Moderators

While a chair will introduce each session and its participants, moderators are responsible for facilitating the Q & A at the end of the sessions. The faculty moderators’ tasks look very much like the work they do in the classroom: fostering discussion that leads to deeper understanding of the works. Moderators allow convention attendees—both those in the audience and the presenters, whom they should encourage to ask questions of each other—to dictate the direction of the discussion. Because sessions are limited to 75 minutes, moderators also keep time, so that no participant exceeds the 15-minute time limit.

Moderators for regular paper sessions are usually faculty members, since alumni members are eligible as presenters in those sessions. Alumni or faculty can serve as moderators of roundtables.

Suggestions

Strategies for Constructing Discussion Questions