Meaningful Class Discussion: The ELA Teacher’s Dream
Some of the moments we treasure most from our teaching careers are the days when we had a really good class discussion. Students are engaged, interesting ideas are flying, we’re either thinking of thought-provoking questions or fading into the background and letting students run the show, and it’s everything we dreamed of when we decided to become teachers.
As we all know, however, a class discussion like this isn’t magic. In fact, these discussions stand out because there are so many days when we’re staring at a sea of blank faces, dragging sleepy teenagers into conversation, and struggling to elicit anything but the most superficial answers.
Facilitating a class discussion takes practice on our part. It takes practice on our students’ part as they develop the skills of participating meaningfully, building on one another’s ideas, and disagreeing respectfully. And it takes time to build relationships: the best conversations happen once our students are comfortable with us and each other.
We definitely weren’t perfect teachers, and our style wasn’t for everyone. But our students and administrative evaluators agreed that the best part of our AP Literature course was the class discussion. Discussions were fun, thought-provoking, and engaging, and they formed the core of our class. Seeing our students work out their interpretations of literature was exciting, but it did take a lot of work and patience to get there.
Given the work and patience required, you might be asking, Why even have a class discussion? We have enough to do, between monitoring independent reading and preparing students for writing assignments. It’s much easier to control the way these lessons go. Why set ourselves up for potential disaster in the form of nasty disagreements or disappointing silences?
We do believe it’s worth the effort (despite the challenges), and if you’re struggling to generate a good classroom discussion, we hope you’ll find an idea or two here that helps you and your students.
Why Class Discussion Is Important
Class discussion engages students.
Most of us would rather engage in discussion about a topic than sit quietly and read or answer questions. Discussion is interesting, it can go in unexpected directions, and it requires active participation, all things that engage students and thus increase the odds they will learn something.
Class discussion puts students in the driver’s seat.
When we’re lecturing, it’s all about us. We’re directing the conversation, we’re telling students what to think, and we’re looking for a clear right answer. There is a time and a place for this. But when we engage our students in class discussion, they get to take more of a leading role. They can suggest alternative interpretations, ask questions, and take the conversation in new directions. This is empowering for students and part of what makes class discussion engaging and meaningful.
Class discussion teaches students to see things differently.
In class discussion, students see that not everyone thinks the same way they do. In an increasingly opinionated and polarized world where algorithms feed us more of what we want to see, it’s important for students to recognize that others see the world differently than they do. Maybe this changes our students’ minds, but it doesn’t have to: there is value in seeing that issues are complex and we all have differing perspectives.
Class discussion teaches students to argue respectfully.
Speaking of our increasingly polarized world, it’s more important than ever that students learn how to argue respectfully. We all know how ugly the comments section on an Internet post can get, and we can teach our students not only how to use respectful language in their disagreement but to provide evidence to support their arguments, hopefully improving the quality of their disagreements outside our classroom walls.
Class discussion prepares students for college and beyond.
Many college courses have discussion sections, and participation in those discussions impacts a student’s grade. Teaching our students how to productively engage in class discussion will help them to be successful in that setting. But even beyond the academic world, having the social skills to discuss a range of topics with other people is valuable.
Why Class Discussion Can Be Challenging
Just because something is valuable doesn’t mean it’s easy, and class discussion is no exception. It’s really hard to consistently have meaningful discussions in a high school classroom.
Class discussion requires vulnerability.
One of the biggest challenges of class discussion is that it can be intimidating to participate. What if I get the answer wrong? What if my classmates make fun of me? What if my teacher corrects me in front of everyone? What if I get called on and have nothing to say?
Participating in a class discussion requires students to put their ideas out into the world, and this can be scary. Whether our students struggle with social anxiety, feel intimidated by high-performing peers, or just didn’t get the assignment, participating in class discussion can feel like a big risk.
Class discussion requires preparation.
Another challenge is that for students to engage in a meaningful class discussion, they need to have something to say. And in English class, this often means they have to have something to say about a text. If students didn’t do the reading or didn’t understand the reading, it’s going to be a huge obstacle to a productive discussion.
Class discussion can lead to conflict.
When we’re discussing topics and issues that have more than one right answer, students will disagree. This can exacerbate the whole “feeling vulnerable” thing, and not all students are good at navigating conflict respectfully. As teachers, we also may feel apprehensive about mediating conflict, especially in discussions about sensitive or highly controversial topics.
Class discussion can stall.
What if no one has anything to say? It’s can be absolute torture trying to run a class discussion in which students have nothing to say, are afraid to participate, or have said all there is to say. One of our early mistakes as teachers was holding a “theme discussion” without a clear plan. Crickets abounded, and it was a loooonnnnngggg class period for all of us.
