• Three processes are central to learning in English. They are: reflection, negotiation and collaboration. When students are able to use the three processes, they not only learn much more effectively, but they also gain valuable thinking and communication skills that will stand them in good stead in their lives outside school.
• The processes work well together. When students negotiate, they reflect on their learning: when they collaborate, they negotiate with other students. A learning program that gets students actively using all three processes is likely to work best.
• Teachers who have focused on the three learning processes with their students say that teaching the necessary skills takes time, deliberate planning and possibly some rethinking of their own roles. They also say that once the processes become part of classroom life, the pay-offs in terms of students' engagement and the quality of their learning are dramatic.

Reflection before learning activities helps students to tune into their existing knowledge and understanding, to plan and to set goals. By thinking about past experiences and successes, students can gain confidence in tackling new tasks. By remembering past obstacles, students can make sure their planning is realistic.

Classroom example: Early in the year with her grade 8 class, Jane asks her students to draw a map showing where they have come from as readers. She demonstrates on the board with a map of her own journey from sharing books with parents to independently reading, discovering favourite authors, sharing books with friends and starting to read non-fiction. She includes the new kinds of reading she has been doing lately, and shows non-fiction as well as fiction, cookery books as well as novels. Using her map, she discusses her broad aims for the wide reading program - that students read regularly for enjoyment, read an increasing range of material and tackle some more challenging material to extend their comfort zones. She sets her first personal goal for reading: to read a new science fiction book, a genre she does not usually consider. The students then complete and share their own maps and set realistic goals in negotiation with Jane.

Reflection during activities helps students to monitor their progress. Sometimes a detailed reflection is useful, sometimes a brief and simple strategy works well.

Classroom examples: Heather's grade 3 students are working on a sequencing activity in cooperative groups. She reminds them to reflect on the social goal for the activity: "Let's check how you are going with your goal of making sure everyone contributes to the discussion. Give me a thumbs up if it's going OK, thumbs down if it's not going so well at the moment." Ross's grade 9 students are part-way through a negotiated unit on television current affairs. He asks each student to do a force-field analysis. They draw a vertical line on a page. On one side they list the factors that are helping them with their work, on the other they list the factors that are making it difficult. Then in their groups they share their results and list ways of boosting the positive factors and overcoming the negatives.

Reflection after activities helps students to process what they have learned and set new goals. Sometimes individual reflection is most useful, but small group and whole class reflection have a place too.

Classroom examples: Karen's grade 5/6 students have just completed a unit of work on television advertising. Much of the work was completed in small groups. She asks the groups to work together to produce a mind-map showing what they have learned. Tony's grade 12 students have just completed some work on analysing a set text using a negotiated inquiry question. After working in pairs to negotiate and investigate a question, they planned, drafted and revised essays that explored the topic. The completed essays were compiled into a class booklet which was distributed to all students. After the students have had the opportunity to read the essay collection, Tony asks them to complete a journal entry comparing their current understanding of the text with the initial impressions recorded in an earlier entry.

• Making explicit what the learning is about, by explaining learning goals, giving overviews or using other organisers. Y charts or mind-maps can be developed and then used to reflect on the learning. For example, if a focus is active listening, students could use Y-charts to set out what active listening looks like, feels like and sounds like. They can then use their charts to evaluate their listening skills and set goals for listening.
  
• Exploring different ways of thinking about issues. De Bono's Six Thinking Hats and PMI strategy are examples of strategies that help students to use a range of different perspectives and prevent them from getting locked into one way of reflecting.
  
• Helping students to understand the purpose of reflection by linking it to planning and goal-setting. For example, when students draw up a chart showing the skills they used well in an activity, and the skills they did not use well, the next step might be to choose specific skills to focus on next time.
  
• Involving students in planning and reflecting on the classroom program. Towards the end of an activity or a unit of work, cooperative groups can be asked to consider what worked well, what didn't work well, and what changes they could suggest for future work.
  
• Using talk to reflect. Students can learn to interview each other as reflection partners. Teachers can demonstrate how to reflect by interviewing a student and making notes of the discussion with them to help them plan and set goals for future work.
  
