In thinking about the different metaphorical “ecosystems” my class resembles, I’ve been thinking, as well, about hierarchies in the classroom. How, more often than not, some semblance of hierarchal order is consciously and unconsciously put into effect by the second week of class, beyond the standard student/teacher dichotomy. This comes about most directly by way of students who participate heavily in class from the get-go; from there a sort of social order is indirectly put into place in which we all know whose voice will be the loudest if not otherwise directed. I’m familiar with this from my own experiences as a student, and especially as a student who is more reserved in his participation. And going into the role of teacher, I wanted to understand how to engage students like that in a way that didn’t involve my forcing them to offer something up to the discussion in class by simply calling on them.

What I’ve found most effective, so far, is treating nearly all open discussions like an ongoing investigation, with questions that don’t necessarily have direct answers. In that way, I almost want to use a kind of court room setting to understand my classroom discussions. There are the aforementioned active students who primarily lead the conversations, who we can say are the “lawyer” figures here, the judge (me, though I’m not necessarily ruling on anything—just listening to the evidence from all parties), and then there are the witnesses who, though they don’t take up a majority of the conversation, nevertheless offer insight that is extremely valuable to our investigation. Often times, the lawyers in my class will direct us to the primary threads of a discussion; show us where we (where they) are most interested in going to figure out an investigation. From there, witnesses will come to the stand (students who hesitate to participate until they are sure that they have latched onto something concrete they are comfortable in remarking on) at which point the lawyers come back and add on to it.

An example of this is when we discussed Brandt. I offered the general perimeters of our investigation: how are sponsors of literacy influential to us? The lawyers immediately pointed to direct quoted evidence: the example of Little Leaguers sporting advertisements on their uniforms. From there, a solid place of discussion, I got a few witnesses who themselves were in similar positions as Brandt’s Little Leaguers, and offered their opinions/thoughts on whether this was a “positive” or “negative” force, which whipped back the lawyers who cited further evidence, and so on.

I’m fully aware this is a generalized and not entirely accurate portrayal, but I find it’s a useful way to think of classroom participation as an evolving, sporadic thing where surprises in the discussion are not only useful but necessary.