Grouping for Engagement

During a unit on the moral philosophy of Machiavelli, I noticed my students were evenly divided around whether they supported or opposed Machiavelli’s ideas. I hoped this split would lead to an engaging classwide conversation at the end of the unit. I wanted to make sure students were digging deeply into the ideas, and that all students felt prepared to contribute–especially the students in my class who usually do not participate in discussions. To help students prepare for the discussion, I created a packet with primary source documents and probing questions for them to work on in groups. While I thought the content of the packet was accessible and thought-provoking, I was not sure how to organize the groups to promote engagement. On the one hand, I could make heterogeneous groups with students who felt differently about Machiavelli’s philosophy to spark debate within the small groups. On the other, I could place students in homogenous groups with classmates who felt the same way about Machiavelli’s ideas so that they could dig deeper into their reasons why they felt this way. On top of this, I wasn’t sure if I should pair quieter students with more talkative students to encourage participation, or if that would just lead to the talkative students dominating the small-group work. If the quieter students were all grouped together, would the awkward silence compel them to participate, or just lead them to work on the documents individually?  I put a lot of time and thought into the packet, and I wanted to make sure the small groups were planned in a way that would best prepare students for the upcoming class-wide discussion.