Common Core Socratic

Seminar
Long-Term Lesson Plan Overview

Group B
Rachel Brailov
Salimatou Ouedraogo
Maria Stamatogiannakis
Week 1
Explaining a Socratic Seminar
During week 1, student will be taught what makes a Socratic Seminar
different from a whole group discussion.

What distinguishes a Socratic Seminar from other class discussions is that

once students are well prepared to generate and ask probing questions, the
teacher completely steps aside and assumes the role of an observer. The
goal of a Socratic Seminar is not to debate, but rather to have a dialogue
that enables the participants to construct meaning of the concepts
presented in the text (Clayton, 2013).

Students will fill in a chart with the teacher about what they know a basic
discussion is and is not. Later they will compare a discussion to a Socratic
Video Example
Students will watch the following video as a demonstration of what a
Socratic Seminar in action would look like. While watching the video
students will answer the following questions

What does the classroom look like?

What are the students doing?

What is the teacher doing?

How does the students speak to one another?

What other observations do you have?

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O88ifgdcSRQ
Closing Thoughts
Students will complete a venn diagram activity with partners in which they
determine similarities and differences between whole group discussions and
a Socratic Seminar.

Students will also have the opportunity to reflect individually on their

thoughts about engaging in a Socratic Seminar. They can answer the
following questions:

What excites you about Socratic Seminars?

What makes you nervous about Socratic Seminars?

What questions do you have about Socratic Seminars?

Week 2
Serialized Questioning
During week 2, students will begin practicing the art of serialized
questioning. This will be beneficial to a socratic seminar because it gives
students practice with:

Listening

Asking questions

Analyzing their thoughts and building responses

SWBAT ask an open ended question and understand the difference

between an open ended question and a yes/no question.

Activity: Students will write a quick biography of themselves and read it to their partner. Their
Sentence Starters and Stems
The goal of a Socratic Seminar is for it to be a student led analytical discussion of
the text they have been reading (Clayton, 2013). Introduce students to the
following sentence stems and use them during everyday instruction (broken
down by category):

Statements and questions:

What in the text makes you say that?

How does that support our idea about?

For clarification or paraphrasing:

Can you say more about that?

Sentence Starters and Stems Continued

Problem solving:

I think the way to continue is

Another way to look at this is

I feel like we are missing something because...

For different viewpoints:

Thats a great point, but I think

The evidence seems to suggest something different, such as...

Summarizing
Interactions Amongst Students
Clayton states, An essential step in preparing students to take part in effective Socratic
Seminars is the establishment of ground rules (2013). Part of these ground rules are:

Students in the inner circle are active participants during the discussion.
Students make eye contact when commenting or questioning, and direct their remarks
to each other, rather than the leader or the teacher.
Students do not raise their hands to speak, but rather listen for a time when they can
step into the conversation.
Students do not interrupt one another.
Students respectfully disagree with ideas, not the person who shared those ideas.
Students in the outer circle remain silent until the seminar has ended.
Students will be informed of these interactions and start practicing them since it is not
Reflection

A key part of Socratic Seminar is reflection. While students on the inner circle
are discussing the text, students on the outside are taking notes. Explain
that their job is the be the observers and collect data on what they see
(Clayton, 2013). Remind them that they will be switching roles!

Students will be given a sheet that has the following questions on it:

What are the participants doing while other students are speaking?

How many times did each person speak?

What were some of the shared ideas?
Did anyone change their mind?
How did students add on or respond to each other? How did they or didnt they use the
Week 3
Analyzing text- Charlottes Web
Students will engage in discussions that will allow them to critically analyze
while simultaneously working towards the Common Core Standards.

Beginning to middle of text- Students will think critically about the characters,
setting and plot. After identifying these elements, the students will think
about the implications that the setting and plot may have on the characters.

Middle of text - Students will identify the conflict(s) in the text and start
formulating questions that will help them brainstorm possible solutions.
Students will compare their brainstormed solutions against solutions
formulated by the characters in the text.

Middle to end of text- Students will further explore the conflicts in the text and
their implications on the characters. Students will also develop and answer
questions that will allow them to examine the conflicts in the story as they
Creating Questions

Students will work in partners to create questions that could be asked within
the Socratic Seminar, questions should stem from the reactions of the
students.

Students will formulate and respond to text dependent questions.

Students will formulate and respond to open ended questions that allow them
to make real life connections with the events and characters in the text

All pairs of partners will create four questions and each person will be able to
use two of those questions within the Socratic Seminar.
Week 4
Conducting the Socratic Seminar

In week 4, students will finally get to show off all of their skills they have been
learning! On the first day, we will go over the essential participation
guidelines of Socratic Seminar (KIPP): take turns speaking, listen carefully
by tracking the speaker, speak to each other, not the teacher, ask
questions, and speak at least once. It is important that these guidelines are
established because without them the conversation will fall flat (Clayton,
2013).

The next day, students will bring their questions and books with them and
create two circles facing each other. A student leader will have already been
chosen and she/he will start off the conversation! The outer group will share
Debrief

At the end of both seminars, students will be asked to reflect on the following
questions:

What were your strengths during the Socratic Seminar?

What could you do better next time?

How strong was your participation?

How did your thinking grow or change as a result of your participation in the seminar?
Did you enjoy the Seminar? Why or why not?

Reflection is an important step towards becoming more self-aware. It will also

provide you with feedback for future seminars!
Resources

Clayton, H. (2013). Socratic Seminars: Making Meaningful Dialogue. Retrieved

from:http://www.justaskpublications.com/just-ask-resource-center/e-
newsletters/mccca/socratic-seminars-making-meaningful-dialogue/

[Geneva CUSD 304]. (2016, October 24). 5th Grade Socratic Seminar. [Video
File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/O88ifgdcSRQ.

KIPP. (n.d.). Module 1: Inspiring Creativity . Wheatley. Retrieved March 17, 2017.