Paul Ochen, Grade 11
UWCEA (Arusha)
My first experience with a Socratic seminar was in one of my English Language & Literature classes. Simply stated, a Socratic seminar is a formal text-based discussion, in which the leader asks open-ended questions. With the context of the discussion, students listen closely to the comments of others, thinking critically for themselves, and articulate their own thoughts and responses to the thoughts of others.
My English class Socratic seminar challenged my understanding of the typical school learning process as it incorporates a debate texture in an ordinary question-answer conversation. Learning through constructive criticism was a study methodology that I had never been exposed to before; so developing a comprehensive response to an open question using my peers’ criticism fascinated me. I was inspired to heed the views of other people to come up with discerning literature essays. Participating in the seminar also taught me that a single question can have several responses and that positive discourse is the road to discovering these numerous views.
On the day of the seminar, we reorganised the chairs and tables in my English class to face each other in a circle. Ms Willett, my teacher of English A, placed comment papers on each table. On these papers were drawn two columns with 18 rows; each student would write a peer’s essay summary title on the left column and give their constructive comments in the right. In this manner, all 19 students in the class would receive productive feedback. On the whiteboard at the front of the class, Ms Willett succinctly marked down the rules of the seminar.
Prior to the Socratic seminar, we wrote guided literary analysis in response to the literature question: “How does Margaret Atwood use the colour red as a motif for fertility in Handmaid’s Tale?”. In our essays, we explicitly explored all possible responses to the question and outlined a summary of our arguments at the bottom of the paper. Each student then shared their summary with the entire class through a Google drive folder. During the seminar, all students talked over and remarked on their peers’ response summaries through presenting their counterarguments and elucidating where the respective student could have gone wrong.
Having never taken part in a learning style so rigorous as the Socratic method, I was baffled to learn that my English A class would have a Socratic seminar. I did not know what to expect. Was I supposed to develop a philosophical explanation of the literature question and stand before an assembly of intellectuals to present it as a PhD dissertation? My perplexity outweighed my excitement to try a new learning approach. During the seminar, I was happy, though, that we had to apply skills such as helpful censure and resolution development that I had already familiarised myself with from the debate club.
Adeptly arguing about a peer’s literary response, without the teacher’s direct involvement, made the Socratic seminar interesting and unlike anything I had seen before. I loved the way we went back and forth between various views on our understanding of the question and how we ultimately enhanced our individual arguments using our peers’ constructive criticism. Dissimilar to the rest of my IB courses, the Socratic seminar made that particular English lesson exceptional since I discussed with and learnt directly from my peers.
Looking back, the seminar went a long way towards ameliorating my analysis of literary essay prompts. I learnt to develop a cogent and informative response to a literature question through analysing and counter-analysing the question or common views relating to the ideas conveyed in the question. In my personal study, usually in non-literary assignments, I normally adopt skills which I picked up from the seminar; they include challenging the ordinary understanding or status quo regarding a certain issue.
Decisively, the Socratic seminar built my understanding of Thinkers, one of the elements of the IB learner profile. Scrutinizing peers’ essay responses and developing out-of-the-box reactions to them expanded my train of thought in literary matters. Contrary to the learning approaches in any of my former schools, the seminar, and its direct relation to the IB learner profile, expedited my thinking when grappling with extensive subjects such as an author’s use of a certain motif. Moreover, the seminar demonstrated that student-exclusive discussions could be just as worthwhile as the regular teacher-student learning sessions. I can hardly wait to have another Socratic seminar experience!
My English class Socratic seminar challenged my understanding of the typical school learning process as it incorporates a debate texture in an ordinary question-answer conversation. Learning through constructive criticism was a study methodology that I had never been exposed to before; so developing a comprehensive response to an open question using my peers’ criticism fascinated me. I was inspired to heed the views of other people to come up with discerning literature essays. Participating in the seminar also taught me that a single question can have several responses and that positive discourse is the road to discovering these numerous views.
On the day of the seminar, we reorganised the chairs and tables in my English class to face each other in a circle. Ms Willett, my teacher of English A, placed comment papers on each table. On these papers were drawn two columns with 18 rows; each student would write a peer’s essay summary title on the left column and give their constructive comments in the right. In this manner, all 19 students in the class would receive productive feedback. On the whiteboard at the front of the class, Ms Willett succinctly marked down the rules of the seminar.
Prior to the Socratic seminar, we wrote guided literary analysis in response to the literature question: “How does Margaret Atwood use the colour red as a motif for fertility in Handmaid’s Tale?”. In our essays, we explicitly explored all possible responses to the question and outlined a summary of our arguments at the bottom of the paper. Each student then shared their summary with the entire class through a Google drive folder. During the seminar, all students talked over and remarked on their peers’ response summaries through presenting their counterarguments and elucidating where the respective student could have gone wrong.
Having never taken part in a learning style so rigorous as the Socratic method, I was baffled to learn that my English A class would have a Socratic seminar. I did not know what to expect. Was I supposed to develop a philosophical explanation of the literature question and stand before an assembly of intellectuals to present it as a PhD dissertation? My perplexity outweighed my excitement to try a new learning approach. During the seminar, I was happy, though, that we had to apply skills such as helpful censure and resolution development that I had already familiarised myself with from the debate club.
Adeptly arguing about a peer’s literary response, without the teacher’s direct involvement, made the Socratic seminar interesting and unlike anything I had seen before. I loved the way we went back and forth between various views on our understanding of the question and how we ultimately enhanced our individual arguments using our peers’ constructive criticism. Dissimilar to the rest of my IB courses, the Socratic seminar made that particular English lesson exceptional since I discussed with and learnt directly from my peers.
Looking back, the seminar went a long way towards ameliorating my analysis of literary essay prompts. I learnt to develop a cogent and informative response to a literature question through analysing and counter-analysing the question or common views relating to the ideas conveyed in the question. In my personal study, usually in non-literary assignments, I normally adopt skills which I picked up from the seminar; they include challenging the ordinary understanding or status quo regarding a certain issue.
Decisively, the Socratic seminar built my understanding of Thinkers, one of the elements of the IB learner profile. Scrutinizing peers’ essay responses and developing out-of-the-box reactions to them expanded my train of thought in literary matters. Contrary to the learning approaches in any of my former schools, the seminar, and its direct relation to the IB learner profile, expedited my thinking when grappling with extensive subjects such as an author’s use of a certain motif. Moreover, the seminar demonstrated that student-exclusive discussions could be just as worthwhile as the regular teacher-student learning sessions. I can hardly wait to have another Socratic seminar experience!
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