Spiegel, Dixie Lee (2005). Classroom Discussion: Strategies for Engaging All Students, Building Higher-Level Thinking Skills, and Strengthening Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum. New York: Scholastic.

“Preparing your class for discussion is challenging work!” (p. 84), Dixie Lee Spiegel exclaims early in her book Classroom Discussion. Whether you are a teacher already experienced with leading class discussion or one just starting out, the methods and suggestions outlined by Spiegel can help you implement discussion better. In this vein, every chapter provides tips on how to introduce and implement discussion. “Listening In” tips are suggestions for collecting and then reflecting on your own experiences or observations of other classrooms for use in future classes. My favorites, the “Discussion Stifler[s],” illustrate those things we teachers do and say that inadvertently stop discussion in its tracks and are, Spiegel exhorts, “ways not to teach!” (p. 8). Once we are aware of these unsuccessful practices, however, we can avoid them, replacing them with some of the numerous time-tested techniques Spiegel provides in the “Activity” sections.

For those skeptical about bringing discussion into the classroom, Chapters 1 and 2 provide the rationale that will have you busily adjusting your lesson plans to accommodate discussion. “Tracking My Thinking,” a worksheet reproduced in Appendix 9 (p. 138), is like a streamlined version of that rationale: through effective discussion students can shape one another’s thinking and “leave [the classroom] with new perspectives and meanings” (p. 101) to come to different, nuanced understandings of subjects. How do we know if discussion has been effective? In Chapter 6, Spiegel insists on teacher assessment of discussion to ensure that students are advancing their knowledge, and she provides a framework for assessment so that we “improve instruction and help students achieve goals” (p. 112). Additionally, the sample student worksheets reproduced throughout the text (and supplied in the Appendices) are evidence of the knowledge students can amass and the meaning students can make through discussion. The worksheets require students to chronicle what they have learned so their progress can be monitored and so students themselves “see the development of their ideas” (p. 108). The worksheets may be of special interest to teachers of writing-intensive courses for their idea-gathering potential.

As P. David Pearson writes in the text’s foreword, Spiegel has “gather[ed] in one place our collective knowledge, wisdom, and good advice about how to promote the sort of talk about text that creates access to academic success and personal insight for students” (p. 6). From the particulars of organizing small-group discussion to preparing students for the vocabulary they will encounter in a reading, Spiegel’s book details how to do it. Spiegel is meticulous, providing transcripts of classroom discussion; mini-lessons; demonstrations; worksheets; student journal entries; activities illustrating different approaches to promote and sustain classroom discussion; and quotations from students for support, all of which emphasize Spiegel’s aim to create a practical text for teachers. This book is not just a compilation of theories about class discussion, but living examples from real classrooms demonstrating student success. The book is geared toward middle school teachers, but I can imagine high school and even college instructors gleaning helpful advice. In short, any teacher, math, English, health, social studies, and science teacher alike, at any level, should feel fully prepared to initiate class discussion after reading this book.

One caveat: The amount of material may feel overwhelming, and I was sometimes confused by the page layout and organization within chapters. Fortuitously, in Appendix 13 (pp. 143-51) Spiegel suggests that teachers arrange a workshop during the school year to discuss and “try out ideas” (p. 143) from the book in their classrooms. Exchanging ideas and offering feedback from practice with the text seems like an effective and efficient way of sorting through the abundance of material covered in such detail.

Although the book may take a little extra effort to pore over, it is worth every bit of that effort! Wouldn't you like a classroom in which “discussion is more than superficial—when new information is brought to bear on the topic or question, comments are elaborated on, subtopics introduced, clarification is sought, and ideas are challenged or supported” (p. 123)? Spiegel makes too strong of a case in support of class discussion for us not to listen and use it ourselves.

Pages: 100     Price: $19.99     ISBN: 0-439-56757-2

Reviewed by Déirdre Carney, adjunct instructor of English at Montclair State University, Caldwell College, and William Paterson University, all in New Jersey. Ms. Carney earned an M.A. from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the Trinity College London Certificate in TESOL from Griffith College Dublin.