Episode 26: Whole Class Discussions: Finding What Works for You

What teacher-to-be doesn’t imagine a lively and engaging whole-class discussion as she ponders what her classroom will be like? This fantasy scene often involves an image of ourselves sitting perched on a stool, steaming cup of coffee in hand, listening to our students share thoughtful, relevant insights about challenging works of literature. And then reality hits. We realize a third of the class isn’t actually participating and two students can’t say something even remotely correct if their lives depended on it; we’ve got to make some sense of this book before the end of the week when the class is supposed to write an essay using an AP English Literature released prompt and you’re starting to wonder how many of them could even write an intelligible summary. Please tell us this sounds familiar. It can’t be just us! A lot of trial and error went into finding a whole class discussion strategy that works for us. We’re sharing what we discovered matters most in our class discussions and a little about our strategies for keeping them productive and on track.