How do you do your discussion meetings? Right now we do them in a group setting, but when my DD gets into R level next year I am not sure if group discussions will still work? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hey Jean,

I'm the facilitator of my TOG co-op's rhetoric/dialectic history discussion. We only have 5 students at those levels so we combine them. We are using Year 3. Many weeks the rhetoric students have a more European focus while dialectic students are concentrating on US history. Even so, it really has been going great. I map out the discussion, merging the two scripts (man, I wish I could cut and paste the DE teacher's notes :-/) There is often much in common. When there is discussion about a topic one level has not covered students listen and take notes. Sometimes they are able to participate. My rhetoric students didn't cover Texas history and yet both had something to add because they had studied it before.

Long story short, combining levels may be more work for the teacher, but it really does enrich the discussion when you have a small number of students.

Thank you, Karen! Good to know that it can be done.