Took me 4 years to realize I was marking discussion questions all wrong in my book club

Ngl, I always wrote questions like 'What did you think of the main character?' or 'How did the ending make you feel?' Every meeting, people would just give one word answers and stare at their phones. Then last month, a new member asked me why I was asking such open ended junk. She showed me her old book club's format where they ask super specific stuff like 'Why did the narrator lie about the red coat on page 47?' or 'Do you think the author intended the storm in chapter 3 to symbolize the divorce?' Honest to god, it changed everything. Our last discussion went 90 minutes instead of 30. Has anyone else had their whole group dynamic shift just by rewording your prompts?

2 comments

2 Comments

finleyl5510d ago

That line about 'open ended junk' hit me HARD because I was doing the EXACT same thing. Asking 'what did you think' is basically asking people to do your job for you. You gotta lead them by the hand. Now I ask stuff like 'what was going through your head when the mom threw out the cake' or 'why do you think the dog ran away that night instead of morning'. Specific questions FORCE people to actually engage with the material instead of just shrugging.

benflores10d ago

You ever feel like you've been doing something wrong for years and just needed someone to call you out? @finleyl55, that specific question about the dog running away is genius. I switched mine up too, started asking stuff like "whose side are you on in that argument about the inheritance?" and suddenly people were yelling at each other over coffee. It's wild how changing a few words gets everyone to actually read the book instead of just pretending they did.