As I’ve stating previously, building a classroom culture that encourages academic discourse and regularly encourages students to talk to each other is the hallmark of.a student-centered classroom where kids are learning.  In the best classrooms around the country, the bulk of instructional time is dedicated to discussion, collaboration, and student-driven inquiry.  To realize such a learning environment, the teacher has to employ a variety of strategies and protocols to get kids talking.

One of the most classic strategies for encouraging authentic student discussion is the Socratic Seminar.  It’s a strategy that is designed to help students go deep on a topic, and to do so without the prompting or direct intervention of the teacher.  It’s true that sometimes the protocols and rules around Socratic Seminar can feel a little inauthentic or bulky.  That is certainly the case when you are just getting started.  But I have found that when employed regularly over time, it’s a strategy that increasingly builds the capacity of the classroom to sustain an academic discussion on their own.

Socratic Seminar is a bread and butter strategy for the AVID program, and so it is a well-known instructional practice.  Yet I’m surprised at how little I see it in practice.  It often seems reserved for the most special occasions, as opposed to something that happens on a weekly basis as a regular part of class.

Preparation – Socratic Seminar takes practice and good planning.  In addition to taking time to explicitly teach students how to engage in academic discourse using evidence, you will need to select texts and prepare guiding questions

Step 1 – The first few times you use Socratic Seminar, provide students with an overview of the purpose and process of the strategy.  You might include academic sentence starters students can use (i.e. “I really like what Billy said about…”, “If you look at…in the text…”, “the author states in paragraph…”, “could you say more about…”).  Explain to students that the conversation is open and facilitated by them (and not the teacher), and that arguments and counter-arguments must be grounded in textual evidence.  Socratic Seminar is not a debate.  Outline assessment criteria for student participation.

Step 2 – Announce to students that they will be engaging in a Socratic Seminar based on questions to a shared text.  Students should annotate the text with ideas, thoughts, and questions that will help them participate in the discussion.  You can ask students to number the paragraphs of the text to provide an easy reference during discussion.

“The text we are reading comes from the Economist and discusses the role of SuperPACs in this year’s presidential election.  We’ll be having a Socratic Seminar after we read on this topic, so don’t forget that you’ll be citing evidence from the text to support your opinions.  The guiding question for the reading is “is a SuperPAC a democratic institution?”  I want to see at least 5 related questions or comments written on each of your papers prior to beginning the discussion.  You have 15 minutes to read and talk to your text.”

Step 3 – Call the circle together.  If you have a large class, you will need to either run two circles simultaneously or assign specific observation roles to members of the class outside the discussion circle.

Step 4 – Review expectations and assessment criteria

“All right, once we being, the seminar will go for at least 15 minutes.  Remember, I’ll be monitoring participation individually, and you have to contribute at least 3 different times during the discussion.  If the conversation gets stuck, you can ask a new question to try to get it rolling again.  So, here is the starting question again, “is a SuperPAC a democratic institution?”  Go for it.”

Remember, there are lots of variations that you can employ to tailor the strategy to your unique classroom context and needs, but the core of the strategy always focuses on promoting sustained academic discourse amongst students.