9 Components of a Book Discussion: Supporting Community for Teachers

Support can be beautiful (Photo by Neil Thomas on Unsplash)

Two teacher blogs in my email inbox yesterday were on establishing classroom community for students. We know students flourish in community. People are created for community, in the image of God who used first person plural pronouns to talk about making people in that image. But while teachers are creating community for students, how do the teachers themselves experience community? One answer is with professional book discussions. Last week I wrote about the book discussion I’d just finished—mostly about what and how I learned from it. Someone asked if I had a blog post about how to lead a book discussion. I didn’t. I’m remedying that today.

The short answer is choose a book, invite participants to a venue, and facilitate a discussion with clear expectations, scaffolding, and context. I’m sure there are a variety of successful ways to have a professional book discussion, and this is the one I have developed over the last 15+ years. I’ll explain a little more about each of the 9 components.

Choose a book: One that is practical, applicable to a wide variety of subject areas and/or grade levels, and connects to a school wide goal. I’ve enjoyed discussing project-based learning or essential questions with teachers spanning kindergarten, middle school social studies, and high school math. (See the end of last week’s post for a list of some of the books I’ve facilitated discussions on.) 

Invite: Everyone in the school or department. Advertise widely and repeatedly, in staff meetings and emails, selling why this is a great opportunity and what participants will gain from it. I will also talk to individuals who I think might be especially interested, but I’ve generally had more success with open invitations than limiting it to a hand-picked membership, and with making it optional rather than mandatory. 

Participants (a): How many? In addition to myself as facilitator, I’ve done it with as few as 2 (actually, once I did a weekly coffee date with a colleague who was never available at the group meeting time). And I’ve done it with as many as 14 (in my apartment) or 25 (in a staff meeting, though that may be a slightly different story). Larger groups can be broken into smaller groups, like a class, for different discussions. 

Participants (b): Can administrators participate? Or will that make teachers reticent to participate? Maybe it depends on the administrator, but I’ve always found it really helpful when administrators participate. Teachers see them learning, and they see teachers learning. We are part of a learning community together, knowing, supporting, and applauding each other’s efforts toward a common goal. If admin are teaching, they can apply it to that class. If they aren’t, they can often apply the teaching strategy to their work with teachers as their “students.” 

To a venue: A hospitable space where people come to know and be known. My best memories are of discussions held in my house or apartment because, I think, it strengthened the community feeling. I could welcome people into a space I had prepared for them, with food and drink I had prepared for them, and invite them to spend a few minutes unwinding from the school day and connecting with each other while we gathered. When it hasn’t been possible to do that for a variety of reasons, including this past pandemic year, I’ve done my best to still play the host, being in the meeting room early, having it set up ahead of time so I could welcome people into it, and starting with a check-in question like “What was a high/low of your day/week?”

Facilitate: This verb is central to how I want to experience learning as an adult. I suppose it’s no accident that the first professional books I had discussions for were on reading strategies and collaboration, and I applied what I learned not only to my classes, but also to the book discussions themselves. The goal of the discussion is for participants to deeply process the reading. This happens when they are actively engaged in discussion—noticing, questioning, responding, elaborating, comparing, evaluating, applying—not when they are listening to a lecture. The facilitator should be the chief model of learning, demonstrating the kind of engagement desired, but also being very aware of the goal of facilitating the group’s learning rather than showcasing his or her own. (Preaching to myself here—I know I can easily talk too much.) Just like in class, it’s important to establish a protocol of universal participation, to have a few thought-provoking, open-ended questions up one’s sleeve, to be comfortable with extended wait time, and to feel free to demonstrate genuine curiosity by inviting input from quieter individuals by name. 

A discussion: Frameworks that work well include Connect-Extend-Challenge from Harvard’s Project Zero, or reading strategies like ask questions, make connections, evaluate, synthesize, apply.

With clear expectations: Participants will read ahead of time and come prepared to discuss their reading. They will also have implemented one idea from the previous discussion and come prepared to report on how it went.

With clear...scaffolding: You might think that participants are all professional adults, so they don’t need scaffolding—and you’d be wrong. All learners need scaffolding to get to the next level. Especially as adults, we are so busy with so many priorities that every aid to focus helps. Think of it as making it as easy as possible for participants to meet the expectations. Time and reminders help, such as...

• Time at the end of each discussion for participants to choose an implementation goal and write it on a post-it note, which I collect. 
• Time at the beginning of each discussion for participants to report on their implementation goal. This is low-stakes, but there. Sometimes the report is “I didn’t get to it, but I want to try again next week” or “I didn’t get to it, but I did do this other thing from the discussion.” The group response is supportive—we’ve all been there. 
• Email the day before to remind participants of the implementation step they are going to report on and the pages they will be prepared to discuss. 
• Email afterwards to document for participants the implementation step they chose, debrief highlights of the discussion, and remind them of the pages to read and prepare to discuss for next week. 

With clear...context: Purpose is the biggest human motivator, and I keep reminding myself and my colleagues of the purpose of all this activity: students achieving our dreams for them. Key places I can do this are at the beginning and ending of meetings and of emails. How does the book topic fit into my school’s vision and goals for students? I’m thankful that a writer has invested the time in compiling their experience, research, and wisdom in a book. I’m thankful for colleagues who choose to invest their time in exploring a book together in order to help students grow. I’m thankful that God has given that wisdom, time, and opportunity—and I pray that God will establish the work of our minds and hands to help us even more effectively unfold all our students’ potential.

I’m thankful for the time I’ve had to think all this through and put it down here. I’m thankful for all the wise educators in the world who have written books. I’m thankful to all the colleagues through the years who have participated in professional book discussions with me. I’m thankful for all the students with whom God has allowed me to explore the wonderful world of thought, language, and literature. I pray that God will establish the work of your mind and hands, too, and make you a blessing to your students, and give you community in which to flourish. And if this blog has been a part of that, well, then, I'm thankful for that, too.