Since I last posted about my constructivist discussion (where students took on most of the authority), I have yet to return to that model. Old habits die hard. But this past Monday I decided I wanted to give it a whirl--particularly because the classroom dynamic has gotten more conversational in the past couple of weeks.
However, rather than a lack of discussion, we had an overabundance of it. Much of this had to do with the fact that the conversation moved away from the essays for the day and towards a more general conversation. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since I consider discussion on the composition level to be about the practice of articulating ideas, rather than understanding specific elements from each text.
The problem that arose this time is that rather than turn to me as the authority in the classroom, two students emerged as the discussion leaders. As the two most vocal in the class, students naturally turned to them and those students in turn took on the authority of discussion leadership. I eventually had to step in and bring some other students into the discussion. I'm currently thinking of ways to prevent this from happening again, though it's a vast improvement over silence.
