Participating in a discussion involves thinking on two levels. On the first level, you think about the topics under discussion. You are thinking in this way when you ask questions, share ideas, or respond to what others have said. Thinking on the second level concerns the way discussion is going. You are thinking in this way when you ask whether there are other aspects of a topic that should be discussed, suggest a new topic for discussion, or try to draw others into the discussion.
Both forms of thinking are important for a good discussion, and you should always try to think in both ways. Still, it is natural to focus your attention most often on the topics under discussion. When you are a discussion monitor, you should reverse the balance and give most of your attention to thought about how the discussion is going and how it might go better. That means that discussion monitors do not have special responsibilities; they have the responsibilities that everyone has but with a different emphasis.
Discussion monitors also have no special authority or power to direct the discussion: it is open to everyone to ask if things are going as well as they might and to suggest ways of making them go better. Indeed, one of main reasons for asking you to monitor discussions is to give you experience in focusing on the way discussion is going that you can apply in discussions when you are not a monitor.
While I cannot give you an exhaustive list of things you might think about and things you might do when you are a monitor, I will make a few suggestions. I’ll divide these into two groups, and I’ll suggest that each of the two monitors focus on one of these groups (though this, like the difference between monitors and others in the discussion, is only a difference in emphasis).
Content
The prime values to have in mind here are breadth and depth. On the one hand, although we will never touch on all the things relevant to a given day’s discussion, we should touch on a range of topics. On the other hand, a topic shouldn’t be dropped so quickly it isn’t fully discussed.
• So watch for cases where it is time to move on to another topic and suggest that people do that. (There can be many reasons for moving on: the discussion may have reached a point where people have nothing new to add, the topic may not be important enough to deserve more time, or the discussion may broadened to the point people are no longer saying much about the text or other assigned material.)
• Also watch for cases where people seem to be moving on too quickly, dropping a topic while there might still be important things to be said. In such cases, just ask if we have really said all there is to be said about the topic. People may have no more to say, and, if so, it is best to move on; but an invitation to stick with a topic a little longer will often encourage people to bring further ideas into the discussion.
• Be ready to ask a question if discussion should die down at some point. As the discussion develops, watch for questions that may help keep it alive. The passages people have suggested at the beginning of class are intended to help with this, so you should certainly have them in mind.
Participation
The values here, too, are something like breadth and depth. A discussion is richer when more points of view are expressed; and, ideally, everyone will contribute to every class. But no one will have things to say about every topic that might come up, so the discussion of a particular topic will often involve less than the full class; and that often must be so if people who do have questions or comments on a given topic are to have a chance to say what they have in mind.
Breath of participation
• Watch for people who seem to be trying to get into the discussion but haven’t managed—or who were trying but seem to have given up—and explicitly invite them in.
• Dialogues between a couple of people can be useful because they are often focused and can help to define issues, but they shouldn’t go on too long because they leave most of the class sitting back listening and not working to articulate their own views. If you think a dialogue has gone on long enough but it’s not yet time to leave the topic, try explicitly inviting others to comment on what the parties to the exchange have been saying.
• Watch for people who are not participating at all, and look for opportunities to invite them to join in. Although not everyone will have a lot to say about everything we discuss, there are some questions about which nearly everyone will have a little to say. Directing a question to a particular person by name is perfectly OK. Don’t worry about putting them on the spot: questions in discussions are invitations to comment, not demands for an answer.
Depth of participation
• If someone has asked a question that does not seem to have been answered you might check with them to seem if it has. This is a way of making sure that everything they had in mind when they asked it has come out in discussion.
• If someone says something but doesn’t elaborate—or the discussion moves on before they have a chance to—ask them to say more about what they were thinking. People often don’t say everything they have to say on a topic immediately and are ready to say more when they are invited to do so.
Things like these are an especially important part of your participation in discussion when you are a monitor (but not the only part: you can join in the discussion, too). However, don’t take the quality of the discussion on a day you are monitor to be a measure of your success: the quality of a discussion is affected by many things that are outside your control. Remember also, both when you are monitor and when you are not, that it is not the monitors’ responsibility alone to help make the discussion as good as it can be; it is everyone’s responsibility always. And that means that the suggestions above apply to everyone in every discussion; you simply give more attention to them when you are a monitor.