One Way to Begin: Simple Circle Discussions

The first kind of Student-Led Discussion (SLD) I use each year is a Simple Circle Discussion. As I wrote earlier, I got the idea from Terry Falsani. Sitting in a circle, the students must sustain respectful conversation about the text, calling on each other to keep the discussion going while avoiding repetition. They must ask the group's permission to change the topic, and they must engage with each other, not me.

For the first few sessions, I sit in the circle with the students, but I remove myself from the group as soon as I can. The students find it difficult, at first, to talk to each other. They keep looking to me for approval, sometimes addressing their comments to me. I remind them repeatedly that this is their conversation, not mine; that they are to look at each other, not me.

When I'm no longer in the circle with them, I can walk around its edge, monitoring the students' laptop screens, because they have their reading journals open. After I catch a couple folks using their laptops inappropriately, the students realize they need to stay on task.

The students tend to want to call on their friends during the discussion. I tell them they are to call on people we haven't heard from yet or recently. I remind them to look all the way around the circle for raised hands before they call on anyone. If a student with a hand up is being ignored, I will interject with a "Call on X!" comment.

Although at first we begin by raising hands and waiting to be called on, I tell the students that the goal is to get beyond that stage to something that resembles free-flowing conversation. It takes many sessions of practice to arrive at that stage.

Class roster with point-totals,
as it appears in ClassDojo.
I could use photos of my
students instead of avatars.

I start grading the second Simple Circle session. I tell the students that I'm looking for 5 significant contributions from each of them. I define such a contribution as a good, open-ended question, a thoughtful response to a question, or a comment about the meaning or style of the text. I let them know that I want all contributions to be quotation-based, so we start by letting passages from the text inspire questions and support responses.

As the students converse, I am tracking their participation on my phone, using the ClassDojo app. (Yes, the app is designed for the primary grades, but it is a quick and easy tracking tool. You can customize it to track whatever positive and negative behaviors you define. I keep it pretty simple.)

Here's what it looks like when I'm
about to give a student a point.

When a student reaches the 5-point mark, I give that student a signal that means "you have to be quiet now." It's important not to let the more talkative students dominate the discussion. Putting a limit on their contributions makes room for quieter students to speak up, though they may be reluctant at first to do so. 

When we start having Simple Circle Discussions (SCDs), I do have to sit through many awkward pauses. I've written about this before. I know from experience that if I'm silent now, I'll be rewarded with self-sustaining discussions later.

While I might have to sacrifice some ideas by shutting down the more assertive students, I am often surprised at how the class ends up touching on many of the main points I want to hit. Over time, they get better at this, and I can always make sure we get to those ideas later, through pre- and post-discussion assessments. It's important to realize, however, that the students must develop a sense of ownership; otherwise, these discussions will never be authentic.

Eventually, after most of the students have approached or achieved the 5-point mark, I allow the "muted" students to speak again (I use a hand signal for this, too).

I speak only if absolutely necessary to supply missing information, correct missunderstandings, and redirect stagnant lines of inquiry. Sometimes, I can do this silently by slipping notes to shy students or holding up a sign.

At the end of the session, it helps to give the class some feedback and some pointers about what to work on and how to prepare better for next time.

Below is a clip of a SCD I had filmed back in September of 2014 (see a larger portion of the video here). It was only our 4th discussion of the year, so it should give you a sense of where we start. We were discussing Stephen King's "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption." The students had gotten bogged down in some unimportant issues, and to shake them up a bit, I held up a sign that said "Ask BIG questions!" You'll see the students looking toward me to read the sign. And then the discussion does get a bit better after that point.

"This is kind of a big question."

Even though the pacing was slow, and the students wasted time on some lesser issues, there were also some bright spots. Without prompting, the students made a connection between prisons and schools. I had planned to ask them to think in this way, but they came to this point on their own--I just had to be patient.

I'll describe some variations on SCDs and address the advantages and disadvantages of this discussion format in a future post.

Please let me know what you think in the comments!