Participating in a discussion involves thinking on two levels. On the first level is thought 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 leader, 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.
However, you have no special authority or power to direct the discussion when you are co-leader: it is always 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 co-lead a couple of 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 co-leader.
While I cannot give you an exhaustive list of things you might think about and things you might do when you are a co-leader, here are a few suggestions.
• Come with a few questions to ask if discussion should die down at some point; and, as the discussion develops, watch for other questions that may help keep it alive.
• 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 material under discussion.)
• 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 it.
• Watch for people who are not participating at all, and look for opportunities to invite them to join in. Not everyone will have a lot to say about everything we discuss; but there are some questions about which everyone will have a little to say, and 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.
Things like these are an especially important part of your participation in discussion when you are a co-leader (but not the only part: you can join in the discussion, too). However, don’t assume that I will take the quality of the discussion to be the prime measure of the quality of your participation in those classes; the quality of a discussion is affected by many things that are outside your control. Remember also, both when you are co-leader and when you are not, that it is not the leaders’ responsibility alone to help make the discussion as good as it can be; it is everyone’s responsibility always.