THIS CLASS IS NOW FULL.
Instructor: Lani Siciliano (For Teacher Bio, please see Here)
Email: LaniS@empowered.academy
Time: Full Year, Thursday 9:00-10:20am CT
Suggested Range: High school aged students
Course Description:
Socratic seminars are named for their embodiment of Socrates’ belief in the power of asking questions, prize inquiry over information and discussion over debate.
Elfie Israel succinctly defines Socratic seminars and implies their rich benefits for students:
The Socratic seminar is a formal discussion, based on a text, in which the leader asks open-ended questions. Within the context of the discussion, students listen closely to the comments of others, thinking critically for themselves, and articulate their own thoughts and their responses to the thoughts of others. They learn to work cooperatively and to question intelligently and civilly.
(Israel, Elfie. “Examining Multiple Perspectives in Literature.” In Inquiry and the Literary Text: Constructing Discussions n the English Classroom. James Holden and John S. Schmit, eds. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2002.)
Our seminar will aim to meet all the goals described above throughout the year. In the first semester we will focus primarily on essays and short stories. During the second semester we will include a novel or two as well.
Course requirements will include reading and annotating the assigned readings prior to class meetings as well as participating actively in discussions during class time.
Required Resources:
Most material will be available online at no cost to the student outside of private printing. Every effort will be made to use novels in the public domain or at least readily available via libraries as well.