Socratic Seminars

Photo Credit: Vecteezy.com


The second trimester of my AP Language and Composition class focuses on the art of synthesizing a claim based on information from multiple sources. Because of this overarching goal, I've implemented several trimester-long projects, one of them being Socratic Seminars. Here's how they work in my classroom:

Students are in charge of finding an article from a reputable source published within the past year, creating 6 higher order discussion questions, moderating the seminar, and kicking off the discussion with a quick, energizing activity. Students self-selected their groups and we have a Socratic Seminar every Monday.

Students LOVE this.

To help spread the wealth, I use Socratic SemiCARDS to encourage each classmate to add to the conversation. All of the RED cards need to be played first before students move on to YELLOW. Their goal is to have 100% of the class play their GREEN card. If they do, everyone get's 100%!

This activity is great for a number of reasons, but I love the way the conversation grows, shifts, and transforms into a more complicated version of itself. In fact, our Socratic Seminar this week was about why cartoon villains always have foreign accents. It led to an amazing conversation about race and psychology, but it's clear that some students just didn't understand the correlation. Since one of the main points in the article was about the characters of Scar and Mufasa from Disney's The Lion King, I decided to take that theme and run with it all week!

We'll be watching The Lion King and analyzing each character's design and accent in search of any hidden meaning inspired by the article and our discussion. I even plan on running them through a mini Rhetorical Analysis of Scar's song, "Be Prepared" in conjunction with a conversation about Nazi imagery in Scar's regime.

Socratic Seminars helped my students to establish their understanding on this deep topic, and inspired us to take the conversation further to learn more.

Thanks, Socrates!

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 6, 2018 at 11:16 AM

    "why cartoon villains always have foreign accents. It led to an amazing conversation about race and psychology, but it's clear that some students just didn't understand the correlation"

    I LOVE THIS!!!! Sometimes we forget how lucky we are to teach high school Language Arts because we are able to take something from their childhood and then make them REALLY dig deep and then all of sudden "they get woke" on the Lion King. Way to slay :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 11, 2018 at 6:07 AM

    I like how you use the color coded cards as a way to make sure everyone is participating. It is a quick and easy way for you to keep track of everyone's progress. This seems like a great way to encourage conversation and questioning amongst your students. Does this summarization technique work just as well with your 9th grade classes?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 14, 2018 at 3:40 PM

    How do you come up with the topics for discussion each week? Are they directly connected to whatever else you are reading or working on?

    I use the cards I got from AVID which I love, and sometimes a roles cheatsheet version I used when I student taught for Deb's Honors and AP Language and Composition.

    I've never scheduled them regularly in my own classroom now that I am back to teaching Language Arts. I see the value in socratic seminars, but want to see the benefit of structuring them along our curriculum with a specific week day as a routine.

    ReplyDelete

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