Download 1.27.14 Socratic Seminar

Socratic Seminar:
What is a Socratic Seminar?
A Socratic Seminar is a form of teaching and learning. Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher, believed
that students learned the best when they had to think for themselves. Socrates would respond to student
questions not with answers, but rather with more questions. Rather than the teacher simply filling the
students’ heads with ideas, students form their own thoughts and share them with their peers. Students
examine a group of texts and share dialogue to come to a better understanding.
Guidelines

It is NOT a debate, but rather a discussion!

Students must address each other by name and use “I” phrases.
o
I agree with ___________________ because _________________
o
I respectfully disagree with ___________________ because _________________

No raising hands!!! Speak when someone has finished. Always give others a chance to
speak. Don’t hog the mic!

You MUST back up statements with textual evidence (with specific page numbers) or
theories/methods discussed in class.

NO side discussions.

No talking over each other.

Respect EVERYONE’S opinions.

Anyone may ask questions of the group any time.

Talk to the group, NOT to the teacher. Mr. Langan is not a participant in a Socratic Seminar.
Because this is a dialogue and not a debate we must:

Suspend judgement! Don’t judge others thoughts or opinions, they may lead you to a spark of
brilliance!

Explain your opinion and be able to see its limits.

Communicate what you’re assuming about the text.

Explore all viewpoints!
Logistics (How it’s Going Down!)
We are engaging in an inner and outer circle Socratic seminar. The inner circle will include ten
participants. They will have a dialogue guided by our “Guiding Questions.” While they are doing so, the
outside circle will be reading additional texts and writing down questions/ opinions they would like to pose
to the group. At random times throughout the seminar, Mr. Langan will call for a “Switcheroo.” A
Switcheroo call is the signal for the inner circle to get up and tap in someone from the outer circle. The
new inner circle will pick up the discussion where it left off.
Questions to help you generate some of your own!
You should prepare several questions in advance of our seminar. This will help you feel more confident
when you find yourself in the inner circle! Questions should be open ended, be something in which you’re
interested and have no one right answer. Here are some sample questions below:

Sample questions to dig deeper into the meaning and interpret a text:
What is the main idea or underlying value in the text?
What is the author’s purpose or perspective?
What does a particular phrase or section mean?
What might be a good title for the text (or a section of it)?
What is the most important word/ sentence/ paragraph of a section?

