DESIGNATING THE MVP Facilitating Classroom Discussion About Texts

This teaching tip highlights a strategy that assists teachers in structuring classroom discussions about texts. Specifically, this conversational technique helps students think and talk about a text beyond its literal meaning. During classroom conversations that employ this strategy, teachers help students extend their overall understanding of a text and give them structured opportunities to synthesize its information. This strategy requires students to make decisions about why a particular phrase is the Most Valuable Phrase (MVP) within a text as a whole. Using specific MVP criteria as a reference point, students practice explaining the ways in which certain phrases from a text are connected to its Main idea. Additionally, students are guided to analyze the author's craft by citing Vivid language and by explaining why a particular portion of a text qualifies as a "Phrase that stays." © 2014 International Reading Association.