What are Socratic Seminars?
What is the PURPOSE of a Socratic Seminar?
The goal of a Socratic Seminar is for students to help one another understand the ideas, issues, and values reflected in a specific text. Students are responsible for facilitating a discussion around ideas in the text rather than asserting opinions. Through a process of listening, making meaning, and finding common ground students work toward shared understanding rather than trying to prove a particular argument. A Socratic seminar is not used for the purpose of debate, persuasion, or personal reflection, as the focus is on developing shared meaning of a text. Additional Info
What do you do BEFORE a Socratic Seminar to get ready?
Socratic seminars are based on close textual analysis so it is important to select a text that provides ample avenues for interpretation and discussion. If you choose a simple text where the meaning of it is fairly straightforward, there won’t be much for students to discuss. Also, the text should not be too long to read closely in the allotted amount of time. Often teachers select a text ranging from one paragraph to one page. Before beginning the seminar, it is essential that students have time to prepare ideas. Students should annotate the text before the start of the class discussion. Socratic seminars have rules that may not apply to other forms of discussion, so before beginning the seminar, it is important that everyone is aware of the norms.
What do you do DURING a Socratic Seminar?
A Socratic seminar often begins with the discussion leader, a student or the teacher, asking an open-ended question. A typical Socratic seminar opening prompt is: What do you think this text means? Silence is fine. It may take a few minutes for students to warm-up. Sometimes teachers organize a Socratic seminar like a fishbowl, with some students participating in the discussion and the rest of the class having specific jobs as observers. Socratic seminars should be given at least fifteen minutes and can often last thirty minutes or more. As students become more familiar with Socratic seminars, they are able to discuss a text for longer periods of time without any teacher-intervention.
What do you do AFTER a Socratic Seminar to reflect, review, and summarize the discussion?
After the Socratic seminar, give students the opportunity to evaluate the seminar in general and their own performance specifically. This can be an in-class or a homework assignment. You can create evaluation forms to help with this step. Students can also reflect on their comfort level during the seminar and high points of engagement and disengagement. Reflecting on the seminar process helps students improve their ability to participate in future discussions. Here are some questions you might discuss or write about when reflecting on the seminar:
- At any point did the seminar revert into a debate/discussion rather than dialogue? If so, how did the group handle this?
- What evidence did you see of people actively listening and building on others' ideas?
- How has your understanding of this text been affected by the ideas explored in this seminar?
- What would you like to do differently as a participant the next time you are in a seminar?
What do Socratic Seminars look and sound like?
Watch the video below to review the basics of a Socratic Seminar and to see an example in action.