Sample questions to move the discussion along:
What has a different perspective on this?
Who has not yet had a chance to speak?
Where do you find evidence for that in the text?
Can you clarify what you mean by that?
How does that relate to what someone else said?
Is there something in the text that is unclear to you?
Has anyone changed their mind?
Beginning
Gives evidence and
makes inferences.
Asks questions which
lead to rich discussion
and deeper group
understanding.
Acts in ways which
contribute to building a
group that is
collaboratively
searching for meaning.
Locates factual
evidence with
page number.
Developing
Locates
evidence in
support of an
idea under
discussion.
Asks a
question
related to the
current
discussion.
Asks questions
that evoke
deeper
responses from
others.
Listens to
others.
Asks questions
to clarify what
someone has
said.
Accomplished
Exemplary
Uses evidence in the
text to expand on,
analyze or critique an
idea.
Uses evidence in
the text to create a
new idea or draw
connections
among ideas.
Asks questions that
connect ideas in the
current discussion to
previous comments.
Builds on another
person’s ideas.
Asks questions
that relate the
current discussion
to bigger themes or
ideas.
Connects the ideas
of several
students.
Scoring Guide for Socratic Seminar - Extra Credit point system for our first Seminar!
Beginning
.5 Points EC
Gives evidence and
makes inferences.
Asks questions which
lead to rich discussion
and deeper group
understanding.
Acts in ways which
contribute to building a
group that is
collaboratively
searching for meaning.
Developing
1 Point EC
Locates factual
evidence with
page number.
Locates
evidence in
support of an
idea under
discussion.
Asks a
question
related to the
current
discussion.
Asks questions
that evoke
deeper
responses from
others.
Listens to
others.
Asks questions
to clarify what
someone has
said.
Accomplished
1.5 Points EC
Exemplary
2 Points EC
Uses evidence in the
text to expand on,
analyze or critique an
idea.
Uses evidence in
the text to create a
new idea or draw
connections
among ideas.
Asks questions that
connect ideas in the
current discussion to
previous comments.
Builds on another
person’s ideas.
Asks questions
that relate the
current discussion
to bigger themes or
ideas.
Connects the ideas
of several
students.
PRIMARY READINGS FOR SOCRATIC SEMINAR
Four mini-selections from
Night
by Elie Wiesel
“Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked...
...for more than half an hour [the child in the noose] stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying
in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in
front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
“Where is God now?”
And I heard a voice within me answer him:
“Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows. . . .
That night, the soup tasted of corpses” (Wiesel, 65).
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven
times cursed and seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke
under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams
to dust.
Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never” (Wiesel, 34).
ALL DAY, I PLODDED AROUND like a sleepwalker. Tibi and Yossi would call out to me, from time to
time, trying to reassure me. As did the Kapo who had given me easier tasks that day. I felt sick at
heart. How kindly they treated me. Like an orphan. I thought: Even now, my father is helping me.
I myself didn’t know whether I wanted the day to go by quickly or not. I was afraid of finding myself
alone that evening. How good it would be to die right here!
At last, we began the return journey. How I longed for an order to run! The military march. The
gate. The camp. I ran toward Block 36.
Were there still miracles on this earth? He was alive. He had passed the second selection. He had
still proved his usefulness… I gave him back his knife and spoon (Wiesel, 76).
I WOKE UP AT DAWN on January 29. On my father’s cot there lay another sick person. They must have
taken him away before daybreak and taken him to the crematorium. Perhaps he was still breathing…
No prayers were said over his tomb. No candle lit in his memory. His last words had been my
name. He had called out to me and I had not answered.
I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I
could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at
last!...” (Wiesel, 112).
SECONDARY READINGS
Hotel Rwanda
Use the film and the Rwandan Genocide to create questions or back up your statements.
The Holocaust
The Holocaust was the systematic mass slaughter of millions of innocent people by the Nazis
during WWII.
The Jewish people of Europe were the most numerous of the victims of the Holocaust. Most
data indicates that approximately six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Jewish
people are a religious group that dates back to the ancient Israelites in approximately 2000
BCE. Judaism is a monotheistic faith and is one of the oldest religions still practiced today. The
Star of David is a widely used and recognized symbol of the Jewish faith. This symbol took on a
special significance during World War II, when Jews being persecuted by the German
government were forced to wear a yellow Star of David with the word “Jude” (Jew) written in the
middle. This star was required to be attached to the clothing of all Jews, and led to widespread
discrimination against the Jewish population.
Millions of other minority members also perished in the Holocaust. About 220,000 Sinti and
Roma [gypsies from Central and Eastern Europe] were murdered — between a quarter to a half
of their European population. Other groups deemed by the Nazis to be "racially inferior"
included Poles (6 million killed, of whom 3 million were Christian, and the rest Jewish), Serbs
(estimates vary between 500,000 and 1.2 million killed), around 500,000 Bosnians, Soviet
military prisoners of war and civilians in occupied territories including Russians and other East
Slavs, the mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, Africans, and other ethnic and religious
groups were also persecuted and killed.
In December 1941, the Nazis opened Chelmno, the first of what would soon be seven
extermination camps, dedicated entirely to the mass killing of human beings on a wide spread
scale, as opposed to the labor or concentration camps. Over three million Jews would die in
these extermination camps. The method of killing at these camps was by poison gas, usually in
"gas chambers", although many prisoners were killed in mass shootings and by other means.
The bodies of those killed were burned in furnaces, and the ashes buried or scattered. The
concentration and death camps were run by SS Officers who were like the Nazis police
force. The largest death camp built was Auschwitz-Birkenau, which had both a labor camp
(Auschwitz) and an extermination camp (Birkenau). At the peak of operations, Birkenau's gas
chambers killed approximately 8,000 people a day.
