Creating Independent Thinkers and Writers through Socratic Seminars

This blog was originally posted for SB Pedagogy but has been amended to reflect my presentation at #TMEnglishIcons on 1st February 2020.

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I’m going to put it out there: I work in a brilliant school, in one of the best English departments in the country. Located in the heart of one of the most deprived boroughs in the country, Newham, I believe that, like Jenny Webb stated at #TMEnglishIcons, we are ‘unapologetically ambitious, unashamedly academic’ for our students. We have to be.

Our curriculum focuses on empowering our young people to be fluent and perceptive and critical readers, skilled writers and articulate speakers. They are questioned, probed and challenged to think harder and deeper about key concepts not just in English but across other subjects too.

There are so many ways in which this can be seen in the classroom but I’m going to explore the way in which Socratic seminars can be used to help students articulate their thoughts and enhance their writing.

Why a Socratic Seminar and how will it stretch all learners?

Socratic seminars empower our students to discuss and express their ideas in an environment where they won’t be judged but will be challenged. It also ensures that students have ideas for their writing.

Socratic seminars are also ‘unapologetically ambitious‘ because every student is involved and challenged to reach the top of that learning ladder.

Why a ladder? Well, a colleague of mine once told me that a ladder can be used as an analogy to explain differentiation. All of our students need to reach the top of the learning ladder but how many steps they require will differ according to individual needs. Some students might be able to skip a few steps to reach the top, while others may need a few extra steps to enable them to do so.

Stretching and challenging all the young people in our classrooms to reach the top of the ladder can contribute to their success in the secondary classroom and beyond.

As Tom Sherrington states in his blog Teaching to the Top: Attitudes and Strategies for delivering real challenge:

‘The secret to doing this well is to think about it in three areas of teaching practice:

1. Attitudes: The belief and mindsets teachers need to have themselves and inculcate in their students. This influences everything else.

2. Routines/Habits: The things you do all the time, in every lesson.

3. Extra Challenges: Things you build into an overall scheme of work and use occasionally.’

As a teacher, this means that planning and embedding challenge doesn’t have to include many versions of the same worksheet (this is something I have been guilty of in the past).

In fact, that’s why I find Socratic seminars an effective way of implementing the principles of ‘teaching to the top’; the differentiation is planned meticulously prior to the lesson without the need for three different coloured worksheets. Each student has a role in the classroom and is expected to do that role exceptionally well.

What is a Socratic Seminar?

A Socratic seminar is a specific style of dialogic teaching (see Robin Alexander’s ‘Towards Dialogic Teaching’) I learned from my wonderful NQT mentor, Teresa Dunseith.

It encourages students to: think deeply about a topic; contribute effectively to discussions; listen attentively to other students’ ideas; justify and challenge rather than accept the first answer and ensures all students are involved.

Although some may argue that this strategy is only effective in subjects such as English and Humanities and PSHCE, I strongly disagree.

I have observed a Socratic seminar taking place in a Science lesson, where students debated the use of stem cells. I have also observed students discussing and working out a Maths problem while other students observed and then discussed and evaluated the methods used.

As a strategy, it’s adaptable and it’s the teacher’s decision how they use it in their classroom. For example, in some lessons the Socratic discussion is used as part of the ‘Do Now’ activity to hook learners, while in other lessons, it is part of the main activity to enable students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

So how does one plan and deliver a Socratic seminar?

Below are instructions and ideas on how you can plan and deliver a Socratic seminar in your classroom. I have also provided examples of resources I share with students in the lesson; if you would like copies of any of the resources, please do let me know using the comment box below or tweet me @msybibi

Thank you for reading.

Yamina