helping kids discuss with socratic seminar

So, per a suggestion from a mentor at school, I've started focusing on having my students talk about their books with each other, rather than with me. I've already been pursuing this via Book Nooks:



partner reading:


and book clubs:


But the focus of Socratic Seminar has been more about getting students to talk directly to each other during whole class discussions. What does this entail? Well number one is that the actually LISTEN to what the speaker is saying. A much more difficult feat than it would seem. To help them do this, I....

-had them sit in a circle on the rug so that everyone can see everyone else
-created this chart with stems to help them respond to the speaker (in red) and push the speaker's thinking further (in blue):



-used Classdojo.com (suggested by Ms. Willis) to track and incentivize use of the stems in our discussion

And it worked! Who knew, all I had to do was get out of the way and my students love talking to each other!?

One modification we had to make was that everyone begins seminar standing up in the circle and when they make a comment, they sit down. This helps us see who has spoken and who still needs to speak. It has helped all students feel like they have an opportunity to have their voices heard because everyone is motivated to call on people who have yet to speak so that by the end of seminar everyone is seated and we earn a group reward.

The best part of this (other than really interesting, far-reaching, and well-rounded and well-considered conversation about books we're reading as a class) is the carry-over it has with book club discussions. Before, book club discussions had a pschizophrenic aspect with everyone so eager to say something, that no one listened to each other, followed up on someone else's point, or anything like that. Since we started doing Socratic Seminar, students use the stems, and because they want to use the stems, they have to actually listen to their peers and build on their peers' thoughts or push their peers' thoughts further. Watch in the video how even though they need me to jump in occasionally to redirect the conversation, they are having intellectual arguments with each other! They're disagreeing, giving their reasons, going back to the text for evidence. They're building an intellectual identity. It's fun to be a nerd and argue!