ABC questioning: Building better classroom discussions

As an English teacher, cold call has always troubled me. It is effective, sure: cold call is a great way to know if students have understood a more factual point.

‘What is the device being used in line 7, Charlie’?
‘Metaphor, sir’.
‘Excellent’.

Even more helpful is when Charlie answers ‘simile’ because now we can address his misconception. This is infinitely better than asking the same question and inviting hands up, since it’s likely only the students who definitely know will put their hand up, which doesn’t really tell us much about the current understanding of the class. Cold call gives us more accurate and representative data of class understanding.

However, these kinds of factual questions – where cold call really excels – comprise a minority of the kinds of discussion you’re likely to see in the best English classrooms. Classroom talk in English is characterised by subjectivity, affect and a more nuanced style of discourse that revolves around ‘yes, and’, ‘no, but’, and ‘maybe’.

Often, the questions we ask require personal opinion and individual response.

‘So, what do you like about this line, Charlie?’
‘Err, dunno, Sir’.

Is Charlie wrong not to have an opinion? Not really. Is he wrong not to really like anything about the line? Not really. This is where cold call begins to break at the edges in an English classroom.

We could just ask for hands up, sure: someone in the room will have an opinion on the line. But this just introduces the same classroom issues that cold call was designed to solve: only those students who want to opt in will opt in. The issue isn’t so much the mechanism of asking the question – we should expect all students to be intellectually engaged – but the kind of questions and discussion that cold call tends to prioritise.

In this article, I want to offer a set of strategies that might help English teachers to tread this perennially tricky path.

Know your ABCs

ABC questioning is not a new idea and has been used by English teachers for a long time. It’s pretty simple: ‘A’ stands for ‘agree’, ‘B’ for ‘build’, and ‘C’ for ‘challenge’.

These become categories for the kinds of questions that English teachers ought to prioritise in their teaching.

• ‘Do you agree with Max’s idea, Charlie’?
• ‘Who would like to build on what Charlie has just said?’
• ‘Can you think of a way to challenge this idea, Josh?’

Notice, ABC doesn’t preclude cold calling, since the issue is not the mechanics of cold call, but the kind of factual-leaning questions it traditionally favours. ABC helps to solve this issue by providing teachers and students with a bank of questions that is more English-y. These privilege contention and debate; yes and no; maybe and but. Questions such as these force students to develop their own responses, sharpened against the responses of others.

However, we can push this simple strategy even further.

ABC cue cards

Print and cut out a set of three cards for each student, about playing card size. One has the letter ‘A’ typed onto it, the other ‘B’, and the last one ‘C’.

Now, pose a question to the class. Give them thinking or writing time. Choose one student to respond, then ask all students to hold up either ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C’, signalling whether they want to agree with what has just been said, build on it, or challenge. Either you or the initial student now selects the next person to respond. And the chain continues for as long as you want.

This upgrades cold call in the English classroom for a number of reasons.

1. It is prioritising the right kind of thinking and discussion habits.
2. All students need to participate; no one can opt out. They all need to hold up their card and therefore be ready to be chosen to engage in the discussion. This serves the same basic function as cold call traditionally does, since it increases the likelihood that the maximum number of students are thinking. What changes is how they are being asked to think.
3. Third, it becomes self-perpetuating: the chain continues for as long as you want it to; the last student selecting the next one, with you, as teacher, interjecting as and when appropriate, all the while gaining a clear sense of current class understanding.

Even better, do this routine a few times, and students internalise the moves of the discussion so that they begin to use it even without the cards.

‘I’d like to build on what Charlie has just said because…’.

You’re teaching them how to think without predetermining what to think.

Cue card games

Once students are familiar with this basic routine, you can start to experiment with it.

• Sit students in groups of three or four. Put a random stack of cue cards in the middle.
• Pose a big question for the group to discuss, but ask them to draw and reveal a cue card from the centre each time someone new is ready to contribute.
• Whatever card they draw – A, B or C – is the discussion move they need to make in response to whatever has just been said. This encourages students to think on their feet, adopt different positions, and to test out their ideas in response to other ideas.

---

ABC questioning takes the best bits of cold call and makes it more English-y. There’s a reason cold call is so pervasive in teaching: it works extremely well to ensure a majority of students are thinking. However, it tends to lean into more factual questions. ABC seeks to resolve this issue.

• Copy URL
• Share Article