When I first started teaching discussion-based courses, I felt satisfied if I could just keep the students talking throughout the entire class time. But a conversation with a more experienced colleague reminded me that part of the point of being a teacher is knowing things that the students do not and that I was not really doing my job if I didn’t convey some of that knowledge, no matter what the format. Ever since, I have thought of leading discussion as a balancing act between encouraging and honoring students’ responses to the material we are studying and making sure they come away with some of the understanding that I have developed over many years in the field. It is a challenging, unpredictable form of teaching, in which success cannot be guaranteed through even the most careful planning, but exhilarating when it goes well.

Planning plays an important role in generating discussion that is truly instructive, but it has to be balanced by flexibility. I try to go into a class with a set of ideas in mind that I hope will emerge but also aware that getting that to happen will require making spontaneous decisions and seizing opportunities in the moment. The deadliest times are those in which I realize I am trying to get the students to say something that they simply are not inclined to. Sometimes it is best just to come out and admit that, identifying the point I was hoping they would make and openly providing the information or perspective I want them to take away. Sometimes I can turn the fact that they didn’t make my point into another question. “Aren’t any of you bothered that classical Athens, a society that valued freedom for its citizens, was so repressive in its treatment of the other cities that it dominated?”

Formulating effective questions—and reformulating them as needed —is obviously key. I try to ask questions that are concrete but genuinely open-ended, often starting with a particular passage in a text we are reading and flagging some feature that I think is puzzling in itself and raises larger issues. “Why is Antigone being so mean to her sister when she is risking her life for the sake of her brother?” It is helpful if the subject matter lends itself to questions about which I myself am in doubt, to which the students’ opinions are an appropriate answer, or for which they have at least as much expertise as I do. “Are there any features of classical Athenian society that we would benefit from adopting?” “Where do you see the influence of Homer’s Odyssey in contemporary popular culture?” “What did you find most surprising about the Odyssey when you read it this time?” Specific and pragmatic questions work surprisingly well to open up large and abstract issues. Asking which texts I should include and which I should omit the next time I teach a course has led to some great final discussions summing up the important themes of the semester.

One of the biggest challenges comes from the fact that not all students are eager to participate in class discussion. This may be because of shyness or self doubt, but sometimes a student’s previous education has not especially encouraged the idea that what they themselves think is relevant to learning. I do not find it productive to put students on the spot by calling on them without warning, but I am always trying other strategies, beginning with willingness to tolerate a stretch of silence if no one speaks up, making it clear that I am not going to let them off the hook. The widely used approach of breaking a class into smaller groups to tackle a set of questions and report back is a reliable way of getting a higher level of participation. When students are required to lead a discussion themselves they often develop a more active appreciation of the value of jumping in and venturing an idea even if it is not fully formed, something many thoughtful students, especially women, are unwilling to do. This is something I also try to address in one-on-one conversations. I will encourage the most reluctant to make a bargain with themselves that they will speak once each session or come to class armed with a particular point they are committed to bringing up. Of course it helps the overall discussion if everyone has been thinking of points they will want to make as they prepare. I have never been drawn to the online discussion threads that many teachers set up in advance of class meetings (they diminish the element of surprise that makes discussions interesting and force the last students who post into novelty for its own sake), but I find it very helpful to ask every student to email me a brief comment on the assigned reading a few hours before we meet. This means they do arrive with something to say and it tells me a lot about what is on their minds, so that I can meet them where they are as I figure out where to start.

Deliberately framed questions, along with the other strategies I’ve described, will get most students to say something, but that is, of course, only the beginning. The experience I want students to have involves formulating and articulating an idea, but also having that idea extended and refined through what I and the other students have to say in response. Sometimes that means that I enter into a brief dialogue with a particular student, asking them to clarify their point, bringing up something from the reading I think might complicate or contradict it. But that should not go on for long without the other students being involved. Ideally, someone else will jump in; if it makes sense to do so, I may simply ask whether or not the other students agree or encourage one of them to relate the most recently made point to something they themselves said earlier. I am always trying to dramatize my conviction that their initial thoughts are interesting in themselves and worth testing and developing.

If the chemistry in the group is right and the discussion takes on a life of its own, I am glad to see that, but I still provide some grounding to the students’ thinking. I usually end the session by summing up what I myself took away from their conversation. Or I might do that as a way of opening the next class and setting the agenda for a discussion that integrates what emerged the last time with whatever new material we are looking at. That is one way of providing the structure that is essential if students are going to develop a deeper understanding of any topic through discussion. Once that structure is in place, it is equally essential to maintain flexibility so that they can work from their own insights, articulating their ideas, building on those ideas, filling in the gaps and making new connections in dialogue with a teacher and with each other.

Sheila Murnaghan is The Alfred Reginald Allen Memorial Professor of Greek in the School of Arts & Sciences.

This essay continues the series that began in the fall of 1994 as the joint creation of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Lindback Society for Distinguished Teaching. See https://almanac.upenn.edu/talk-about-teaching-and-learning-archive for previous essays.