Innovating an Age-Old Approach: Socratic Seminars in Year 5

Who knew that an age-old tradition could lend itself to innovating the way students talk about literature in the classroom.

At H-FARM, our Primary school’s Year 5 students engage in weekly Socratic seminars to not only share their thoughts about the novels they read, but to develop the skills that make good thinkers and good communicators. 

Picture this: You walk into a classroom of 10- and 11-year-olds seated in two concentric circles. One student in the inner circle shares and elaborates upon a particularly powerful passage that has stood out to her from the novel the class has been reading. When she has finished, another chimes in, “I saw that moment from a different perspective. To me…” He continues with his impressions. One of the students, the facilitator of the conversation, then asks the others in the inner circle: “Does anyone have a different opinion?” In this way, the students continue for the next fifteen minutes, sharing and building on each others’ ideas, clarifying their thinking, and even agreeing or disagreeing respectfully with one another. 

You move a little closer, curious about why the students in the outer circle aren’t speaking and what they might be writing down. You see their notes: Referred to the text to support her statement. Moved the discussion to a deeper level. Stayed on topic. Shared the air – didn’t talk more than was fair to others. Acknowledged others’ ideas in a respectful way. All of a sudden, a bell chimes and the inner circle and outer circle face each other in partners. You realize that the outer circle is now providing feedback to their inner circle partner, providing insight into not only how they supported their reasoning, but also on their discussion skills, on how they supported the spirit of dialogue.

It’s at this point that you realize you haven’t even noticed the teacher. You look around and see that she is sitting outside both circles – she’s been silent all this time. She then calls both groups together and shows what looks to be a web of some sort. You see that she had been tracking how ideas bounced between speakers. She comments to the students, “I’m really proud of how all of you participated in today’s conversation. As you know, I’m tracking who is speaking and how many times we return to you in the conversation. You all were very aware of sharing the air, and were mindful of giving everybody a chance to speak. We didn’t have anyone sit this conversation out, nor did we have anyone dominate.” She then asks, “Do you have any reflections on today’s conversation?” 

Students’ understanding of the purpose and process of the Socratic Seminar allow them to not only build an understanding of the text, but also to deepen their awareness of how we participate in meaningful dialogue.

You make your way slowly out of the classroom, shaking your head in disbelief as you think back to the way you were asked to respond to the literature you read in school. You realize that in your short visit, just about everything you had previously expected from a classroom had been turned upside down…the teacher on the side while students guided their own conversation…the metacognitive element that led them to focus not only on what they were saying, but how they were speaking with each other and how they supported their own ideas. 

It’s clear that they hadn’t just picked up the kind of academic language you heard them using, either. All along the classroom walls was evidence that they had lots of practice building up a rich “thinking” language. Peeking over the students’ shoulders, you had seen that their notebooks were full of word banks containing treasures like illustrates, represents, exaggerates… and sentence starters they could use to help them frame their thinking (“A connection I would like to make…” or “It was somewhat confusing when…”). 

You smile to yourself as you recognize the irony. You had come to H-FARM prepared to see fresh and inspired learning environments – and you are leaving fulfilled by what you’ve seen. You just hadn’t been prepared for those techniques to have been derived millennia ago.