Socratic Seminar

Levels 5-12 Content - Any

In a Socratic Seminar activity, students help one another understand the ideas, issues, and values reflected in a text through a group discussion format. Students are responsible for facilitating their group discussion around the ideas in the text. Through this type of discussion, students practice how to listen to one another, make meaning, and find common ground while participating in a conversation rooted in key content standards.

READ

Facing Our History & Ourselves walks through a description and stop by step directions for seminar set up.

On this Argumentation Toolkit Science site, there is a classroom video exemplar of a science teacher setting up and facilitating a powerful Science Socratic Seminar. The videos are embedded in this page...check it out

LISTEN

The Stories from the Classroom Podcast Episode 17 features student voices in an active seminar with a voice over narration.

PLAN

Seminar Sentence Starters

Socratic Seminar Student Sheets - Before, During & After

Socratic Seminar Slide Template

PRO TIP

Pro Tip # 1 Socratic seminars work best with authentic texts that invite authentic inquiry—an ambiguous and appealing short story, a pair of contrasting primary documents in social studies, or an article on a controversial approach to an ongoing scientific problem.

PRO TIP # 2 Don’t Jump In

Teachers love to explain things – it’s why we’re in this profession in the first place! When your students are discussing an issue, sometimes they miss an important detail or come to an illogical conclusion. Just let that happen. As hard as it may be to sit there and listen as they pass over an important symbol or fail to question another classmate’s self-contradiction, you have to remember that you are merely a facilitator. Your role is to (1) introduce new questions when the discussion starts to lag and (2) let students know when to wrap up their discussion. Your role is NOT to add your own thoughts – this is a mainly student-led method.