Two Takeaways for Supporting All Students

3/6/2022

ideas by Tan Huynh and Katie Miller, compiled by Third Eye Education

In our recent podcast interview with Tan Huynh and local Minnesota expert on Multilingual Learners, Katie Miller, our conversation quickly cut to the core of education.

Throughout the conversation, Huynh and Miller share some strategies and resources that help them access that educational core quickly and effectively. Their ideas tended to fall into two categories: (1) leveraging what motivates and engages students and (2) modeling what it means to be a lifelong learner.

They come to school for each other

Huynh shares a realization he had early on in his instruction: students “do not come to school for you, they come to school for each other. So why don’t we use that as the framework for instruction?”

This takeaway inspired a sharing of ideas: a few favorite strategies and resources from Miller and Huynh that help all students, multilingual learners as well as all classroom learners. They both agree that by upping the amount of talk in our classrooms, and by teaching students structures and protocols for quality conversations, we give them a greater access to success.

Talk - Read - Talk - Write
A strategy coined by Nancy Motley, Huynh shares a favorite tool of his: the Talk-Read-Talk-Write protocal.

Learn about this tool here:

The book: Talk Read Talk Write: A Practical Routine for Learning in All Content Areas
A conversation between Motley and Huynh:

Q.S.S.S.A.
"Question, Signal, Stem, Share, Assess" was another tool shared by Huynh. This stratgy might be used in this way:

Question: Which character emotionally grew the most in these three chapters?
Signal: Stand beside your desk once you have your answer ready to share.
Stems: When you share your answer, start by saying, "The character __ grew the most emotionally in chapters 11-13 because..."
Share: In your quad, share your thinking with each other. See who agress and who doesn't. Explore why the agreement/disagreements exist.
Assess: Write a sentence that summerizes your final answer to the question. Use the sentence stem shared earlier and be sure to have at least two reasons that follow the word "because."

Go Visual
Katie Miller, along with the Third Eye Education podcasts hosts, share a love of visuals for enhancing understanding. Pairing words with pictures is a simple way to increase comprehension and language acquisition.

To support understanding of new vocabulary or complex ideas, try:
- Ellen McKenzie’s article “Vocabulary Development using Visual Displays” (2014)
- Boston University’s “Visual Representation of Texts” (2021)
To use them as a conversation starter or as a writing prompt, explore:
- Literacy Ideas’ “Teaching Visual Literacy and Visual Texts in the Classroom” (2022)
Or use them as a synectic

For each of these three strategies, students “can do this in their heritage community language too,” Huynh points out.

Learn beyond what you were taught

In our conversation, Huynh also highlights the importance of being continuous learners: we must set aside outdated practices to “Learn beyond what you were taught.”

A few resources Miller and Huynh shared, which may help you push outside of what you areadly know, are:

Cultivating Genious
The book Cultivating Genious: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Gholdy Muhammad is a resource Miller loves, and Huynh just interviewed Muhammad on his podcast last month. Find out more here:

Boosting Achievement
Carol Salva's work was brought up by Huynh: specifically her book Boosting Achievement. Dig into Salva's resources here:

The book, Boosting Achievement: Reaching Students with Interupted or Minimal Education by Carol Salva with Anna Matis
Her podcast, Boosting Achievement, with Voice Ed, CA
Her inspirational and resource-filled tweets: @MsSalvac

For more strategies and resources from Huynh and Miller, considering exploring some more of their works.

Tan Huynh: podcast, blogposts
Katie Miller: "The Power of the Words We Choose" and other articles.

“When teachers approach students with a Can-do mindset, everything is possible.” 〰 Tan Huynh