Roundtable Questions - Advice for Preparation

Hello, everyone.

I have enjoyed gathering your questions in advance of tomorrow's Community Partners Roundtable with Boys and Girls Clubs and Girls Incorporated. I anticipate some energetic, engaged discussion, not only about what each of our Community Partners does in terms of youth development and gender equity, but also in response to our very rich readings by Joan Brumberg and Jane Quinn.

Some patterns are emerging in your questions that I'd like to address, primarily to offer advice on how to prepare full and useful questions for the remaining Roundtables. To be clear, no question is ever a "bad" question, and our Community Partners will likely have responses to all questions; however, for our purposes, I encourage you to develop specific questions from the readings whose lifecycle extends beyond tomorrow's class so that you can become well-versed in our readings before the Positioning Essay. I offer the following guidelines:

1. Articulate where the question originated for you, i.e., in a personal experience, in another class, or in an article you read for this class. Reference the source of your question as specifically as possible. For example, if your question was inspired by a particular passage or a particular term in Quinn's article, then quote and cite as much of the passage as necessary to help us understand how the question grew from it.
2. Try to avoid asking vague and broad questions, i.e., questions that involve "yes/no" responses, questions that are simple matters of opinion, or questions that you could ask of anyone, regardless of their experience. Instead, try to formulate questions that you think only our Community Partners could answer.
3. Try to avoid asking non-questions, or questions that have obvious answers, especially if those answers can be found in the articles we read for that day. Instead, take this opportunity to notice gaps, dissonances, or unresolved issues that you could only notice because of what you read.
4. Think of your questions as helping to bridge the gap between what you read, what our Community Partners do, and your own curiosities.

See you in class tomorrow,

-Professor Graban