The Power of the Socratic Classroom

Over-Preparing for Seminar

I recently visited several classrooms where students spent considerable time filling out packets for their Socratic Seminar. These typically consisted of previewing questions, graphic organizers, background researches and other tasks. Some of the packets took three or four class periods in preparation for a single seminar. Now, I am a big fan of prep work in pre-seminar. When a seminar doesn't go well, it is often because there was not enough preparation. I know some teachers were nervous to have visitors, but three or four days is a lot of prep work! I never considered much the possibility of over-preparing before. As I thought more about the packets and the quality of the dialogue I observed, I think two days (or class periods) seems like plenty of preparation. More than that and there is simply too much information for the students to wield in the course of the seminar. All of the unused information then just seems like busy work. So what do students need? What does a text demand? Well, as a fairly reliable procedure I would say: two readings of the text; student-generated questions; annotations of the text using a good system; and any other technique or two to activate curiosity.