16 Strategies to Re-railing the Conversation on Race

It’s important to prepare students to focus their attention during the discussion on conversing with each other, rather than with the teacher/facilitator. Students are likely to focus their attention and body language on the teacher rather than on each other. As the seminar facilitator, teachers should remind students to maintain eye contact with each other when speaking. Just as students should be regularly reminded of classroom routines and procedures, they are likely to need these reminders during seminar discussions as well. Over time, students should be better at directing their attention on one another during discourse as the teacher is able to serve as more of a facilitator as students become more comfortable with the seminar process. 

Autumn Brown and Danielle Sered (n.d.) provide 16 explicit strategies that can help get conversations about race back on track. Review the strategies in the document below and identify which ones would be the most useful in your classroom.

Consider making these strategies into an anchor chart you can hang in your classroom for students to reference.