Our book club compared two different discussion formats and the first one was a total disaster

We tried doing a free-for-all discussion on 'The House in the Cerulean Sea' and it was chaos. People talked over each other, we spent 20 minutes on one chapter, and three members left early. Last month I suggested we use a timed round-robin format where each person gets 5 minutes to share their thoughts before opening the floor. It totally changed everything. We actually finished discussing the whole book in 90 minutes and even had time for snacks. Has anyone else struggled with keeping book club debates on track?

2 comments

2 Comments

lucas_price8318d ago

That "free-for-all turned into chaos" part hit close to home - we tried that once and it was just the loudest three people talking for an hour. Did the 5 minute timer feel super rigid or did people actually stick to it?

sean_martin4417d ago

@lucas_price83 I actually think the timer helped more than it hurt. Yeah it felt kinda strict at first but it forced people to actually get to the point instead of rambling. We had a rule where you could pass your remaining time to someone else if you finished early, which cut down on the awkward silence thing. The loud people still talked but they had to wrap it up after 5 mins instead of dominating forever.