom.
• Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating cultures of thinking.
• Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible.
• Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2017). Disciplinary literacy: Just the FAQs.