Upon arrival in these camps, all valuables were taken from the prisoners, and the women had to
have their hair cut off. According to a Nazi document, the hair was to be used for the
manufacture of stockings. Prisoners were then divided into two groups during a process called
‘selection’: those too weak for work were immediately executed in gas chambers (which were
sometimes disguised as showers) and their bodies burned, while others were used for slave
labor in factories or industrial enterprises located in the camp or nearby. Shoes, stockings, and
anything else of value was recycled for use in products to support the war effort, regardless of
whether or not a prisoner was sent to death. Some prisoners were forced to work in the
collection and disposal of corpses, and to extract gold teeth from the dead.
In some concentration camps and death camps doctors forcibly performed experiments on the
prisoners. Josef Mengele was an SS Officer and doctor at Auschwitz-Birkenau who performed
many questionably human medical experiments, for example he tried to change children’s’ eye
color by injecting chemicals in to their eyes, he transferred blood from one twin to another twin
with out anesthesia, and he also amputated prisoners limbs and sometimes killed patients just
to dissect them.
The prisoners who survived were freed from the camps by the Allied Soldiers at the end of
World War II.
World War II
World War II (abbreviated WWII) was a worldwide conflict fought between the Allied Powers and
the Axis Powers, from 1939 until 1945. Armed forces from over seventy nations engaged in
aerial, naval, and ground-based combat. Spanning much of the globe, World War II resulted in
the deaths of over sixty million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. The war
ended with an Allied victory.
On September 1, 1939, Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, invaded Poland
according to a secret agreement with the Soviet Union, which joined the invasion on September
17. On September 3, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, followed six hours later
by France, responded by declaring war on Germany, initiating a widespread naval
war. Germany rapidly overwhelmed Poland, then Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and
France in 1940, and Yugoslavia and Greece in 1941. Italian, and later German, troops attacked
British forces in North Africa. By summer of 1941, Germany had conquered France and most of
Western Europe, but it failed to subdue the United Kingdom due to the resistance of the Royal
Air Force and Royal Navy.
The Russian Front - Adolf Hitler then turned on the Soviet Union, launching a surprise attack
on June 22, 1941. Despite enormous gains, the invasion bogged down outside of Moscow in
late 1941 as winter set in and made further advances difficult. The Soviets later launched a
massive counterattack encircling and then forcing the surrender of the German Sixth Army at
the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-43), decisively defeated the Axis during the Battle of Kursk, and
broke the Siege of Leningrad. The Red Army then pursued the retreating Wehrmacht all the way
to Berlin, and won the street-by-street Battle of Berlin, as Hitler committed suicide in his
underground bunker on April 30, 1945.
Linkup of the Allied Armies in Germany - Meanwhile, the Western Allies (United States and
United Kingdom) invaded Italy in 1943 and then liberated France in 1944, following amphibious
(water) landings in the Battle of Normandy. Repulsing a German counterattack at the Battle of
the Bulge in December, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine River and linked up with their
Soviet counterparts at the Elbe River in central Germany.
The Holocaust - During the war, six million Jews, as well as Roma (Gypsies), Slavs,
Communists, homosexuals, the disabled and several other groups, were murdered by Germany
in a state-sponsored genocide that has come to be known as The Holocaust.
Aftermath - About 62 million people, or 2.5% of the world population, died in the war, though
estimates vary greatly (see World War II casualties). Large swathes of Europe and Asia were
devastated and took years to recover. The war had political, sociological, economic and
technological consequences that last to this day.
Questions:
1. How many European Jews were killed by the Nazis?
____________________________________________________________________________________
2. Besides the Jews, what are three other groups that were targeted and killed by the Nazis?
____________________________________________________________________________________
3. What did the Nazis open in December 1941?
____________________________________________________________________________________
4. What happened to the prisoners when they arrived at a death camp?
____________________________________________________________________________________
5. Who was Josef Mengele?
____________________________________________________________________________________
6. When was WWII?
____________________________________________________________________________________
7. Who lead Germany and the Nazi party?
____________________________________________________________________________________
8. Where did Germany invade to start the war?
____________________________________________________________________________________
9. Which countries declared war on Germany in September 1939?
____________________________________________________________________________________
10. How many people died in WWII?
____________________________________________________________________________________
11. Which side of the war was the United States and England on? (Allied or Axis)
____________________________________________________________________________________
THAT DAMNED FENCE
By Anonymous
They’ve sunk the posts deep into the ground
They’ve strung out wires all the way around.
With machine gun nests just over there,
And sentries and soldiers everywhere.
We’re trapped like rats in a wired cage,
To fret and fume with impotent rage;
Yonder whispers the lure of the night,
But that DAMNED FENCE assails our sight.
We seek the softness of the midnight air,
But that DAMNED FENCE in the floodlight glare
Awakens unrest in our nocturnal quest,
And mockingly laughs with vicious jest.
With nowhere to go and nothing to do,
We feed terrible, lonesome, and blue:
That DAMNED FENCE is driving us crazy,
Destroying our youth and making us lazy.
Imprisoned in here for a long, long time,
We know we’re punished–though we’ve committed no
crime,
Our thoughts are gloomy and enthusiasm damp,
To be locked up in a concentration camp.
Loyalty we know, and patriotism we feel,
To sacrifice our utmost was our ideal,
To fight for our country, and die, perhaps;
But we’re here because we happen to be Japs.
We all love life, and our country best,
Our misfortune to be here in the west,
To keep us penned behind that DAMNED FENCE,
Is someone’s notion of NATIONAL DEFENCE!