The consensus seems to be that a good book club discussion should not aim for a verdict or consensus. The discussion facilitators should read deeply, annotating the piece, developing and asking questions to which they do not have definitive answers. Conversation should not stray too far from the reading assignment, but participants are encouraged to tie in related experiences and examples that promote relation and understanding. Facilitators have several types of inquiry from which to develop questions, but if the discussion seems to be perpetuating in the proper direction, there is no reason to cut it short in order to reach an imagines question/topic quota.
We had our own discussion of the assigned piece, "In the 21-st Century, Let's Ban (Paper) Books" by Marc Prensky; the class contributed discussion questions and Prof. Fonticharo guided the conversation. The piece is very provocative for those in our field, which made for many points of questioning. After just a little bit of discussion from our submitted questions, though, our mediator did a bit of "bird walking" (leading the discussion instead of taking more of a supportive role) in order to introduce the nature of the author into the group's consideration. While discussion leaders should refrain from lending too firm a hand to the helm, the work of the author outside of the piece on which we were focusing was of relevant consideration, and allowed for further discussion on the topic in a slightly larger scope. I will remember to learn about the author as another point of context in future readings.
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