Class discussion doesn’t allow you to have complete control.
If, like us, you’re big on control (and let’s be real, most teachers are), it’s difficult to give up that control and see where a discussion goes. What if it goes in a direction we don’t want? What if students raise issues we aren’t prepared to talk about? What if students never get to what we needed them to get to in a text? It can be nerve-wracking to go into a lesson without knowing where we’ll end up.
Our Class Discussion Priorities
One of the most important things to know about class discussion strategies is that no matter how many options are out there, you have to find what works for you, not what works for other teachers. One of the most popular strategies for class discussion is a Socratic Seminar, but it is not for us. So we don’t use it, and that’s okay. There are many ways to have a productive class discussion, and you’ll be most successful when you find an approach that you’re comfortable with.
our priorities
What Mattered Most in Class Discussion
Purpose
We wanted to make room for students to share their own opinions about a text, but we also wanted to make sure we covered key ideas.
Participation
We wanted all students to participate, and we didn’t want every class discussion to be dominated by the same three students.
Productive
We wanted class discussion to be productive, not full of “I agree” responses or students who merely paraphrased the person who came before them.
Inclusive
We wanted students to be able to participate even if they were shy, struggled with the content, or hadn’t completed the assignment ahead of time.
Our Class Discussion Strategy
One step that proved to be helpful in generating successful class discussions was ensuring that students had a copy of the text we were discussing. This may seem obvious, but in an age of online textbooks and schools without lockers, we can’t always assume students will bring their own copy. Having the text in front of them makes it easier for everyone to participate, even if they haven’t fully prepared.
Because we wanted our discussions to have a clear purpose, we created presentations that led the class through a structured discussion. Each slide started with a discussion question.
Once the question was displayed, we gave students several minutes to discuss the question in pairs or triads. This was essential to us for a couple reasons. First, it gave everyone a chance to talk, even if they didn’t end up contributing to the full class conversation. More importantly, however, it gave students a chance to work out something to say in a less intimidating context. Students could toss out ideas and clear up misunderstandings, moving beyond their initial thoughts. By the time students joined the larger conversation, they had something to say, even if it was, “My partner said something that was really interesting . . .”
After students had time to discuss, we randomly called on 2–3 students to share their responses. This was essential for getting non-volunteers engaged in the conversation. Then we would open the discussion to anyone who wanted to contribute, allowing our more eager participants to get their chance to say something. We often limited the discussion to a certain number of comments or kept an eye on the clock, however, to keep things moving. There are times when a discussion is really good and it’s worth throwing off your schedule for the week, but this isn’t always the case.
As students responded, we asked them to provide evidence to support their answers. Many students came to us from a teacher who taught them “there are no wrong answers,” and while we wanted students to have multiple perspectives, we also firmly believe there are wrong answers, and we wanted students to know they couldn’t just say anything. Requiring students to provide evidence also encouraged them to get in the habit of supporting their claims and created opportunities for more students to join the conversation. “Can anyone find me an example of what so-and-so just said?” may prompt some of your more reluctant students to join the conversation.
Finally, we would go through the “answer” on the presentation slide to ensure we had covered everything we wanted to. Often, we had elicited this information from students as follow-up questions during the discussion, but it still served as a recap and allowed us to bring in “English teacher” insights that students may not have picked up on.
In our standard-level classes, we followed a similar approach, but open-ended discussions were less common. We often engaged students in structured activities and had them participate by sharing their responses as we reviewed the answers. Part of this was to hold them accountable for participating, but we also sometimes wanted them to hear that there was more than one way to answer a question (for example, when we were writing theme statements). We occasionally provided sentence starters to students in these classes to more formally instruct them in ways to respond productively and meaningfully to the conversation.
Tracking Participation in Class Discussions
Because class discussions made up such a significant portion of what we did in class, we felt it was important to hold students accountable for participating in those discussions. We developed a system (you can hear us talk about it in this YouTube video) that served partly as a classroom management tool and partly as an accountability tool.
Each week, we determined a reasonable minimum required number of contributions, which we shared with students so they knew the expectation. We printed out a roster for each week, and we’d mark a + (worth five points) for each positive contribution and a – (worth one point) for each negative participation. Students could earn positive points by adding meaningfully to the conversation (and, importantly, not repeating what another student had said), and they would lose points if they distracted from the conversation or refused to participate.
We also provided students with a handout to keep in their binders that modeled ways to respond if they weren’t sure what to say. We encouraged them to say something like, “I’m not sure, but I’m thinking . . .” or to ask, “Can you help me . . .,” allowing them to still participate as we walked them through their ideas.
