A slight variation on our discussion method

Mr. Pessimistic

How about we make one of our quarterly discussion a debate style discussion.

We can select two books, on any one topic, that presents different opinions on said topic. Maybe we can all read the two books, or people can choose, or be assigned, which book to read and argue for.

Then we can see about getting BOTH authors into a chat!

The last part may be difficult due to schedules of the authors, but I really like the idea of having a discussion based on two books.

Of course...we would like AND NEED more participation in order for it to work best!

Any ideas or suggestions?

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Chris OConnor

Sounds like an interesting suggestion for when we have more active members. I'd say we need to about double our activity level for something like that to work.

We started out reading one book every month and then quickly changed to one every two months. After a year or so we slowed down even more and now do a book every quarter. The current pace seems perfect, so adding another book would almost be like going back in time and doubling our reading/discussion load. I'm just not sure enough members would find the time and energy to read two books per quarter, and they could easily conclude that any participation at all would always fall short of what we expect.

Chris

Mr. Pessimistic

Yeah...I also thought more participation would be necessary...

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Chris OConnor

Any ideas on where I can place a few text ads? I was thinking about college newspapers. Lets assume a budget of $100 only.

Chris

tarav

I like this idea, Nick. It might work better if one of the books chosen was a book already read by many members. If we put up a poll asking something like, "What book have you already read that you would like to compare/contast to___________[the other, newer book we want to debate]? Then, if enough people have read a certain book, it would win. Another idea is to choose a book we have already read at booktalk(a past poll winner). Then, have a poll that says something like, "What new book would you like to read that would stimulate debate on this past booktalk selection, __________[a past winner]? In this way, many of us wouldn't actually be reading two books at once. I guess this would still work best with more active members. I think that either of these ideas are a good way of going about it, whenever we decide to try doing two books.


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