During a Socratic Seminar, the familiar feeling of a peer sitting in silence, gripping their pen, mind racing as they try to formulate a response, is a shared experience. They want to jump in, believing that they have something valuable to say. But as their classmates debate, and words quickly bounce off one another with ease, they can’t bring themselves to speak. By the time they muster the courage, the conversation has shifted.
This is a reality that many students experience in school, particularly those who struggle with social anxiety and those who are simply more introverted. Yet many curriculum — particularly literature classes — enforce participation grades. This is often a system that evaluates students based on the frequency of their engagement and quality of their insights.
Unfortunately, while some classes are able to find a healthy balance between these two factors, with a greater emphasis put on quality, others prioritize handing out points based on the number of times students speak, seeing it as a greater reflection of overall participation. This often results in a learning environment that induces anxiety in adolescents who feel pressured to speak up more.
Participation grades, when excessively tied to frequency of speech, disproportionately harm quieter students. Being expected to routinely talk in front of the class to have a higher chance of receiving an A forces students into a high-pressure scenario in which their focus shifts from meaningful discussion to hastily attempting to contribute to the conversation. For those who experience anxiety, this pressure may manifest physically — shaking hands, nausea, a racing heartbeat — yet their reluctance to speak is often dismissed as simply needing to “step out of their comfort zone.” But discomfort is not always conducive to growth, and forced participation does not build confidence — it reinforces fear.
Beyond anxiety, participation grades may fail to accurately reflect a student’s knowledge or effort. Grading students based on if and how often they participate can reward students who make many surface-level remarks with top scores, while disadvantaging those who make fewer but higher-quality remarks. Even though these quieter students may not be directly penalized by their silence, it further creates an unfair grading structure where frequent contributions in some classrooms can compensate for a lack of depth and analysis in responses. This creates a system that rewards performance rather than comprehension, contributing to a warped sense of learning and even grade inflation.
Additionally, such participation grades can turn discussions into competitions, furthering toxicity amongst peers. In classrooms where speaking time or frequency is reflected in one’s level of participation, students scramble to interject, prioritizing air time over meaningful contribution. This dynamic makes it even harder for quieter students to find an opening, further alienating those who already struggle to participate. In fact, 76% of MVHS students have struggled to participate in a discussion due to feeling unable to find an opening to jump into the conversation.
While inviting a quieter student into the discussion to talk can be beneficial for students, also allowing the inviters to earn extra participation points, it may at times inadvertently cause students to feel singled out. Moreover, often the added pressure of how and when to speak deviates the purpose of discussions away from intellectual exchange between peers, and instead towards academic survival.
This bias toward extroversion in academic settings raises an important question: Should participation be measured by how often a student speaks in front of the entire class? Some argue that without participation grades, students wouldn’t talk at all and, therefore, will remain stagnant in their extreme introversion. But forcing speech isn’t the only way to encourage engagement.
A greater emphasis on alternative participation methods that value verbal contributions — such as table group and partner-based discussions — allow students to engage in ways that suit their comfort levels. Moreover, a more inclusive approach could involve a “no harm” participation policy, where contributing can boost a student’s grade but not harm it if they struggle to speak up frequently. And redemption opportunities would provide a safety net for students who need further accommodations before experiencing a hit to their grade. Such strategies have already been implemented for example in our AP English Literature courses, though do not exist within all classrooms, particularly those for underclassmen — often the ones who struggle the most with public speaking due to a lack of experience.
This isn’t to say participation grades should disappear entirely. However, they should evolve to remove the “quantity” aspect of engagement that fits students into a preconceived box. Classrooms should be spaces that cultivate and value both speakers and listeners, recognizing that discussion is not just about who speaks the most, but about the collective exchange of ideas. A balanced learning environment acknowledges that engagement comes in many forms — and that true participation isn’t measured by decibels or frequency but by depth.