Class Discussion in a Digital World
As our world becomes increasingly digital, in-person class discussion is more important than ever. But there are also online ways to encourage discussion and collaboration that are worth integrating into our curriculum.
One good thing that came out of our 18 months of remote teaching was our forced adaptation to using online discussion boards on Canvas. We put students in discussion groups to collaborate on literary analysis paragraphs throughout the year, and we saw a dramatic increase in their writing abilities.
We also used Padlet for student presentations in our 9th grade honors English class as an alternative to student presentations. Students recorded and posted their presentations, and then they were required to watch and comment on several classmates’ posts and respond to any comments left on their own presentation. It saved us quite a bit of class time while still encouraging interaction among the students.
9 Strategies for Engaging Non-Participants in Class Discussion
There will always be students who are reluctant to participate in class discussion, no matter how you structure it. But it’s important to give them the opportunity to develop the same discussion skills and share their voices. It’s especially important if class participation is part of students’ grades: no matter how many times you remind students to volunteer, some never will, and it’s tough to hold them accountable if you haven’t directly given them the opportunity to earn those points.
Over the years, these are the strategies we relied on to engage these reluctant participants.
Before opening up a full group discussion, give students time to discuss with a partner.
As we mentioned above, this was an essential part of our class discussion strategy because it gives students time to work through their ideas and “prepare” what they’re going to share with the rest of the class. It also gives them the option to share their partner’s insight if they’re uncomfortable sharing their own.
Check in on groups and partner discussions.
As busy teachers, it’s tempting to use every second we can to get things done, but we tried to make an effort to walk around and listen to students’ partner discussions. Not only does this keep students on task, but it gives you the opportunity to help struggling students or to overhear interesting comments from people who might not raise their hands. Whenever we heard a great insight from a quiet student, we made a point of asking them to share with the class; sometimes these students were happy to share when they knew they were “right.”
Take class discussion into consideration when creating your seating chart.
When we created seating charts for our standard-level students, our goal was to minimize off-task chatter. But in our AP classes, we put a lot of thought into where we sat students to maximize our class discussions. We paired students whom we thought might have interesting conversations, avoided seating two “non-participators” next to each other, and placed students next to either someone at their same level or someone who would push them to grow and think more deeply.
Draw in struggling students on non-text-based questions.
Ideally, we want to encourage a student who isn’t doing the reading at home to start preparing for discussion, and we want to push our struggling students to answer tough questions sometimes. But if you have a student who is consistently unprepared or really struggles with the content, “save” some of the easier or non-text-based questions for them so that they still have a chance to earn some points.
Use a randomizer to call on at least a few students before opening up the discussion to the rest of the class.
Whether you use popsicle sticks, index cards, a randomized class roster, or an app, we recommend having a method to call on students randomly. Not only does this keep everyone engaged—no one wants to get caught without something to say, after all—but it helps you remember to call on everyone.
Create a participation points system that holds students accountable for participation.
When students earn a grade for participation, they do tend to participate more often. Some students will always participate and some will never participate if they can help it, but we also usually have students in the middle who would prefer not to participate but will do so if it’s required. Reminding students that they’re expected to participate a specific number of times tends to get more hands up in the air.
Pull the student aside to talk about why they don’t participate.
When we had students with consistently low participation grades, we pulled them aside to ask why they weren’t participating. Sometimes they needed encouragement, a seat change, or just a reminder that participation is important, but sometimes we were able to come up with a plan for those students. We would have students discreetly signal us when they heard a question they knew they could answer or run their answer past us during partner time before they shared it out loud. As these students’ confidence grew, the students were often more willing to participate without a “plan” in place.
Build relationships with your students.
It always seems to come back to this, doesn’t it? The more our students feel comfortable with us, the more willing they will be to take risks in our classrooms. But also, when we make an effort to get to know our students, we’re better able to call in their “expertise” on things that matter to them. Reading Fences and need someone to summarize the rules of baseball? I’m calling on Matt. Reading an excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and need someone to define a musical term? Amy’s got me covered. This is especially helpful when our “experts” aren’t regular participants: they have the opportunity to feel valuable and necessary and to, perhaps, realize that participating isn’t so bad.
A successful classroom discussion is one of the most rewarding experiences we can have as teachers. The joy of seeing our students engaged and working out their own understanding of a complex text is why we became teachers, after all. But having a successful classroom discussion requires work and strategy, and it takes time for us and our students to really get good at it. Once we find the strategies that work for us, however, there are things we can do to help students of all levels grow in their discussion skills.
Interested in hearing us talk more about this topic? We’ve got two podcast episodes on class discussion and engaging reluctant participants. Let us know what you think (or what questions you have): you can reach us at [email protected] or on Instagram (@threeheads.works).