Engaging Students with the Course Material

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Center your classroom activities around the materials. Ask for textual support for (nearly) every comment that's made in class. Setting this standard early on has made the preparation factor a non-issue for me. Students will come to class having read at least *something.* This works especially well if participation is part of their grade--they know they are expected to contribute to the discussion in productive ways. Always bringing the discussion back to the text grounds the terms for debate, and more than once it's helped to settle a heated philosophical or political disagreement.

I also talk honestly with my students about reading--the process as well as the content. I often tell my students up front that I know they have too much to read. I have too much to read. Part of the trick is knowing *how* to read effectively--something most of them do not know how to do. I'll usually spend a good amount of time helping students figure out strategies for reading and processing different material. In most cases, it's not necessary that they read every bloody word; it's more important that they read analytically and critically. Helping them to understand the difference has made a major difference in the quality of my students' work and discussions. So, for example, if they're assigned an article, one activity I'll do is to ask what they've underlined or highlighted. Asking this sets up the expectation that they actually engage with the text, and asking them about why they marked certain points helps me to understand how they're reading.

I have colleagues who begins every class with a "jeopardy" games and ungraded quizzes. The questions are "fact-based" ones that students should take away from the reading. It's fun and slightly competitive, and their students know that anyone is fair game to be called on for these types of question. As the section moves on, they uses more open-ended and analytical questions, which students are not specifically required to answer. Most of the time, though, students have read and thought about the material at least a little because they know they could be called on in the first part of class.

Another activity I use frequently is free-writing. I'll put a prompt on the board or read it out loud and have students write for 5 minutes or so. Sometimes I'll ask them to turn in what they've written, but usually we use it as a starting point for discussion. This free-write can also be collected for attendance on any given day. This allows more reflective students to formulate thoughts before you start asking questions, and they have something written down to support it. It also gives students who are totally unprepared a chance to at least skim the material for the day.

I'm also a fan of sending out questions in advance of class. I think one problem students have is that they never know what they're supposed to be reading for. Why did you assign it? What questions do you think students should be able to answer when they're done with their assigned reading? Again, I think it goes towards focusing students' energies. They have lots of classes and lots of material and they make choices about what to do. I think good teachers will help students make choices about what to read and how to read it.

I try to make participation as painless as possible, while holding my students to high standards. I also have to recognize that there will always be students who don't prepare or who don't really care--and I reserve the right to give them a corresponding grade. It also requires a level of humility to understand that shit happens, students have real lives and real problems, they have exams and other papers--sometimes your class will be at the bottom of the list. I think allowing for that is vital--you don't have to reward it, but being draconian rarely helps.