Revamp your Socratic Seminar Lessons Next Year with our SL Standard Products

Revamp your Socratic Seminar lessons next year by explicitly teaching students how to do a Socratic Seminar correctly.

Socratic Seminars are not new, although I do remember about the time they started to make a pretty big impact on education.

My favorite part about doing Socratic Seminars with students is seeing how they approach the conversation once their nosy teacher (i.e., me) gets out of the way and lets them get to work.

That is probably the best part…Socratic Seminars give students agency and ownership over the conversation.

The only problem with discussions this way in middle school is that students are not naturally good at leading and participating in discussions.

They need practice…lots and lots of practice.

Since we saw the need for teachers to have resources to help work with students on Socratic Seminars as well as on other speaking and listening skills, we created resources for both 7th and 8th grade, completely covering the SL.1-3 standards.

Check out this blog post for a thorough run-down on the SL.1-3 standards, learning targets, resources and more!

Revamping Your Socratic Seminar Lessons

The Sparkly Notebook SL.1-3 resources provide teacher tips for Socratic Seminars, including the following suggestions.

• Choose a topic and give students time to prepare.
• Sit somewhere away from the seminar circle and observe from a distance.
• Allow students to have their seminar without your interference. Yes, this may mean that the conversation could have awkward pauses. Yes, this could mean that your students will stop and stare at you for direction at different times. Yes, the conversation may not go the way you had planned. But this is all okay. Let the students move the conversation forward. The sooner they learn that they can in fact engage with each other about educational topics without you, the better!
• Try to refrain from shifting the conversation in any way. At most, remind the students of the conversation tactic questions that they can use to move the conversation forward or regain focus.
• Observe all students, not just the speakers. Your role is to offer feedback and assess students in both the speaking and listening roles of the seminar.
• Although you are assessing multiple children at one time, try to offer at least one piece of useful feedback per student.

Unlike a lot of Socratic seminar resources where the focus is on the content and not actually on the speaking and listening practice and skills, this SL.1-3 resource is solely focused on getting your students ready to have quality conversations on a variety of topics.

We reiterate over and over that the seminar should be a “genuine discussion.”

We don’t want our Socratic Seminars to feel staged or too educational. We want them to be real conversations between students without teacher interference or redirection.

We are giving the reins to the students and letting them figure out how to steer.

Setting the Stage

In addition to teacher tips, we also take time to talk about setting the stage for a good professional discussion…going as far as to suggest that every discussion should begin with a handshake (or, in this post-pandemic world, a wave or elbow bump).

Acknowledging and showing appreciation for the other people in the discussion is often way outside the norm for students, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be the expectation and act as a reminder that this isn’t a conversation happening in the hallway or at a friend’s house. It is a formal conversation, and even though we want it to be genuine, it also still needs to be professional, and everyone who is a part of it should be treated with respect.

Reframing the Conversation – Student Led

There is a good chance that throughout the discussion, students will encounter awkward silences. 

Maybe the same person continues to state the same perspective over and over again. 

Maybe the conversation has gone down a rabbit hole of off-topic discussion. 

Either way, you’ll want your students to know what to do when a reframe is needed. In our SL.1-3 resource, we address this concern with a list of reframing questions to help students get back on track.

We don’t want students to wait for the teacher to step in when there is a lull in the conversation. Instead, we take the time to teach our students how to handle the moment.

We teach them to recognize these situations and find a way to refocus the conversation or continue to move the conversation forward.

If you’re looking for a good revamp of your Socratic Seminar lessons next year, then the SL.1-3 resources are a must-have! They are thorough, provide the handouts and posters you need to make sure your students can learn the skills and include assessments of the skills.

Click on the images below to learn more.