Have you ever had your students participate in a Socratic seminar that just crashed and burned? You were hoping for a student-led discussion with deep analysis and unique insights into the novel. Instead, you had forced conversations, long awkward silences, and rapid-fire sharing so that students could earn their points. Friend, I have been there so many times and it is painful! You want to bring back the glory days of college when you all sat in a circle and the conversation just flowed. The good news is that we can get our students there! I promise! The question then is how do I plan a successful discussion for my high school students? If you want that powerful conversation in your classroom, check out my steps below to create an awesome Socratic seminar.
Before we get started on how to do a Socratic seminar in your classroom, I want to share something with you. If you are ready to add a Socratic seminar lesson plan to your curriculum right away, I have just the thing for you! Check out my Socratic Seminar Prep resource. In this print or digital resource, students will have everything they need to discuss, review, and analyze texts all on their own. In this low-prep, high-impact class discussion, students will have all the tools they need to lead their own successful discussion. This resource includes Socratic seminar rules, expectations, preparation worksheets, and reflection. The best part is that this Socratic Seminar Prep aligns perfectly with all the steps in my Socratic Seminar plan. Keep reading to find out how!
Before you can teach your kiddos how to participate in a discussion, let’s chat about what it is. As you may already know, Socrates was the guy who we credit with creating this discussion type. He believed that the best way to learn was to have rigorous conversations where you do more than just share the “right” answers. By learning to think critically, Socrates knew that participants would gain a deeper understanding of complex ideas. Participating in a Socratic Seminar allows contributors to share their insights through thoughtful dialogue that does not involve debating topics but rather explores one’s own opinions and observations about a specific topic.
So how does this apply to you and your class? First, you need to replace yourself as a discussion facilitator. You should not be anywhere in this discussion but instead, just the guide on the side who is taking notes and tracking progress. Students rely way too much on us as teachers to carry the load and it’s time we turn it on them!
The whole goal is to show students that sometimes just sharing your answer is not what we want. The real test comes when you can interact with a text and with your peers. We want to see a student(s) stand up and take the lead on the discussion. We want to have every person share their thoughts and reactions to the text. We want to see students thinking on their feet in reaction to what others have shared. Here’s the best part: your students can totally do that! It requires some setup on your part, preparation on their part, and practice. The more you have these discussions, the better your students will be! If you want to learn how to take you class discussions to that Socratic seminar level, take a look at my steps below.
While you can host a discussion with most concepts or texts, you really want to consider the topics for Socratic seminar that fit best for your curriculum. First, you need to consider a text that you want the students to analyze. For our classrooms, basing a discussion around a specific article or story really helps to engage the students. Don’t limit yourself to just one text either. Provide multiple texts that hit on different aspects of the same topics for Socratic seminar to provide even more variety.
Once you have a text selected, you want to make sure that you give your students time to read the text. I recommend doing this text markup the day before. If you haven’t focused on teaching your students how to annotate a text, this reading is a great opportunity to do that. By having students time before the discussion to start to process the text, they will be better prepared for the Socratic seminar.
Another really important step is having students create socratic seminar questions. Once again this should be done the day before the discussion. After reading the text, have students create critical thinking questions related to that text or the topics for socratic seminar. It’s really important that you show socratic seminar example questions. Students sometimes struggle to think about the deeper meaning of a text. Without these example questions, students tend to focus on surface-level questions.
Once students have created these critical thinking questions, I have students answer their own questions. By crafting a response that includes text evidence, students are better prepared for the discussion. You are helping to ensure that every student has text evidence ready for the Socratic seminar. This preparation helps those quieter students who struggle sometimes to think on their feet or share their thoughts aloud. One of the goals is to help students to gain confidence in their speaking skills, and being prepared helps to alleviate some stress.
If you would like to support your students, create a socratic seminar preparation worksheet for your students. Have a place for the critical thinking questions, responses, and text evidence. Short on time? Check out my Socratic Seminar Prep resource that includes a critical thinking question creation worksheet. I even include critical thinking question stems.
