While a chair will introduce each session and its participants, moderators are responsible for facilitating the Q & A at the end of the sessions. The faculty moderators’ tasks look very much like the work they do in the classroom: fostering discussion that leads to deeper understanding of the works. Moderators allow convention attendees—both those in the audience and the presenters, whom they should encourage to ask questions of each other—to dictate the direction of the discussion. Because sessions are limited to 75 minutes, moderators also keep time, so that no participant exceeds the 15-minute time limit.
Moderators for regular paper sessions are faculty members, since alumni members are eligible as presenters in those sessions. Alumni or faculty can serve as moderators of roundtables.
Suggestions
- Well before your assigned session, check the time and location for your session (available in the 2019 Convention Program and the convention app). Last-minute changes to the schedule will be posted near the registration table.
- Arrive at your session at least five minutes prior to the beginning of the session.
- Before the session begins, introduce yourself to the chair and the presenters, check to see if all of them have arrived, and help your chair begin the session on time.
- Remind presenters that they have up to 15 minutes. Keep track of the time and, if needed, gently remind presenters when there is only a minute or two left.
- As time permits, facilitate a discussion of the works with the presenters, the chair, and the audience. If the audience hesitates, be willing to step in with your own question(s), but yield the floor to session attendees and the presenters. If possible, make sure that each presenter is involved in the discussion even if you have to direct a question to her or him.
- Intervene if an audience member is dominating the discussion or is being rude or inappropriate. You are the “safety net” for the often nervous first-time presenters.
- Conclude the session by thanking the attendees and by asking for another round of applause for the presenters.
- If the chair does not arrive, please take on the duties of the chair. At your next opportunity, inform the staff at the registration table about the missing chair.
Strategies for Constructing Discussion Questions
- Listen for questions that the presenter’s work poses.
- Listen for key concepts and key words and use them in questions.
- Listen for the larger issues the work addresses and ask about the connection.
- Draw connections among and between presenters’ works.
- Draw on your own experience and knowledge related to the presentation subject matter.
- Ask what or who inspired or motivated the presenter to write that work or to write about that subject matter (Class? Teacher? Dream? Event?).
- Ask what authors influence the presenter’s writing.
- Ask what works of literature influence the presenter’s writing.
- Ask presenter to explain his or her use of ___________ in the work (symbolism, point of view, metaphor, dialogue, etc.).
- Ask what prompted the presenter to take that approach or to look at the subject matter in that way.
- Ask the presenter to describe her or his writing process.
- Ask presenters if they have any questions in mind that they are hoping to hear from their audience and ask them to respond to those questions.
