Socratic Seminar FAQs

Conducting your first Socratic Seminar can be a scary endeavor.  Like the first time you tried to clear a hurdle in track, play a piano sonata, cook a soufflé, program a VCR (remember those?), fold a fitted sheet, stand in the tree pose in yoga, or knit a scarf, there’s always potential for disaster and room for improvement.  I’ve assembled a few Frequently Asked Questions about Socratic Seminars to help ease you into the idea and encourage you to try this with your students soon!

Q.  What’s a Socratic Seminar?

A. Good question! I’ll give you the short answer and let you do some exploring on your own if you want to know more. A Socratic Seminar is a student-led discussion—usually about a text—with the goal of deepening the collective understanding of the participants. It gets its name from Socrates, the Greek philosopher who was put to death for corrupting the minds of Athenian youth by making them think. Socrates also asked questions, which is something students do during the seminar; they question the text and one another to explore the topic more deeply. Typical Socratic Seminars take place with the class in one giant circle, but variations exist, such as the Fishbowl (two concentric circles), Pilot-Copilot Formation (discussed later), and several smaller Socratic Seminars simultaneously taking place in one classroom. It’s important to distinguish the Socratic Seminar from a debate; there are no sides, and this isn’t a place for arguing. Cheesy as it sounds, everyone’s a winner in a Socratic Seminar if they come out knowing more than they did before they began.

Q.  What do I do with students who are shy or don’t have anything to say?

A.  Ideally, all students will participate in the discussion.  In reality, some students are terrified to share their ideas with others or to speak aloud in class.  The first solution is to do whatever you can to make sure your classroom is a supportive environment where all students feel safe contributing.  Another is to make sure students are prepared prior to the Socratic Seminar.  Spend some time with the text, giving the students clear guidelines for annotation and text marking.  Have them prepare questions ahead of time.  The more familiar they are with the piece, the more likely they will be to contribute.  When selecting a format for your Socratic Seminar, consider a Pilot-Copilot formation, which allows all students to participate as you pause to have each “cockpit crew” chat with one another about the topic at various times during the discussion.  Also, selecting an engaging text will encourage students to speak up because they’ll have an opinion and will want to be heard.  Giving students a chance to do a brief reflection or exit card at the end of the seminar will allow a reluctant student to share his or her ideas with you; if you talk individually with that student later and praise the ideas, you’ll build some confidence that may result in participation next time. 

Q.  Do I have to grade the Socratic Seminar?

A.  No.  I am a big advocate for reinforcing learning for the sake of learning.  When you ramp up the pressure by grading the number and/or quality of students’ participation, you’ll find that you lose the collaborative nature of the Socratic Seminar.  Students will quit listening to one another and will think only of themselves and their grade.  You know your students have missed the point of the Socratic Seminar when they rush up to you after class with a look of desperation to ask whether they spoke enough times and what grade they made.  Also, if you don’t have to worry about tracking and assessing comments for every student in the discussion, you can enjoy and appreciate the discussion yourself—it’s much more rewarding for everyone involved. 

     

Q.  If I don't grade the discussion as you suggested, then how do I keep the kids accountable?

A.  If you must attach a grade to the seminar, consider grading their pre-work (text marking and question preparation) and a reflection they complete after the seminar.  The post-discussion reflection could contain thoughts about the content of the discussion, the quality of the discussion itself, areas for improvement in the future, comments that the student was unable to make during the discussion, or whatever you deem important.  Participation can be a factor in your grade, but also consider adherence to the norms of discussion, nonverbal behavior, and other factors.   

Q.  I teach _____, and my kids won’t ever be able to do a Socratic Seminar because…

A.  You're right.  As long as you believe your kids won't be able to do it, they probably won’t.  But if you change your mind, I can tell you that Socratic Seminar works with all subjects and all levels of kids.  The level of student talk may not always rise to your standard of excellence at first, but with some coaching, practice, and debriefing, they'll improve.  If your students need more scaffolding, consider providing them with some discussion starter stems, possible ways to begin a comment in an academic discussion.  Spend some time afterward praising the things your students did well.  Offer tips and specific targets for improvement before each Socratic Seminar.  When Socratic Seminars become something you do frequently rather than just being a one-time special occasion event, you'll find that the students love them and will begin to talk like scholars.  (Oh, and, by the way, your question wasn't a question.)

Q.  Does the Socratic Seminar have to be a culminating activity at the end of a unit?

A.  Not at all.  This is a great way to have students examine a text or other material in detail before a writing assignment or activity.  I have a colleague in social studies who has her students participate in a Socratic Seminar to discuss a set of documents prior to writing an AP document-based question (DBQ).  This kind of discussion can ensure the students have thought about all aspects of a poem or short story before writing an essay on it in a literature class.  If you become accustomed to the idea of a Socratic Seminar’s purpose being to help the group come to a deeper shared understanding of the meaning of something, it’s logical to use this strategy at various points in a lesson cycle.  I find they're even useful as a preparatory activity for a unit to build anticipation and interest (like the time I brought in the world’s most hideous vase—four feet tall, chartreuse, fuzzy velour—and had a discussion about how we determine whether something is art).   

Q. What kinds of works are suitable to discuss in a Socratic Seminar?

A.  You name it, and it can probably be discussed.  I've seen (or heard people tell of) successful seminars over films, artworks, political cartoons, novels, documentaries, political debates, television commercials, videos of a sports competition, websites, math problems, sets of statistics, maps, editorials, poems, plays, websites, musical performances, songs, music videos, and short stories.       

Q.  What’s the biggest mistake you've made with Socratic Seminars?

A.  My students were reading the 59-chapter, 450-page opus Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and we had—as a culminating assessment—a Socratic Seminar over the entire novel.  Our great expectation was that students answered one another’s questions while supplying relevant textual evidence from the novel (ie. direct quotations).  I spent a painful 90-minute block schedule period watching my hapless students dig desperately through that giant book they'd (allegedly) read once to find a quote to back up their ideas.  The pressure was immense, and only a few students with prodigious memories or incredible annotation skills emerged from the great quotation hunt unscathed.  The tension was palpable; tears were shed. I learned from that experience that choosing a text of a more manageable size allows everyone to be (literally) on the same page and participate in the discussion at a deeper, more thoughtful level.      

Q.  Do you have any final bits of advice?

A. Leave time to debrief the discussion and the process.  Allow students to talk about what flew and what flopped.  If you used an inner-outer circle (fishbowl) arrangement, solicit feedback from those in the outer circle about what went well and how things could have been better.  And even if your first Socratic Seminar is a disaster, try it again.  Let go of the reins and let the students talk.  You'll be surprised at how brilliant they can be.   

If you let them, they will talk…and they will say smart things.