Part of what I loved about my English major was the loosely discussion-based form all my classes took on. Almost all of my classes were based in discussion; some even went as far as moving in a circle to discuss. I loved this. I am a listener through and through, but I truly enjoyed listening and learning from other people’s opinions and understandings of the novels and texts we were reading.

Fast forward to my teaching career. I knew high school students would not love discussion as much as my English-loving college classmates did, but I figured they would learn to love it. As of right now, I believe it is still a struggle.

I have tried whole class discussions in many ways. I have tried the traditional route where students create some questions, they sit in a circle, and they discuss. Very loosely based and open-ended. I have created questions for the discussions ahead of time to let students prepare their answers. I have had students discuss via Google Classroom’s “Ask a question” feature. I have used Today’s Meet (which no longer exists) for students to have the ability to hide behind their screen. I have used small group discussion in all these ways also.

I think I have found two important aspects of discussion that have improved my discussions overall: passion and high expectations.

First and foremost: passion. Did this surprise anyone? Not me! We all know that students must be passionate about whatever they are doing. If they are passionate (if anyone is really), it will be much more successful. Almost weekly, I do a whole-class discussion with my low-level English class. Granted, there are 10 kids in this class (I am very lucky; I know.). For this class, we read an Article of the Week (a Kelly Gallagher invention) on Monday and complete a discussion on Friday about the article. Students know exactly how many times they are expected to discuss to receive full points. They have also created questions beforehand to prepare for the discussion.

Even just from this year, the discussions have ranged from silence to students leaving the room heated. Obviously, I want something in between these extremes, but the difference is the topic. Our latest discussion was almost silent. The article was about Trump’s impeachment scandal. I thought they would have a ton to say about it (most of them are Trump supporters) but they did not. They claimed, “I am not very political yet.” I get that. In high school, it all seems too big and far away from them. One of the discussion that was the most heated was an article about the violence video games can cause. All 10 of my students play video games, so they had a lot to say about this topic. It was a fascinating discussion.

The second big part to a successful discussion is high expectations. I used to be very loose about my discussion expectations because that was what my professor did for me, and it was successful. High schoolers are a little different though. I have noticed that giving my students the specifics about how they will be graded during the discussion and requirements for questions and answers has been a large change. For instance, questions and answers that refer directly back to the text receive extra points in the overall discussion; therefore, they will need to contribute less times to receive full points. I also tell students I am willing to give out extra credit if they are particularly enticing or if they are willing to encourage others into the conversation. It is great to see students rise to these expectations.

Overall, I do much less discussion than I ever thought I would, but it has been quite the learning process for me anyways. Anyone else??