Exploration of Discussion Strategies

In looking at different techniques and strategies for discussions this week, I decided to dig deeper into “thunks,” “pose-pause-pounce-bounce,” “question wall,” and “golden lines.” I had never heard of the first two before this week, and didn’t know a lot about the latter two.

Three "Thunks"

 Thunks are an excellent way to get students thinking about situations that may appear to be simple but are actually quite complex. We’ve all heard at least one thunk—some of the most common are, “Which came first—the chicken or the egg?” or “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?” The thing about thunks is that they help students to look at the shades of gray that are embedded in issues that they might think are black and white. The world is a complex place, but we can use these seemingly simple questions to start to understand its depth. I can completely see myself using these to tackle hot-button topics (related, of course, to whatever we’re reading at the moment) that might get short-changed because people have too cut-and-dried of an opinion on them. I can also have students generate these kinds of questions about their readings, to see if they can stump their colleagues or not.

Pose-pause-pounce-bounce seems like it’s a great discussion technique to use with a highly energetic and competitive class, because once the pouncing happens, the pace seems like it’s fairly quick. It works like this: the teacher poses a question, then pauses for at least ten seconds (usually more—waiting until it looks like folks are ready to respond), in order to give students time to think out a response. When the wait time is up, the teacher pounces on a student who doesn’t normally answer a question first and may or may not know. Once Student X has answered, the question gets “bounced” to Student Y, either to agree or disagree, and to explain why. This seems like a great way to get more students involved in a discussion, but I would not start out a class using this technique if I have students who are identified for anxiety. If I had given them a heads-up that they’d be called on after a certain number of people have responded, then I might use the technique—it depends on how safe they feel in my class, how much they trust me, and how much they trust each other.

As for the question wall, I had heard of it, but I didn’t realize that there were so many ways to use it, such as combining the idea of exit tickets with the question wall. In this iteration, students write a question on their Post-Its, which they then add to the question wall on their way to their next class. What I like about the question wall is that it gives students a visual representation of what their classmates are thinking about, the things that everyone wants to know. Students often feel “dumb” or “stupid” if they ask a question in class, because they think they’re supposed to know everything already. They fear that people will make fun of them for asking a question, or that they’re going to fail at something. What they don’t realize is that questioning is part of learning, and that they learn more from failing than they do with immediately having the right answer. With the question wall technique in place, students realize that they ALL have questions, and that ALL of the questions are valid (as long as they are school-appropriate, of course). This can be a real confidence and self-esteem booster for kids and help them to realize that they’re all here to learn something together. It may be clichéd to say that the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask, but there is certainly truth to that idea.

Finally, I can see myself using “golden lines” with any text. When students have to choose a line or a passage that spoke to them and then talk about that passage in front of the class, it gives them the opportunity to think deeply and reflect on why that line or passage is important. It could be something that students connect to personally, it could be a commentary on the text itself, it could be anything—and that’s the point. Once students start sharing what jumps out at them, this can really get a discussion going, because students can find out whether other people chose the same lines or passages.