• Varying the form that reflection takes. Extended prose in a learning log or journal is one possibility, but not the only one. Some students are able to reflect much more capably if they can do it through graphic organisers or with the help of some clear structures. Particularly if students are resistant to the idea of reflection, it helps to give them an energising, enjoyable way to reflect. Some possibilities are:
  
  • a mind map
  • a letter to the teacher describing what the student has learned
  • a chart listing what is great about a project and what needs more work
  • sentence completion... 'the most interesting thing about studying tv news so far has been...' 'the biggest challenge now is...' 'I will know our video has worked when...' 'the most important task ahead is...' 'What I would like to work on in my writing is...' 'I would like more help with...'
  • a pictorial representation
  • a cartoon
  • response to a simile ....'How is the story you are writing like a Bass Strait ferry (Sunday, a barbecue) ...?' 'If John Marsden's Letters from the inside was a sport, what would it be and why?' 'Is the main character in the book you are reading more like Cathy Freeman or Shane Warne at the moment and why?'
  • a list of questions about the topic...'Write down five questions you have now about television news'
  
• Using learning logs or journals. Learning logs are places for students to record thoughts, questions and comments about their learning and to make plans for future work. They can also be used to communicate with the teacher and get feedback. A learning log is a powerful tool when used well, but it can get tedious for students if the purpose is not clear and the method used is always the same. To give it the best chances of success, teachers:
  
  • make the purpose clear, stressing its support for learning and action
  • model the use of a log by keeping one themselves for a particular activity
  • vary the time the log is used (sometimes before a learning activity - to plan and predict, sometimes after - to evaluate , sometimes during - to refocus)
  • vary the kind of input so it is not always continuous prose, but includes the other forms of reflection listed above.
  • vary the scope of the entry from reflecting on a term's work or unit of learning, to reflecting on how the student participated in a single discussion
  • respond to students' comments, queries and concerns by writing back to them in their logs if appropriate, by talking with individuals, by discussing common responses with the class.

• Negotiating with students recognises their vital role in their own learning. It enables them to take responsibility for learning, and to make sure that the program connects with their own interests and needs.
• Negotiation enables students and teachers to create tailor-made learning programs. A class may be working on the same text or topic, but individuals or groups of students can negotiate to explore it in different ways.
• Negotiation is empowering. When students have been involved in making decisions about learning programs and have had a chance to ensure their needs and interests are catered for, they are much more likely to be committed and engaged learners.
• Negotiation within an English program helps students to develop the communication skills needed to get things done - such as active listening, questioning, and discussion skills.

• the particular learning topic chosen
• the activities that enable students to explore a topic
• personal or group learning goals
• the choice of texts
• questions an inquiry might investigate
• group roles
• classroom or group guidelines for discussions
• the form a presentation could take - visual, written, dramatic...
• deadlines for assignments
• the sequence of learning activities
• the criteria or outcomes that might be assessed
• the form that reflection might take
• seating arrangements
• allocation and organisation of resources
• time organisation
• organisation of classroom routines
• group membership

• the development of thinking skills and deeper levels of understanding
• a more enjoyable learning environment
• the development of leadership skills
• the promotion of positive attitudes to English
• the promotion of self-esteem and a sense of belonging; and
• better access to a multi-layered curriculum for inclusive learning.

• active listening
• using eye contact
• using quiet voices
• taking turns
• using people's names
• making positive comments about others' work
• building on others' contributions
• encouraging people to continue
• using receptive body language
• sharing ideas
• asking for help
• encouraging others to share ideas
• clarifying ideas
• organising information

• Developing Y charts  with students to help them flesh out what the skills are like in practice.
• Asking students who use the skills well to role play their use. Other students in the class can help to spell out what they saw. The teacher can participate in the role play too.
• Using concrete reminders. For example, students can use coloured pieces of card to help them represent turn - taking. Each student in a group has a set of cards of a different colour and each time someone speaks, they put a card into the centre of the table. At the end of the discussion, the pattern of communication is plainly there for group members to see and reflect on. (A tangly, but fun, option is to use a ball of wool. Each speaker winds the wool once around their hand, then passes the ball to the next speaker. At the end of the discussion, the web of wool reveals the communication pattern.)
• Using a fishbowl strategy, in which observers outside a group monitor the use of skills within the group and provide feedback.
• Discussing cooperation as it arises in shared texts, such as David McKee's Tusk Tusk, Anthony Browne's The Piggybook, C.S. Lewis's The Narnia Chronicles, John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began.
• Including group and individual reflection on cooperative learning skills as part of work sequences.
• Ensuring that the students know the value you place on the development of cooperative learning skills through the kinds of specific feedback you give.
• Modelling a collaborative approach in reading and writing conferences. When these are followed by peer conferences, students can practise their collaborative skills.
• Demonstrating cooperative skills through class meetings, which allow for collaborative discussions and decision-making.

