To
Discuss
When you are asked to discuss something in the class
forum, what exactly does "discuss" mean?
For our purposes here, discussing a topic will
mean having a back and forth, give and take, conversation among class
members about the topic or reading in question. It will mean having
a dialog, or "multilog," involving any interested parties
in the class.
So when you post a message in a class discussion,
your message might do one or more of the following. It might:
- Simply summarize some of what you see the author
or lecture saying Pick out a salient point or two that caught your
attention, summarize it, and say what you think about it
- Pick out something you have a question about,
quote it, and ask others in class what they think it means
- Respond to a question or comment that others
have posted
- Attempt to re-phrase some point the author has
made in order to make it more clear; then see if others in class agree
that you've caught the sense of the passage
See "evaluating your
own discussion contributions" for more ways you can contribute
to discussions
Suggestions
It is probably wise to be careful about making
negative judgments about a reading too hastily; it would be important
to understand the author well before being too critical; but after you
understand it, critiques are perfectly acceptable, as long as they leave
plenty of room for others in the class to disagree with you.
It is probably a good idea, in general (though
not always), to include only one major idea, theme, or question in a
message. So you may want to post more than one message for more than
one idea.
See: How
to evaluate your own discussion contributions