Discussion prompts for the chairperson
Suggestions for discussions and reading club course
How should you get started with a discussion about the book?
- Let one member of the group be responsible for making a presentation of the book based on reviews, author biographies, an analysis of the book, etc.
- Change the group’s chairperson from time to time
- Start with a quick round where everyone can give their first immediate experiences of the book
Suggestions for questions that could form discussion points
- What genre is it?
- The book's theme. What is the book about
- Subject
- Issues (how do they emerge, what are the central issues)
- Locations / environments described in the text
- Author
Why has the author chosen this topic?
- Motivation / aims
- background
- Have you read other books by the author, and how should this book be positioned amongst others in the author’s canon?
- Does this book remind you of any other books that you have read?
- have other authors written anything similar?
- What do you think about the language?
- Difficulty
- Is the book well written. And why / why not? Give examples.
- Personal characteristics (main character, secondary characters)
- How do you find the characters (trustworthy, sympathetic, etc.)
- The characters' roles in the novel
- The relationships between the characters
- What is the author’s message?
- The essence of the book, the conclusion
- How do you relate to the book?
- Agree, disagree
- Positively, negatively
- What kind of experience did the book give you?
- Excitement, joy, irritation, anger, etc.