Socratic Seminar Questions Examples

Before the pandemic, my students worked with Socratic Seminar questions examples to create incredible discussions, but what about after the pandemic? At the start of the 2023 school year, many of my students told me they hated talking in class–until I organized them for Socratic Seminars.

Purpose of Socratic Seminar

Socratic Seminars are an excellent opportunity for students to embody curiosity. This student-centered discussion method enlivens any text or topic. It serves as a solid tool for exploring and developing essential questions in the classroom.

Socratic Seminar: Avid Method

My favorite version of Socratic Seminar is the triad version popularized by AVID, a nonprofit dedicated getting all students college- and career-ready. AVID has detailed directions, but here is my truncated teacher version.

1. Divide students into three groups.
2. Students generate questions for discussion.
3. Students have time to read and prepare notes.
4. On discussion day, behind each discusser, are two students. One is the coach, and one is on a backchannel chat with the teacher. The coach takes notes and shares their feedback with the discusser at an interval. The backchannel chat student discusses the same questions as a the “out loud” discussers. My favorite site is now defunct, but here are some alternatives.
5. At a timed interval, students rotate positions.
6. Afterwards, collect student notes to review and asses. You can reteach or grade as you see fit.

Socratic Seminar Topic Ideas

There are three different approaches I use for topic ideas.

1. Discussing part of a text or something smaller (an act, a few chapters, an article, etc.).
2. Discussing half or a whole text (half of a novel).
3. Discussing multiple texts as a capstone for a unit around an essential question or theme.

Early on, I will start with part to make sure we are getting the mechanics down before moving on to longer works or an entire unit.

Discussing Part of a Text (shorter discussions)

• about a 20-minute discussion. Students prep and discuss on the same day.
• students serve one role (discusser, coach, or chatter), then rotate across three different short discussions on three different days. This allows more willing students to go first and serve as a model. It also helps because if someone is absent, they will be able to make up the discusser role on a different day (I drop the coach or chat requirement because those aren’t my priority.
• each student brings one question to discussion. You get the most questions discussed in this version. Students get live feedback on the strength of their question by how well it can be discussed.

Discussing Half or a Whole Work/Capstone for a Unit

• about a 40-minute discussion. Students prep the day before so they can all be successful.
• students serve all three roles.
• each student nominates a question, and then students vote. We could do about 9 questions in 40 minutes. Each group of discussers can discuss whichever questions they want. You can do a paper nomination/voting process or a Google form. In the Google form, students submit the questions, then you post the spreadsheet. I hid the names. Students vote for the number by the question.

Types of Socratic Seminar Questions

Here are the three basic question stems I provide:

• Why…?
• How does…?
• Did you notice…? What do you think…?

In an English Learner-only classes, we focus on the 5 Ws (who, what, where, when, why) and how.

If students are really stuck, I will share a list of questions about whatever we’re reading from the internet and let them pick a good one. Just google “book club questions” for whatever you’re reading.

More question ideas: How to Make Magic with the Class Discussion Teaching Strategy

Socratic Seminar Handouts

In Socratic Seminar Questions Examples, Handouts, and Lessons, you’ll get

• 3 sets of lesson plans and slides for using Socratic Seminar so that you can use it with shorter texts, longer texts, or a unit
• Discussion prep and coaching handouts, pdf and Google versions, to guide students in the process
• Socratic Seminar checklist to grade the seminar while it happens, pdf and Google versions–grading done fast!
• An English Learner version of all materials (for intermediate, level 2/3 English Learners) to use with a sheltered class or a small group scaffolded discussion