Before you start your Socratic seminar, you need to do a little preparation. The first step is to make sure you have a place to record your students’ participation during the discussion. Print out a student roster and add some columns for the things that you want to assess. In order to do this, you need to set your discussion criteria. For the first few Socratic seminar discussions, I require students to speak once and use text evidence. As we get more practice, I give them more requirements such as more text evidence, asking critical thinking questions, or making real world connections.
You also want to make sure that your classroom is physically ready for the discussion. I normally have my students form the desks into a circle when they come into the classroom. However, you might want to take some time the day before to have the desks already in a circle. The whole goal is that everyone feels included in the discussion and can see everyone.
The very first time you host a Socratic seminar with your students, you will want to have a conversation about what the expectations are for the discussion. You have a few choices when it comes to this discussion. Depending on how much time you have in your class, you may want to do this activity the day before. In my eighty minute class, I have time the day of the discussion to set these expectations.
You can either have established expectations or create some as a class. With premade expectations, you ensure you cover all the main rules. This will save you time so you can jump right into the discussion. You can also allow the class to create their own Socratic seminar rules based on what they believe to be important. Either way, make sure you clearly display these discussion norms and save them for future discussions.
You are now ready for your Socratic Seminar! Have your students take out everything that has been prepared including their annotated text, their critical thinking questions, and their response. Another resource that I find helpful is Socratic seminar sentence starters. I provide these sentence starters to help students know how to jump into the conversation. You will need a timer, your recording sheet, and a seat outside the circle. Remember you are not a part of the discussion.
Once students are situated, review the Socratic seminar rules and grading criteria. Set the timer and have the students determine who will speak first. Start the timer and your students are off! White students share their thoughts, your only focus is to record who speaks and what they contribute. Remember, this discussion is 100% student-led. No matter how tempting it is to bail them out of the awkward silence, you are not to speak.
If your students are struggling with the discussion, you can pause the discussion and call a timeout. During the timeout, you can have students talk with each other about their performance. You can also offer some suggestions to have the conversation flow better.
The timer goes off and the Socratic seminar ends. Your students breathe a sigh of relief that they made it through their discussion. But the process doesn’t end there. Giving students time to reflect is always an important step. Ave a reflection handout that allows students to think about their strengths and weaknesses. They can set goals for future discussions and share insights on what the class could do better next time.
Another step that I always find fun for the students is a chance to vote for their peers. I give out two awards for each discussion: MVP and Most Improved Speaker. You can create as many awards as you want and have any criteria that make sense for your discussion. Allow students to vote and the next day you can present awards to the students.
Have a whole class discussion where students can share what they think the class did well as a whole. Students can also share what should be improved the next time. This is your chance to offer suggestions and praise for the discussion. Remind students that now that they have survived their first Socratic seminar there are more to come.
If you have students who are really fearful of speaking out in class, provide them with Socratic seminar sentence starters. These sentence stems will help the student to answer their critical thinking questions and respond to their peers. Giving these students time before the day of the discussion allows them to feel better prepared the day of. You could also suggest that your quietest student go first in the discussion. By having the sentence stem, they can read what they have already created.
Know you have students who might not be as confident in their speaking skills. Change the speaking requirements for them so that they have less pressure when sharing. Maybe remove the text evidence requirement. Or ask that they just speak out and agree with another student. Maybe they come to you directly and share their ideas before or after the discussion so they are still working on speaking. Remember what your focus is for the Socratic seminar and the skill on which you are focusing. Find an easier way for the student to show that skill in a less intimidating way.
Have a student who no matter what you do will not speak? Offer a writing assignment instead. One option is to have the student take notes throughout the discussion with their personal insights. Another option is to wait and see how they do during the discussion. If you have any students who do not speak, offer them a writing assignment. Students could choose one of their critical thinking questions and answer that question in a constructed paragraph response. The goal is to have every student speak but if you just give nonparticipants a zero, you might discourage them from sharing in the future.
Maybe your class is just not ready for a whole class discussion. You can always create small groups of students. In these groups, I would always pair students up with at least one student they are comfortable with. In order to not miss any discussion, have each group complete a smaller discussion with you. Meanwhile, other students can be working on a writing assignment paired with the text or a project so that students are not just sitting and waiting.
