Strategies for Initiating Authentic Discussion

J ames Barton points out that leading an effective discussion can be one of the most difficult tasks of teaching (346). One reason may be that many of our students have genuine difficulty making connections with the literary texts that we ask them to read. In addition, as research suggests, students are rarely asked to discuss and teachers tend to do most of the talking anyway (Nystrand). Students may wonder, Why should I bother saying anything? Martin Nystrand distinguishes between authentic discussion, which is dialogic, and recitation, which is monologic (5-7). With recitation, there are prespecified answers to the teacher's questions. In contrast, authentic discussion is more like a conversation in which there is a genuine dialogue or inquiry into a problem or issue with no predetermined answer. I like to think of authentic discussion as classroom talk that is purposeful and engaging.