Socratic Seminar

Preparing for a Socratic Seminar: First, you must read the text which will be discussed (please remember that if you read ahead, you shouldn’t discuss things that the rest of the class hasn’t read yet). Then, you should make other preparations to ensure a successful and productive seminar. The following are different things you can do to be ready. You can do one or all of these things. A Dialogic Journal: identify quotations which you feel are any of the following: interesting, puzzling, insightful, or confusing. Write the quotation and its citation; then explain why you feel it is insightful, puzzling, etc. A Theme: identify a theme; then explain how that theme is expressed through literary devices or techniques, such as characterization, setting, symbolism, diction, imagery, structure, etc. A quote and citation must be used to support it. Open-ended Questions: come up with open-ended questions based on your study of the text which will lead to analytic, insightful discussion on theme, theory, use of literary device/technique, and so on. Posing questions is good, answering questions is better, answering questions and then supporting your answers with quotes from the text is best. The book is ″A lesson Before Dying″, by Ernest J. Gaines from pages 1-167 find questions about the book and quotations from the book that i can talk about in the seminar make sure its pages 1-167