Participation in Class Discussions

The heart of this class is learning in community.

Therefore, by "participation," I mean something larger than simply speaking as many times as you can in each class session. Effective participation includes these components:

• Sharing your ideas and questions with the class. Sharing your ideas and questions has at least three functions. First, and most obviously, it gives you experience sharing your ideas and questions; doing that effectively will likely become a substantial part of your participation in work, family, and public communities for the rest of your life. Second, sharing your ideas and questions constitutes an early stage of the process of writing and revision. Sharing your thoughts in class and hearing how people respond often becomes the first step to enlarging those thoughts in a paper or presentation. Third, and most subtly, sharing your thoughts and questions helps develop the community of the classroom, which will become more open and inclusive when we see everyone taking part in our conversations.
• Creating space for your classmates to share their ideas and questions. For some students, the primary challenge of class participation is not speaking up but understanding when and how to make room for others to share their thoughts.
• Listening carefully and generously to the other people in the room. This last component of participation may be the most important of all. Sometimes, careful and generous listening will take the form of silent attention. Sometimes, it may take the form of verbal acknowledgement, saying something like "Nadia's comment helped me see something I hadn't noticed before on this page" or "I wonder whether we can connect Nadia's comment to the question Sahara was asking earlier."

I will do my best to model all of these components of effective participation and to structure our class sessions in ways that encourage them for everyone. I am also very happy to work with any student on techniques that will help develop the skills of effective participation.