21 Redirecting Conversations

There might be times when students take discussions in undesirable directions. Instructors should be prepared to redirect the conversation in a respectful manner. It is also worth establishing guidelines for dialog with the students early in the semester to help students understand what is expected of them in class conversations and how they might resolve difficult situations. If this is something you work on with the students, they will have better buy-in to the process as a whole. (You may also want to reference the Dialogue and Race, Gender, Class, and Sexuality sections of this guide as well.)

• Instructors can respond to off-topic conversations by saying that, while interesting, they aren’t sure how the comment is related to the topic at hand. One can then invite the student or other students to make the connection if there is one. (This often happens when students want to talk about things happening inside the prison.)
• If the content is emotionally charged for you, you can give yourself additional time to think by indicating that the content might be emotionally charged for others as well and asking if anyone else would like to respond or reframe what the student has brought up.
• If you observe the content is emotionally charged for other students, try to reframe what is being said and also validate why some students might have reacted emotionally. In some cases, the student simply isn’t aware of how their words will affect others. In other cases, the student is trying to rile people up.
• Occasionally, an instructor will simply need to shut down a conversation that gets out of control.

In Poetry class, a student made claims (with some bravado attached) that everyone knew that Donald Trump did a good job until the final three months of his presidency. The classroom erupted with comments, and the conversation quickly got heated. In this case, the instructor had to raise her voice, saying “Enough. No politics. Let’s get back to poetry.” Everyone knew why they were in the class, so this abrupt transition back to class seemed appropriate.