Morning news. In Cooperative Challenges for Infants, Pam Hoyne describes how she moved from whole class sharing to group sharing. She organised the students into groups of four. Each person shared an experience or told an interesting story to the small group, while the other students listened. Questions could be asked at the end. When the groups had finished sharing, they all met as a whole class again. One person from each group would then tell the class about the items shared. Pam took care to organise the groups in different ways, sometimes choosing groups herself, sometimes asking students to choose them with particular guidelines, such as a mix of boys and girls or older and younger students.

Author investigation. In Reading and Writing Communities, the author jigsaw strategy used by Sue Ryan is described. To introduce students to different authors and to encourage close exploration of texts, Sue first brainstormed with her class a list of favourite authors, to which she added a few different names. Through discussion, the class narrowed down the list to six different authors. Randomly dividing students into six research groups, Sue gave each the task of finding out:

• autobiographical details;
• lists of books published;
• a small selection of the text that demonstrates how the author writes;
• how the author 'gets us in' - the author's craft,
  for one of six authors (these were Susan Cooper, Anne Martin, Roald Dahl, Betsy Byars, Robin Klein and Anthony Browne). The group members divided responsibility for locating the research information in a one hour reading session. After sharing the sets of information with another group, each student made an author poster using information from their group's pooled research. Then, next session, cooperative groups were formed, each with an expert on each author. The posters were shared and the research information described. The students now knew a lot more about some authors they could choose to read.

The same kind of process may be used to investigate poets, illustrators, film directors, cartoonists and other text creators.

Readers theatre: In her interview for this site, Carol Arnold describes how she uses cooperative groups of three for readers theatre presentations of students' personal reading in her prep class. Every day in Carol's class one student has a turn to share something they have been reading with the whole class through a readers theatre presentation. Two helpers assist in the presentation and also monitor the way the rest of the class listens.

Presenting arguments: In The Collaborative Classroom, Susan and Tim Hill describe an activity called Order in the Court. The students work in heterogeneous groups of five with the following assigned roles:

Juror: Listens to the cases for and against. Votes guilty or not guilty.
Judge: Keeps order, asks for clarification, decides with the jury's help who is guilty and who is not.
Defendant: Makes a clever argument to defend the accused.
Prosecutor: Makes a case against the accused.
Accused: Accused of the crime. May or may not be guilty. Cannot speak unless called to speak by the defendant or prosecutor.

The students practise the court procedure using a goldfish bowl structure, with the teacher acting as the defendant, some students assigned the other roles, and the other students watching to see how the roles work. Once the students are familiar with the procedure, they can use it in small groups. The accused could be a literary character, a figure from popular culture, or a more abstract notion.

Discussion: There are many cooperative learning structures designed to assist students to use discussion to help them learn. They include: think-pair-share, 1-3-6 consensus , jigsaw , academic controversy and many others found in cooperative learning reference texts. Using some of these structures as an alternative to traditional unstructured group discussion or whole class discussion makes it much more likely that students will listen attentively to fellow group members and contribute their own ideas to discussion. When students have opportunities to talk through tentative ideas in small groups, they can contribute to whole class discussion with greater confidence.

Text response Hill and O'Loughlin, in Book Talk, describe many different strategies that can be used for collaborative responses to text. Students can work collaboratively to create mind maps to illustrate key ideas they identify in texts. Literary sociograms can be produced collaboratively. QAPX is another co-operative question and answer strategy suitable for use with any text and at most band levels. Students work in groups of four. Person 1 asks a question, (Q), about the text. Person 2 provides an answer, (A). Person 3 paraphrases, (P), the first response and person 4 provides extra, (X), information not already given. Literature circles provide a truly collaborative way for students to discuss and respond to texts. In his book, Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Student-Centered Classroom, Harvey Daniels describes how to set up and manage literature circles effectively so that the students have focused opportunities to meet, discuss and respond to self-chosen books. Teachers of all age-groups from kindergarten to senior secondary have used literature circles in their classrooms with excellent results.

• numbered heads (students number off 1 - 5 or however many groups you need, then all the 1s work together, 2s work together etc.);
• lining students up in birthday order or alphabetical order and then dividing the line into the size of groups needed;
• giving out different coloured cards randomly and then grouping on a common element (according to colour, shape, etc.);
• making 4 or 5 piece jigsaws from pictures or cartoons and giving out the pieces randomly so that groups are formed when students find others with pieces that fit with theirs.