"Alternatives to teacher-led Discussion" two words in there mean everything-'alternatives' and 'discussion'

 If a person asked me to sum up what a teacher-led discussion is (based on Smagorinsky) I would describe it as a 3-step-process.

• Step one: Teacher initiating a question/remark
• Step two: Student responding to question/remark
• Step three: Teacher elaborating/explaining further 

 Easy to understand, yes. Helpful, yes. However, I agree with Jim Marshall (referenced by Smagorinsky,) teachers should not fully take control in learning. A discussion is a two way street and students should have more of a contribution then just responding. As I read through Chapter 2 of Teaching English by Design I wrote notes on how I would personally apply these activities in my classroom. Many of these activities I have done in the past, whether it be in high school or college, and I have found them beneficial to my learning of a particular concept and/or in general. I'd like to think of this chapter as Smagorinsky being the owner of a candy shop and we, the readers (teachers,) are holding our plastic bags deciding which candy to buy and how to separate them in each bag. Yes, I created my own analogy thanks to all of his. The candy is the list of activities and explanations given aka the "alternatives" and how we organize them is up to us as teachers.

 For example, I personally found Informal Writing as the Basis for Discussion, Text Rendering, Webquest, and Discussion Web as great Bell Ringers and activities to start off the class with. These activities all do different things, but serve the purpose of getting students to think and have some type of knowledge of what will soon come in the lesson of the day. 

 Next, I would like to identify a few activities that I personally have done and how I would moderate them for my students. The Talk Show Format is a very entertaining activity that will get all students full participation because it is fairly easy to do. Because of how easy it is I would chose to have students do this activity while covering a harder text like Shakespeare because it will help make more sense of the conflicts and events in the plays, also, get a better understanding of character relationships. Similar to this activity, Freeze Frames is an activity that gives "students an opportunity to choose an event or scene from a literary work, decide why they consider it important, design a new interpretation of it in a new setting, title it, and perform it" (Smagorinsky 42.) I have done this activity in my English 489 methods class corresponding to the play The Crucible and it does allow students to discuss the literature  in relation to what they know best, in their own language, and into their own rendition. I have also used The Crucible in my American Literature class in high school to do the activity Planning a Movie Based on the Text, so these activities are timeless.