Socratic Seminars for Beginners: Learning to “Let Go”
As the new academic year swiftly gains momentum and you start preparing for engaging classroom experiences, consider adding Socratic Seminars into your plans. Socratic Seminars develop a space for powerful student-led discussion, critical thinking, listening skills, academic vocabulary usage, textual analysis, and ownership of ideas. While they take careful planning and practice, Socratic Seminars promote a sense of community in the classroom, lead to deep student learning, and assess students’ abilities to interpret, analyze, and discuss ideas about specific texts.
If you are a middle-level English language arts teacher like me, this sounds like a dream – and after being a “beginner” to Socratic Seminars myself this past academic year, I can confirm that experiencing the benefits took time, patience, and instructional support for my sixth grade students. However, once we got the hang of things, my students began looking forward to Socratic Seminars throughout the year and I was able to learn a valuable lesson as an educator, the importance of letting go. Utilizing Socratic Seminars in the classroom gives students the unique opportunity to do almost all of the “heavy-lifting” when it comes to showcasing their learning, and allowing students to facilitate this process meant that I had to literally take a step back and figuratively let go.
Socratic Seminars will look different depending on the grade-level you teach. Therefore, like most things in life, there is not one “correct way” of carrying them out. If you are thinking about incorporating Socratic Seminars into your classroom for the very first time or have been meaning to but didn’t know where to start, here is a general “beginner” outline that may help:
(Disclaimer – these steps are slightly geared towards middle-level students in grades 6-8. Some elements of the process described below are tips or advice based on personal experience.)
Process:
1. Prior to a Socratic Seminar, set clear rules and expectations for students to follow. It is a student-led discussion, so without this step, students will be directionless and make their own rules as they go. In addition, I suggest creating anchor charts or other academic supports for students to use during the discussion, display them in a place where all students can see, and model how to use them.
The set rules and expectations for my sixth grade students’ Socratic Seminars, the highlighted discussion questions for one of our Socratic Seminars, and the supplemental anchor charts for students to use for academic support.
2. Alongside prepping necessary materials, generally students must first read a text or a portion of a text prior to the discussion. The literacy curriculum I implement – Wit & Wisdom, exposes students to a variety of texts and purposefully embeds moments for Socratic Seminars throughout each module. If this is not the case for you, any text that pertains to your current topic of study and contains ideas that can be discussed by your students in a meaningful way will work just fine.
3. If not already provided by your curriculum, prepare a series of open-ended questions about the selected text for students to answer and discuss during the Socratic Seminar. Ask about moments or ideas within the text that can be interpreted in various ways. I recommend 3-5 questions for your Socratic Seminar. The questions you prepare should elicit several different thoughts and ideas from your students, so any more than this may be overwhelming. Helpful Tip: Use these questions to create a planning document for students to complete prior to the Socratic Seminar. This was a game-changer for my sixth grade students this past academic year. Allowing students time to organize their thoughts will lead to a richer discussion where students feel more prepared and confident to share their thinking.
My sixth grade students independently preparing for a Socratic Seminar by jotting down their thoughts to the discussion questions on the created planning document.
4. Give students a specific amount of time to plan for the Socratic Seminar. Encourage them to include text evidence on their planning document to support their ideas. If you teach older students, or would like students to complete this step of the process prior to class, this type of preparation can also be assigned as homework. Ensuring that students have time to prepare for the discussion will make “letting go” much easier during the actual Socratic Seminar.
5. When you are ready to begin the Socratic Seminar, have students form a circle. If you would like to be inside of a classroom, you may rearrange the desks or simply gather your students together. I enjoy taking my students to a larger space such as the hallway or library – the change of scenery “sets the tone” for our learning experience. Stay on the outside of the circle and listen, only intervene if necessary.
6. Select a student to lead the discussion by asking the first open-ended question and allow the others to share their ideas organically. While Socratic Seminars historically do not require students to raise their hands, my sixth grade students start the year by doing this when they want to share an idea and my student facilitator assists with calling on their peers and keeping the conversation flowing. Some may argue that this “defeats the purpose” of a Socratic Seminar but it is my way of ensuring that the learning experience remains productive, structured, and impactful for my students. Additionally, this allows all of my students to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts instead of fighting for the “right” moment in the discussion to add in their ideas. This academic year, it is my goal to ease students away from raising their hands over time and slowly help them transition to the more traditional way of conducting a Socratic Seminar. This step of the process will depend on you and your students.
7. Develop a grading system that will allow you to assess students’ contributions during the discussion. If you have certain expectations for students in relation to their participation during the Socratic Seminar, ensure that they know about them before the discussion has started. I usually require my students to share at least one original idea in response to any of the main discussion questions and to reply to at least one of their peer’s thoughts using an academic discussion stem or clarifying question from the supplemental materials displayed. I always tell my student facilitator to be encouraging and fair so everyone has an opportunity to meet the set requirements.
8. Following the Socratic Seminar, clear up any misunderstandings, clarify any final ideas, and synthesize the main takeaways. During this time, it is also important to reflect on the process as well. Have students share their feedback on the learning experience so you can make any necessary adjustments for future Socratic Seminars within your classroom.
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If you are a “beginner” to Socratic Seminars, hopefully this process gives you a manageable place to start. I remember feeling a bit intimidated when I came across my first one within Wit & Wisdom, so adding and adjusting certain parts of the traditional Socratic Seminar model was what worked in my sixth grade classroom. It is also important to note that when I first introduced Socratic Seminars, the majority of my students had never heard of them or experienced them before. This meant I had to find a way to set a foundation of knowledge and skills relating to Socratic Seminars that would prepare them for future grade-levels. The adjustments and additions mentioned in my “beginner” version of the Socratic Seminar process may be considered nontraditional, but students were still able to lead the discussion, critically think about specific texts, develop listening skills, use academic vocabulary, and own their ideas — and isn’t the combination of each of these skills the goal of a Socratic Seminar? Therefore, my “beginner” version, although imperfect, has been a win in my book thus far. My hope is that as my students get older, they will continue to grow and build on the foundation set within our classroom as they experience more Socratic Seminars and general academic discussions within other classrooms.
On a final note, I must reiterate the importance of letting go once you get started. Although there will be a good amount of preparation you will do “behind the scenes” prior to a Socratic Seminar, students must “take the reins” during the actual discussion. It will not always be perfect and there will be mishaps along the way, but allowing students to take ownership of their ideas and work through minor moments of struggle will cultivate growth. Be prepared to “let go,” pull up a chair outside of the Socratic Seminar circle, and watch the magic happen. The true reward and joy will be found in watching your students lead each other to new ideas, questions, and even shared understandings. And the best part? They will have done it all on their own.
Their smiles say it all — with the right support and your willingness to “let go,” any and all students can be successful during Socratic Seminars in the classroom. They might not admit it out loud, but students will even ENJOY it too!