I began my teaching career at a school where, for many reasons both in and outside of their control, a lot of students struggled to come to class. This meant that, on any given day, I had no idea which students would be there. I could plan few, if any, discussions around the assumption that the same students who were there yesterday would be there today. This also meant that few valued resources, like books, went home with kids because our school was not particularly confident that it would ever get them back.
So, every day and every discussion had to make sense within the context of a single class period. I could neither assume prior knowledge about a text nor depend on the ability to follow up with a student the next day. This is no longer my teaching reality, but I learned a career-shaping lesson about class conversations that first year: always be ready for nobody to have done “the reading.” With this, our discussions can survive in the face of absenteeism that can be both unpredictable and pervasive.
Practically, this means that class discussions benefit from teachers giving students immediate access to relevant information and key terms before we start prompting. Some kids might not need this information, as they come to the moment prepared. Others, for whatever reason, do not, and so we face the choice to either leave them behind or to give them just enough of a grounding to participate. If our pride gets involved, we might choose the former. This is understandable. But it too often is an illogical choice. If kids do not have enough information to participate, awkward silence might not be the only consequence. These kids might become a classroom management problem. And what’s the point? It’s not like kids who enter a conversation unprepared will suddenly start doing their homework tonight out of embarrassment. We cannot fill students’ return to school with “gotcha” moments meant to shame them into attending.
Making the Most of Discussion Time
There are a couple of ways to ground students in the information being discussed. Unfortunately, both of these strategies eat at valuable discussion time, so we have to choose wisely. First, we can read aloud the portion of the text that will be discussed. If we want the class to discuss one moment in an entire scene, we could read aloud just that moment, even if it’s only one of 25 assigned pages of their homework. (I am a fan of making this reading interactive, having kids “act out” or do dramatic voices.) This roughly three-minute investment is not just for the kids who didn’t read. It’s for the kids who “read” while doing their chores or playing video games or watching TV. It’s for the kids who “read” at 2:00 a.m. with their eyes half-closed or in the lunch period before class. Everyone could always use a review. Any veteran ELA or history teacher can remember moments when students gasped at something that happened in the reading, and when asked why they were surprised, the students said some version of, “I swear that I read it! I just didn’t remember that happening!” I teach students Lord of the Flies, and every year, when Simon dies, students who have not read attentively are surprised as I review this passage aloud:
At once the crowd [of kids] . . . poured down the rock, leapt on the beast [Simon], screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.
They say, “Wait, they ate him?” Giggling, I say, “In a way, yup!” And suddenly, engagement is boosted.
We cannot fill students’ return to school with 'gotcha' moments meant to shame them into attending.
Second, we can give students a quick summary that might only take a few seconds. It helps if we do a little bit of “selling” the reading. We might just say, “So, in last night’s reading, ___ got in an argument with ___ and it was wild!” From here, we could either tell the class what happened or ask for volunteers to do so. It might be tough to figure out when to ask for volunteers. Awkward silences are not always bad—sometimes students just need time to think or to work up the courage to raise their hands. But these awkward silences can be destructive when they follow simple requests, like asking kids what happened in the reading. We face the temptation to passive-aggressively extend the silence, thinking we are embarrassing unprepared students. And I’ve seen students do the same, wanting to punish an overeager teacher. Again, what’s the point? Just tell them what happened! Now we can ask our interesting prompts and get going.
Reframing Accountability
Just to be clear, I am not against accountability. I’m actually pretty old-school about quizzes, using them for just about every take-home reading. Students who don’t do the reading will fail these quizzes. Students who don’t do the reading will write bad essays. They will probably not get a good grade in my class. But class discussions have got to be different. Everyone gets to engage with the ideas if they have even the slightest motivation to do so. Kids who didn’t read might not get as much out of a conversation as kids who did. But they should get something. Discussions should not just be another way for students who miss school to feel excluded from the community that we’ve built.
Put simply, great classroom discussions should give students who are not motivated by quiz grades a reason to earnestly engage with the content. (And even, with wild hope, to come to school!) It’s a similar feeling to a friend making us watch an episode of their favorite HBO series. We need just enough basic information to root ourselves in the episode that we are watching. And if that episode is entertaining enough, we’re more likely to watch future episodes. We might just go home and stream the show from the beginning.
Reflect & Discuss
➛ Kay suggests great discussions can do more than hold students accountable. How can classwide discussions authentically motivate and engage students?
➛ What’s one strategy you could use to not make class discussions a “gotcha” moment for unprepared students?
