The Skillful Teacher

Opening Declaration of Speech Policy
In Chapter One I outline an opening declaration I make to students
in discussion-based courses that you might consider adapting in your
own class for the reasons described in the chapter.
Sentence Completion Exercise
One way to focus students on the topic at hand, and to ensure that
what gets talked about is in some way connected to their own con-
cerns, is to start the discussion session with a sentence completion
exercise. Students are asked to complete on their own whichever
of the following sentences seem appropriate.
What most struck me about the text we read to prepare for the
discussion today is . . .
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The question that I’d most like to ask the author(s) of the 
text is . . .
The idea I most take issue with in the text is . . .
The most crucial point in last week’s lecture was . . .
The part of the lecture/text that I felt made most sense to me
was . . .
The part of the lecture/text that I felt was most confusing was . . .
Students then form into small groups and read out the full sen-
tences to each other. As students hear each other’s responses, they jot
down whichever of their colleagues’ responses they would most like
to hear more about. After everyone has read out all their responses,
students can ask other students why they wrote what they did. Finally,
the small group members choose one or two responses to report out to
the whole class when the teacher calls the small groups back together.