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Teaching at SU
Campus Resources: Shared Reading

Facilitator Preparation
The key to leading an effective book discussion is ample preparation. As you read and prepare for the discussion, think about the issues and points that you want to include in the discussion and make notes or use post-its for material you may want to refer to during the discussion. Although an open discussion may move in some unexpected directions, plan a number of questions related to ideas that you want to mention, as well as some general questions for beginning the discussion. Also take some time to plan how you will conclude the discussion. Your job is to facilitate the discussion, not to defend the author or the book.

Beverly Tatum’s article, “Talking About Race, Learning about Racism: The Application of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom,” can help prepare you for understanding students’ responses during discussions related to race, and it also suggests some strategies for dealing with student resistance when racism is discussed.
Writing can be an effective way to get students to examine ideas from the book. Begin or end with students summarizing their thoughts and reactions or pose a question that forces students to probe some of the issues raised in the book.

Examples of some opening questions:

• What do you think the author hoped to accomplish by writing this book?
• What are the two most important issues that this book raises for you?
• Why do you think this book was selected for you to read?
• What idea or incident from the book impacted you most?
• Why did you like (dislike) the book?
• Will reading this book change your behavior in any way?

Discussion Goals
Students will:

• develop a better understanding (personal definition) of their “place” in society
• handle challenges to understand why they think and/or feel the way they do about the book
• articulate their personal perspective on a particular subject, recognizing there are multiple perspectives
• learn to use active listening techniques while engaging in group discussion
• understand and appreciate their differences and similarities
• model participation in civil discourse

Strategies for Facilitating the Discussion
Discussing issues from the book in depth, in a way that goes beyond “politically correct” responses from students is important and requires some planning. Students should have an opportunity to get acquainted with one another and with the instructor before plunging into a discussion of the book. Take time to establish a climate in which students feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas. Rather than discussing this book as the first class activity, it would be more appropriate to do some other preliminary activities or writing.

Before starting the discussion, set up some guidelines for discussing controversial ideas. These guidelines apply to both students and instructors.

• Encourage everyone to participate in the discussion so that it isn’t dominated by a few people
• Bring out all sides of an issue in an open-minded manner
• Respond to the speaker’s points and ideas, but don’t criticize the speaker
• Listen carefully even if you don’t agree with someone’s ideas
• Wait 10 seconds after someone speaks to give slower responders an opportunity to express their thoughts
• Avoid monopolizing the discussion
• Show understanding of other viewpoints

Even though you are using discussion guidelines, you may still have a student who says something that is extremely offensive to you or to other students in the class. Don’t let such comments slip by. Use the comment as a teachable moment to explain why the statement is offensive or inappropriate.

If someone makes an outrageous statement, you might turn it back to the group by asking, “Does everyone agree with Tom’s comment?” If no one responds, wait at least 10 seconds before calling on someone. Watch students’ faces for clues that they want to speak and agree or disagree. Then fill in gaps by summarizing or clarifying points that people have made during the discussion.

Note: Wilbert J. McKeachie’s Teaching Tips (2001) has a helpful chapter on “Organizing Effective Discussions.” The book is available at CSTL, Bird Library, and the Law Library.

Making Connections
Help students to see how the assigned reading fits within a broader context. You might connect ideas from the book to topics, questions, or issues from your course. You may also connect issues raised in the reading and in your discussion with upcoming campus events and activities. Additionally, you may connect book topics with current events and news stories.

The issues list below was developed by Rosanna Grassi, Associate Dean, Public Communications; it illustrates one person’s view of discussion or writing topics from Life on the Color Line. You may identify others.

¹Adapted from the Carolina Summer Reading Program and Michigan Technological University’s Reading as Inquiry program.

Sample Assignment 1
Life on the Color Line

Assignment type:	For discussion or writing.
Activities:	Read Life on the Color Line, Gregory Howard Williams
	View Episode One of Race—The Power of an Illusion, “The Difference Between Us.” This 3-part video series is also available in dvd format, both from the Center for Support of Teaching & Learning, 400 Ostrom Ave. Call 443-4572. Episode One runs 56 minutes.

Race—The Power of an Illusion challenges common assumptions about racial identity as biologically determined. After viewing Episode One, ask students to consider the following questions:

• What does Williams seem to be saying about the nature of racial identity?
• What do you understand to be the markers of “the color line” in Williams’ experience?
• What do you think Williams would say to the makers of Race—The Power of an Illusion?
• What are your reactions to Race—The Power of an Illusion?

Sample Assignment 2
Life on the Color Line

Assignment type:	Discussion or writing
Activities:	Read Life on the Color Line, Gregory Howard Williams
	Read White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh

McIntosh refers to “white privilege” as “an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.”

Discussion prompts:

• What examples of “white privilege” do you see in Williams’s book?
• What does Williams seem to be saying about “white privilege”?
• What examples of “white privilege” do you see in your own life?
• What other “privileges” do you see in the book or in your own experience?
• What are the personal and social costs associated with “white privilege”?

Writing assignment
Williams and McIntosh both raise important questions about opportunity in America and make provocative claims about the ways in which life experiences mark us as deserving of particular advantages—or not. Williams actually had the experience of living with one set of assumptions about his identity early on and another set of expectations later in Muncie. In the final pages of Life on the Color Line, he reflects on the fact that despite his professional success, the painful experiences of his early years remain with him. Does Williams have an “invisible knapsack” too? What might it contain? How does his knapsack function, by comparison, with McIntosh’s?

Additional Resources

"Talking About Race, Learning about Racism:
The Application of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom"
by Beverly Tatum

“White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”
by Peggy McIntosh

White privilege checklist
Twenty items from the Invisible Knapsack

White Privilege Shapes the U.S.
by Robert Jensen

Social Construction and the Concept of Race
by Edouard Machary and Luc Faucher

The Relationship of Parental Alcoholism and Family dysfunction to Stress Among College Students
by Kathy E. Fischer, Mark Kittleson, Roberta Ogletree, Kathleen Welshimer, Paula Woehlke, and John Benshoff
Journal of American College Health, January 2000, vol. 48

Race, the Floating Signifier, featuring Stuart Hall—Arguing against the biological interpretation of racial differences, Stuart Hall asks viewers to pay close attention to the cultural processes by and through which the visible differences of appearance come to stand for natural or biological properties of human beings. (DVD)

To reserve a copy please call:

E. S. Bird Library - Isabella Arezzo, Office Coordinator, Public Services – Library Media Support, x2438. Reference Call Number:  Video Cassette 7538.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Library - Angela Williams, MLK Librarian, x9349. Reference Call Number: Video Cassette 0329 or 0353.

The DVD is also available in 441 Hall of Languages. Contact Sandy Smith at x1414 or e-mail her at slsmit04@syr.edu.

Race: The Power of an Illusion (2003) challenges one of our most fundamental beliefs: that human beings come divided into a few distinct groups. This definitive three-part series is an eye-opening tale of how what we assume to be normal, commonsense, even scientific, is actually shaped by our history, social institutions, and cultural beliefs. Produced by California Newsreel in association with Independent Television Service.
• The Difference Between Us [Video-58 minutes]
• The Story We Tell [Video-58 minutes]
• The House We Live In [Video-58 minutes]

To reserve a copy, please call 443-4572 or e-mail Nancy Impelizzieri

Additional Websites:

The Writing Program at Syracuse University

Syracuse University Library--Resources for Life on the Color Line

Page last updated: Tuesday, January 23, 2007