Socratic Seminars in English Literature Classes

While teaching a college-level Forms of Literature course at a local community college and an AP Literature and Composition course at a local magnet medical academy, I've found the technique students most respond to, in all classes, is the Socratic seminar, preceded by a literature circle.

After having read a few books on Socratic seminars and undergone several trial and error methods in several classes, I've modified the traditional format to one that works best in my classes. Here is my best practice, so far.

Within a block-schedule class structure, I first assign a reading for homework. Once upon entering class the day after the reading, students take a five-minute recall quiz (in a Google Form online) to determine whether they are ready to participate in the Socratic Seminar. I quickly grade the results in the Google Form, using the add-on Flubaroo. If 70% of students pass the recall quiz, I know it will be a somewhat fruitful discussion, so I let them proceed with the literature circles. If 70% of the class do not pass the recall quiz, I use an alternative "back-up" assignment, which includes some group work, ferreting out some literary concept from the text and giving a presentation at the end of class. Students typically don't like giving presentations, so they tend to try harder for the seminar (hee-hee).

After the recall quiz, in the literature circles, I separate students into groups of three and give them about ten minutes to generate five open-ended discussion questions on the assigned reading. They must share these questions with me in a Google Document, so I can vet the questions before they are used in the actual Seminar. Sometimes these discussion questions need a little work to make them relevant to learning objectives. I play relaxing electronic music on YouTube while they are engaged in this group activity to help relax them in their groups. Other teachers have walked in on us while this is going on and have commented on how "chill" the vibe was in the classroom. I have older students, so I don't usually have to worry about students losing focus. After the discussion questions get generated, we proceed with the seminar.

After dividing the class in half, I assign one half to be in the inner circle (where the actual seminar will take place). Students in the inner circle engage in discussion for a minimum of fifteen minutes. (Yes, I turn the music off during the seminar, and I stay completely out of the seminar discussion). If a good discussion ensues, I let it continue. Sometimes the discussions are so powerful and meaningful, students have had to excuse themselves from elicited emotions.

Anyway, before the discussion takes place, I assign the students in the outer circle to one peer within the inner circle. The student being evaluated (in the inner circle) does not know who is evaluating him/her. This creates a sense of anonymity that avoids potential conflict, while at the same time creates a greater sense of accountability within the student in the Seminar. I've found this method to be very effective in engaging typically timid and unmotivated students. For example, I've seen introverts become quite animated, because they know the instructor is not giving them a grade for this activity; they seem to perform better for an anonymous peer evaluator. The difference in motivation between performing for a peer and the instructor is an interesting dynamic I intend to explore later.

For students in the outer circle, I have a pre-built Google Form with scaled questions that ask the student to evaluate his or her assigned peer in the inner circle. Peer evaluators do not know what kind of grade s/he is giving his/her peer. All s/he knows is the five-point scale. Ultimately, this eliminates potential bias. The anonymity in peer evaluation encourages honesty and fairness in the evaluator. Not only that, the peer who is being evaluated does not know who evaluated him/her, which helps to mitigate possible grade inflation by a peer who may be trying to "help out his buddy."

Though students in the inner circle do not know who evaluated them, I do. I make all peer evaluators put their own name next to the person whom they evaluated, just in case there is a conflict, I can go back into the Google Sheet and see who evaluated whom. I created a formula in the Google Sheet that receives the peer evaluator's scaled responses that converts the five-point scaled total to a 100-point grade. After the first group completes their seminar, the two circles switch and the same process is repeated.

After getting students to sign a media consent form at the beginning of each semester, I also record the seminars with cellphones or my camcorder in order to archive the discussion or to have students go back and reflect on their own performances later on.

I've shown students the back end of how all of this works, and they absolutely love it; so much so, they show great disappointment when we don't do Socratic seminars. Some have even commented that they wish other teachers would do the same thing.

Yale's Dead White Male Poets

Recently, Yale University English Department learned of a student petition to "decolonize" the English department by no longer requiring students to study "white male poets" (http://goo.gl/LJn0LV). The petition's use of the term "decolonize" seems to imply a correlation between early American and British colonization of indigenous cultures and today's students of color. For instance, the petition claimed that the requirement to read English poets "create[d] a culture that is hostile to students of color . . . that [the course,] Major English Poets [should] be abolished." What's lost on these students is the fact that the petitioners have ironically engaged in scapegoating--the very discrimination to which they presume to be victims.

In defense of the petition, one student, Adriana Miele, wrote in the Yale Daily News that in forcing students to take the Major English Poets, the English "department actively contributes to the erasure of history." Funny: Hasn't the course been taught at Yale since around 1920? And the petitioners want it abolished? 

By claiming the study of these major English poets creates a hostile environment, the petitioners outright reject a rich literary tradition, one that shows the evolution of a culture's language, and they ignore the purpose of engaging with the text. As such, in their "collective call to action," the petitioners seek to inhibit their own fluency in their native tongue. The assumption is that the "hostile environment" is spurred by the English poets. If so, this is a good thing, typical of a college English literature seminar. The texts are supposed to spur discussion. But, this is less a problem with the poets and more a by product of literary criticism and interpretation. Disagreements meted out during class discussion may be the result of differentials in identity and status among students at Yale, but it isn't a problem with the poets or their texts. In other words, students from different walks of life are going to read the texts differently, they're going to get into arguments; that's the discipline: students learn through making and defending arguments. To dismiss the cultural construction of these poets is to deliberately wear blinders that stubbornly ignores one's own past ,which does not enhance the shaping of one's identity. Ironically, it hinders one's shared cultural identity, creating a truly hostile tyranny of the one-sided argument.

This controversy revolves more around literacy levels than race, both of which form identity politics. Within the past decade or so, it seems the functionally illiterate have usurped American political correctness, persistently seeking to destroy institutions that seem to represent "white wealthy male power." Studying the Major English poets does not represent "whiteness," nor does it represent wealth or masculine power, because true poetry represent the human condition, something that transcends identity politics. Specifically, these texts represent a literary tradition that has shaped the language we speak, read and write today. 

I understand why some students might resent the wealthy white male, but it is not a reason to dismiss engagement with their "discourse" via well-reasoned arguments, one of the core skills of a rigorous English education. Just because one finds it difficult to relate to Donald Trump's "political incorrectness," (i.e. his language), doesn't mean one should abandon reason and riot in the streets. One still must engage in reasoned argument.