Today was our Socratic Seminar Discussion quiz for chapters 12-15 in our Lost Hero Novel. The outside circle maintained an authentic conversation about the verbal conversation going on in the inner circle. All students were responsible for coming up with questions for the quiz. We compiled all of the questions and made it into a study guide for the weekend. We held a practice round yesterday so students would feel confident going into the test today.
I got the idea to do this from my AP Literature class in High School. I told the kids how proud I was that they were able to go through this intense process. When I told them that they were partaking in an Advanced Placement level activity, well let's just say there were a lot of smiles and pride engulfed the room.
The student feedback was overwhelmingly positive! Students were EXCITED about going back into the inner circle to discuss their favorite question a second and a third time! I had a total of 17 students out of my 25 voluntarily and excitedly go back into the inner circle to increase their understanding and knowledge of the text.
In addition to the feedback and the engagement I had for the inner circle, everyone was determined to express their intelligence on the site Todaysmeet.com.
Aside from a few technical errors, the site worked wonderfully and students were excited to see their question/comment pop into the RSS feed.
Finally, in case there were any shy students in the discussion, they chose two of the questions that they created from each chapter to answer in a written format. This written format of the test was taken after they spend a couple rounds in the socratic seminar.
This lesson is research based and aligned with the CCSS.
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