Students tend to learn best from one another. Having a student reciprocate a lesson to another student can be more effective than having a teacher go over a lesson. Moving them out of nice neat rows and placing them in a circle with the intention of discussion can breathe life into your classroom. Because of this, I generally choose to use Socratic Circles in my classroom.
When I taught 8th grade, and 8th grade honors, I utilized Socratic Circles frequently. When I began teaching 6th and 7th grade, I moved away from them, but after this past year, I have decided that I want to incorporate Socratic Circles in my classroom once again.
Socratic Circles can be quite scary in the beginning. A teacher’s job is hands off. You are not in charge. You are merely a facilitator, not the teacher. You maintain the time, beginning topic, and make sure that the students are cordial with one another. The prep work for the first one can be quite laborious, but once you get the ground work laid out and have students do a practice run, it gets easier.
The Prep
Many things need to be introduced before you can have a Socratic Circle. Students need to know:
- What it looks like?
- How to participate?
- What types of questions they need?
What it looks like?
Most students have worked in groups before, but they really haven’t participated in Socratic Circles. Sometimes I will have them do Fishbowl Discussions as a precursor to Socratic Circles, but not all the time. I make sure to share with them video of students in Fishbowl and Socratic Circles so that they know what it should look like. We discuss what they notice (believe me, most students love to share what they see). We talk about the importance of it. For example, there were questions. Why did they need a question? To keep the discussion going. To add to the discussion. To question what they just talked about.
How to participate?
Students need to understand how to participate in a Socratic Circle. While students understand the concept of talking, they may not understand social cues when talking. They will need to learn how to listen for someone who is finished speaking. They need to know how to take over in a conversation. With a first time group, I may choose to give them speaking cards until they understand how to ease into a conversation. If they have something to say, they use a card rather than raising their hand. (They are used to raising hands)
I even offer sentence stems to give them an idea of how to go about participating in the discussion. They need to know how to refer back to a comment, or how to add to a comment. They also need to understand that it is important to have come prepared to the circle.
What types of questions are needed?
Before your first Socratic Circle prep, you need to teach students about the different types of questions. I teach them about Costas levels of questioning and go over as a class building questions. We may do this several times before we begin with a Socratic Circle they will be graded on.
The Socratic Circle
When I do Socratic Circles, I tend not to do one giant circle. Instead, I have smaller ones. To cut down on the noise on the outer circle, I give them a job. They are to observe a student in the circle. These are chosen by me. I’m also observing both circles.
They sign up for a topic ahead of time. For example, when I taught Romeo and Juliet, I had topics such as, How is love portrayed in the media? and students must tie that in to the play. These topics are usually based on one of the themes of the text we are reading. When we read “The Most Dangerous Game,” we also read articles about the ethics of hunting, and one of the questions was on the feelings of animals. Or after reading “The Necklace” and “The Gift of the Magi” I asked a Burning Question, “Who sacrificed the most?” My hot seat was on fire for that one.
I do include a Hot Seat for Burning Questions. This is an empty seat that anyone from the outer circle may enter into the discussion. They can ask a question or make a comment. They may not stay in the seat for the discussion. They may also not line up behind the seat. They can only approach the seat if it is empty. In doing this, they have to do several things: pay attention to body language both around the inner and outer circle, know when they can enter into the conversation, and know how to add without disrupting the flow of what is already happening. To make it easier, you can always have a person who is in charge of the Socratic Circle. They turn everyone’s attention to the person who has approached after they finish the discussion they are in. This worked wonderfully with my honors group because they would finish their discussion, and allow the person who joined to discuss their question before they left. The person in charge also had access to the timer. They knew how much time they still had to discuss.
I always give them a time limit for discussion. This gives them several benefits. One, they know they have to have questions to keep the discussion going. Two, they also know how much time they have and to wrap it up if discussions are getting to in depth. Of course, as the facilitator, I do keep questions written down to make sure they do meet their time goal and also to make sure that they discuss what I want them to discuss. I may know a question that may come up on a test or TDA or once they are in high school (for honors entering AP classes).
The most important thing that they need to know is to come to the circle prepared. They have to refer back to the text. That may mean a marked up text or their textbook with post its placed on certain pages. If they say something, they have to back it up with the text if it is necessary. Defend it with text, Define it with text, and Explain it with text. This is the one reason why I have decided to go back to Socratic Circles. The 8th grade teacher talked about students not knowing how to find textual evidence. I realized that the one thing that my Socratic Circles did was to force them to back everything with textual evidence. I have 6th grade and 7th grade students back to back. Going back to Socratic Circles gives me the opportunity to teach them to find text evidence to support questions and comments.
If you would like to try Socratic Circles in your classroom, I have a zip file that includes all of the things that I use. When I first was told about Socratic Circles, I wasn’t given any information. I had to search the internet, and over the course of 10 years, I have narrowed things down. You are more than welcome to use them in your classroom or adapt them to your own needs.
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