Lessons From Student-Led Discussions

What does it take to facilitate a good classroom discussion? This paper does not set out to give a definitive answer to this question. Rather it presents several excerpts from student-led discussions as examples of how students are able to facilitate class-long discussion on a controversial topic. This paper begins with a brief overview of the prescriptive literature, focusing on a summary of the central concerns teachers have when leading a classroom discussion. This section is followed by a general description of the site in which the student-led discussions took place. Then, five moments from the actual discussions are analyzed to show the unfolding of these student-led discussions. These excerpts have been chosen to show how the students start the discussion, keep the discussion going, and end the discussion. Finally, some conclusions are drawn about the communicative actions that construct classroom discussions, and some comments are made about what this type of investigation has to add to the prescriptive literature on classroom discussions. (Author/RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document