One of my biggest goals each year as an AP Lit & 11th Grade ELA teacher is to make sure my class feels fresh, engaging, and welcoming to my students. I want them to feel like they are part of a classroom community that values and supports them. I want them to feel SEEN. I also feel AWESOME when they tell me my class has a “good variety” of activities or “doesn’t feel boring.”
How to achieve this? Well, what I’ve found over the years is that one of the best ways for me to achieve that “I LOVE this class” status is by creating a little classroom family that’s centered around meaningful and fun discussions.
Not only do my students learn more this way, but I’m addressing a big skills gap that has emerged in the time since I started teaching (in 2011). Like many teachers, I felt discouraged as I started to notice changes in my students’ social skills, first after the advent of the smart phone & then after the pandemic.
My department team members & I talked constantly about what we could do to help students improve their confidence & become better communicators. The “discussion-driven classroom” has been a part of my answer to this question.
Read More: HOW I RUN CLASSROOM DISCUSSION ACTIVITIES!
Building the Foundation
To create a discussion-driven classroom, we have to start by establishing a strong sense of community and culture. For older students (I teach 11th and 12th graders), this includes setting clear expectations for respectful dialogue, including everyone, valuing everybody’s ideas, and encouraging the more talkative folks to self-manage how much they are monopolizing the floor.
Also, implementing structured discussion activities, which I think of almost like games, is huge. Giving students a structure to follow helps encourage positive listening & speaking skills and behaviors. (I will share my favorite discussion activities/games at the end of this blog post!)
Developing Essential Skills
As with anything, we really need to teach listening, speaking, & discussion skills EXPLICITLY (yes, even for older students). I find that providing kids with active listening techniques can be helpful, especially in the first quarter when discussion may feel new to them—you’d be surprised how seldom they have discussion-based classes before they reach your class!
Some good active listening techniques to teach include notetaking, asking questions, repeating & asking for clarification, looking at the speaker, avoiding interruption, offering feedback like agreement or disagreement, smiling, acknowledging the other person’s ideas and emotions, and encouraging others (both verbally & non-verbally).
You can also “gamify” active listening by having a fishbowl discussion style with the “outsiders/viewers” marking off positive active listening behaviors that they see and hear, and the group that earns the most check marks earns some small prize or receives a huge round of applause. My kids love just being asked to stand up, and the rest of the class freaks out (within reason) for 5 seconds, banging desks and feet and cheering—this is a great, free reward, if your hallmates are cool about it, LOL.
You will also want to give some direct instruction (plus modeling!) of how to respectfully challenge other people’s ideas, disagree, and ask thoughtful questions. We want to show students how to politely and kindly push back on what’s been said or ask for clarification or proof from their peers. I like to emphasize that questioning helps us refine our ideas & figure out true from false, good from bad, etc. It’s okay to ask questions, and it’s okay to change our mind if someone else has a better idea or exposes our lack of logic or evidence for what we’ve stated.
Students nowadays are often VERY reluctant to disagree with one another in class, so easing into it by encouraging them to do things like ask for proof, ask for clarification, or suggest a slight modification to what’s been said can be helpful. As they grow more comfortable with you & your class & the group of classmates they’re with, they will begin to more confidently and frequently disagree, and they’ll find that other students are not angry or hurt by this and that they all learn more this way. (It helps if you point out when a challenge or “push back” has led to a better understanding or consensus for the group!)
Note that you may need to do a little direct instruction & modeling of the proper TONE to use when questioning or disagreeing with someone, as some groups of kids struggle with this more than others, depending on the personalities involved.
Don’t hesitate to pull a kid aside after class if necessary to talk about tone, kindness, empathy, and valuing other people’s contributions, too. I have to do this once or twice each year. I feel good about doing it though because I’m helping that kid develop social & emotional skills, empathy, and how to interact respectfully, which I know will help him or her build better relationships with peers, teachers, and eventually his or her colleagues in the workplace. And I usually see improvement, which is also nice!
Encouragement is Key
It’s good to sit back & let the students talk as much as possible, but you do have to chime in here and there. I try to consistently encourage participation with positive reinforcement for good contributions & good listening behaviors, offer constructive feedback to help them improve, & create opportunities for them to feel good about their discussions.
It doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out thing. A well-placed, “Awesome!” “Good point!” or, “I like how you brought that up, John!” can make a world of difference for the kids. You can also do things like write little Post-it notes for each kid with praise for something he or she did well during the discussion or have a brief “de-brief” at the end of a discussion activity to share three things they did well with and one thing we should work on next time.
Don’t be afraid to have the kids share how THEY think it went, too. It can be nice for them to hear from a peer, “You did a good job including shy people,” or “You asked good questions.” And sometimes, it can be helpful for them to hear (in a nice way) “You sometimes talked over the quieter members of the group” or feedback like that.
The Results
For me, including more discussion activities in my classes has led to more engagement and enthusiasm from my students. They are excited to come to class, excited to discuss, and more likely to participate than when I use other teaching methods (like direct instruction, lecture, group work, stations, or PBL). I see more big smiles & a-ha moments, too, which is what it’s all about, right??
I also consistently have students tell me that they loved our discussions. They tell me they felt like they got better and better at sharing their ideas as time went on, and SO many of them say that they went from being shy and nervous to feeling confident and proud of themselves.
Another thing they bring up all the time is how much they loved being able to learn from other people’s perspectives and experiences, and not just from the teacher. They feel that they learn more when they have a chance to discuss with the entire group, and they look forward to discussions & are excited to hear what others think & to share their own thoughts and questions!
Conclusion
Prioritizing discussion helps me develop a vibrant, supportive class community where everybody feels seen, valued, and insightful! This not only enhances academic understanding but also equips students with valuable life skills that they need more than ever these days. Social skills & social confidence are at an all time low, but we can help change that!
Below, you’ll find some of my favorite activities & strategies for class discussions*!
- Socratic Seminars
- Fishbowl Discussions
- Modified Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Debate a topic from or an interpretation of a literary text)
- Jigsaw Discussions
- Gallery Walks
- Philosophical Chairs (Students move to one side of the room or the other based on their agreement or disagreement with a statement about the text; they then discuss/debate/argue their position)
- TQE (Students write down a thought, a question, & an epiphany about what they’ve read & Post-it on the board up front. We then explore these ideas together as a class.)
*Note that when you try any of these with your class, you want to provide kids with clear instructions & expectations (I like to use a PowerPoint with slides for all the different discussions so I can quickly & easily review how it’ll go & what we should focus on, do, or avoid.)
Also, for ALL of these, you’ll want to encourage them to use text evidence to support their claims, and do everything you can to encourage respect for diverse ideas, views, and interpretations!
Remember, the key is to balance structure with the freedom for students to explore ideas, encouraging both rigorous analysis and creative thinking. If you can do this well, the kids will absolutely LOVE coming to your class, and they’ll learn so, so much more than just ELA skills!
Leave a Reply