Circle the Sage

1. Poll the group or predetermine students who are knowledgeable and comfortable sharing about a given topic (sages).
2. Spread the sages around the classroom space.
3. Divide the remaining students evenly among the sages. 
4. Instruct the sages to share what they know while listeners ask questions and take notes.
5. Ask the listeners to return to their seats or table groups and share findings.

• Students don’t have to be experts; they might just have information to share.
• Give students sentence stems to use when first practicing this strategy until they can formulate their own questions.
• Consider what notetaking structures may need to be put into place for the listeners, especially during the first attempts of using this strategy. 
• Remind students to thank the sages for sharing with them.
• Keep group sizes to a minimum of 3-5 students.

Scaffolds for Multilingual Learners

Entering/Emerging:

• Provide visual support (e.g., posters, photographs) for students to name and briefly describe objects, people, or places.
• Provide sentence stems and frames for stating main ideas and/or restating details of content-related topics, as well as connecting ideas to one’s experiences (in home language and English). 
• Provide time for students to think and create an oral response (in home language and English).
• Model appropriate nonverbal behaviors to show engagement and listening.
• Provide graphic organizers for this strategy.

Developing/Expanding:

• Provide examples of transitions to help students connect ideas. 
• Model examples of paraphrases and summaries that are presented orally.
• Provide sentence stems and frames for questions.
• Provide examples of clarifying questions that students might ask.
• Model how to generate new questions to maintain conversations.

Bridging/Reaching:

• Model how to categorize details of main ideas seen and heard in videos and other technologies.
• Model how to sequence a series of events.