Description of the Civil Dialogue® Format Setting. A Civil Dialogue (CD) event can take place in a variety of settings, from classrooms to small theatres, to living rooms. The room should be arranged into a “stage” area and an “audience” area. On stage, five chairs are set in a tight semi-circle so that the participants are in a position to talk to each other as well as to the facilitator and to the audience. The facilitator’s chair is placed at the open end of the semi-circle, facing the participants of the dialogue. The fact checker should be placed in close proximity to the dialogue participants and facilitator. The host should be in a position to monitor the audience and communicate to the facilitator and/or fact checker if needed. Neutral/Undecided Agree Somewhat
Disagree Somewhat
Agree Strongly
Disagree Strongly Facilitator
Information Source Host
It is helpful to have large placards on the chairs or behind the chairs on easels (we use music stands) to help the audience identify each position. It can also be helpful to print twosided placards that allow discussion participants a choice. “Neutral” and “Undecided” for example, are different positions, although both logically fall in the center of the spectrum. Printing “Neutral” on one side of the placard and “Undecided” on the other gives participants an 1
opportunity to specify one position or the other. It is sometimes a challenge to find participants who are willing to engage the dialogue from an extreme position. Making the “Strongly Agree” and “Strongly Disagree” placard reversible, with the other side marked “Agree” or “Disagree,” might encourage participation. Even without placards, the facilitator can verbally declare the center chair as either “Neutral” or “Undecided,” and can redefine a “Strongly” chair.
Pre-show. A pre-show is not required, but audiences have responded warmly to pre-show PowerPoint displays of quotes about democracy and dialogue from politicians, civic leaders and satirists, both historical and contemporary. Additionally, you may want to offer audiences a slide show with general information about the topic so that they feel more prepared and invested in the dialogue. Program/handout. Providing a program can be helpful in a number of ways. It can provide audience members a place to take notes during a session of CD (We recommend having pencils available), it can offer an outline of the sequence of steps that take place in each round of CD, note the “rules” of CD, and provide suggested reading and/or follow up action items that encourage dialogue beyond having attended a session of CD. We suggest not printing the wording of the topics to be discussed, as those who arrive early should not have time to preplan their arguments. CD encourages spontaneous dialogue as opposed to a planned strategy.
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