This practice requires me to continually adjust my approach to each text and prepare new material each time I teach a text, but it seems to pay off in student involvement and understanding. I circulate among the groups, to answer questions and help the groups focus their discussions. Using peer writing groups requires students to go through a drafting process in writing papers. In the next class meeting, I discuss the comments and my responses with the students. In the classroom, I exercise my authority and expertise by framing a set of intellectual issues through my choice of texts, the content of my lectures, the questions I pose, the assignments I devise, the advice I render, the grading criteria I establish.
Teaching is communication, and communication involves both transmission and reception.
This usually helps to set the tone for a collaborative, discussion-centered classroom. Notwithstanding the foregoing emphasis on presentations and performances, the core of my classes remains reading and writing. To that end, I've been using e-mail for student responses to the reading, and for my responses to early drafts of their writing. I like the opportunity e-mail gives me to individualize my communication with the students. Some need to be directed back to the reading or guided through a writing issue, while others who've grasped the reading or pulled their paper into reasonably good shape are ready for higher-level, more challenging discussions.