Discussion as a Way of Teaching

In a high school or college level E.L.A course, discussion can be a great way to build upon different ideas and engage students in the lesson rather than having the teacher lecture the whole time. I liked that at the beginning of the article there was a list of why class discussions fail. Even though discussions seem like a smooth, simple process where students just speak freely, it can go south very fast and a successful discussion requires thoughtful planning. If there are no established ground rules for the discussion or the students are not adequately prepared, then the discussion is subject to failure. I think it is important to either have a list of the expected behaviors and ground rules provided for the class or to have the class create their own list of rules prior to the discussion starting. The ground rules should include things like not talking over other students, respecting other people's opinions, and not having one sole voice guide the discussion. The students may feel as though the discussion is ran by them, but it is important that the teacher facilitates the discussion and guides it back on track if it gets off subject.

For me, this article was actually helpful and eye-opening as I want to introduce discussion as a tool for learning in my future classroom. I have taken more than a few college English courses and the common thread between most of them, and the part I loved about the classes, was the socratic seminars, both formal and informal, that took place in these classes. When talking about a piece of literature, it is important to have a class discussion because every student finds a different meaning or lesson from the text. More than once I have found value in another student's reading of the text that I hadn't even thought of myself. I think that we can never truly understand a piece of literature until we discuss it with others and expand our minds to other points of view that differ from our own.

One big take away I got from this article was about student participation and the negative effects of individual's silence in class discussions. The article said that "allowing students the right to silence can sometimes reinforce existing differences in status and power." I had never thought about it this way before. I have experienced a mixture of opinions on student participation in discussions. Some professors have built it into the grade that you must participate and contribute to class discussions. Other professors have let certain students go the entire quarter without contributing to a single class discussion. After reading this article, I think I stand on the side of having every student contribute something to the class discussion, but doing it in way that students don't feel pressure to come up with a unique or profound idea. I think the hatful of quotes is a good activity to get students comfortable with speaking in the discussion. Each student is given a quote from the text. Some students have the same quote. One by one, each students reads their quote and gives some commentary to the quote or book in general. In this way, students that may be a bit more shy can build off of their peers' interpretation of the same quote or get ideas for how to build upon their peers' interpretation of the quote. It takes some of the pressure off of introverted students but still ensures that every voice is heard at least once in the discussion.