Socratic Seminars

Socratic Seminars St. Bernard Parish Public Schools Aislinn Cunningham Title I Facilitator Rebecca Wood 7-8 English Teacher

Thursday, May 30, 2013 LDC Task Essential Question: What makes a speech compelling? Today’s Objective: • Read the passages from both accounts of Sojourner Truth’s extemporaneous speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?”

Pre-seminar Reflection • Think about your interactions with others—how do people engage with you? How do they respond? • What are your strengths as a communicator? • What are your areas of refinement?

Set an Individual Goal • What will you focus on today in pursuit of becoming a stronger communicator?

Expectations • Be KIND • DON’T raise your hand • Contribute at least three times • Actively listen • Everyone participates

Expectations • Always cite the text when making an argument • When disagreeing with another’s conclusions, argument or solutions, briefly state what they said, don’t interrupt, and be civil and respectful • Be concise and stay on point - Avoid distracting verbal tics (“um,” “like,” “you know”) • HOT WORDS • Society • Abolitionist • Individual • Feminism • 19th Amendment petition • Deprive • Suffrage • Democracy • false belief • voting right • Activism • social right • social movement

Socratic Seminar: When? What task? What makes a speech compelling? After reading several speeches on the subject of women’s rights and the abolitionist movement, write a speech that discusses each speaker’s claims and evaluates their use of rhetorical strategies. Be sure to support your position with evidence from the text.

Socratic Seminar: When? What skills? Transition to Writing What instruction? Socratic Seminar

Socratic Seminar: How? • Preparation • Management • Accountability

Speaking and Listening Standards Grade 8 Comprehension and Collaboration • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.8.1dAcknowledge new information expressed by others, and, when warranted, qualify or justify their own views in light of the evidence presented.

Discussion Mini-Lessons and Classroom Practices Listen, paraphrase, comment Qualify & defend

Socratic Seminar: How? • Practice, practice, practice • Drive forward with formative assessment and reflection “In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.” “Practice isn't the thing you do when you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.” --Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

Socratic Seminar: Why? • “The CCSS emphasize that listeners should learn to take the stance of evaluator toward the speakers they encounter in school, examining points of view, reasoning, and rhetoric.” Calkins & Ehrensworth, Pathways to the Common Core

Socratic Seminar: Why? 3b: Using questions/ prompts and discussion A Highly Effective Teacher… “…uses a variety of series of questions or prompts to challenge students cognitively” “…students formulate many questions, initiate topics and make unsolicited contributions.”

Students’ perspectives… • Lawrianne

Students’ perspectives… • Ozier “James McBride proves that the view of race on society has changed for the better. Society no longer identifies you by your race. We are no longer categorized or labeled because of how we look. James McBride and his mother are proof that race doesn’t defy who you are as a person and no one should be defined by their race.”

Students’ perspectives… • Shelby As James starts to discover himself and learns his mothers past his actions reveal this paradigm shift. He says, “As a grown man, I feel privileged to have come from two different worlds. My view of the world is not merely that of a black man but that of a black man with something of a Jewish soul.” In the past society’s view of race was being one race and however you looked that’s what race you were. No matter where you came from, what your culture was, how you spoke or how your parents looked, but as James got older he started to see the way that society does now in the present day. He started to see all his races. James also says, “I don’t consider myself Jewish, but when I look at Holocaust photographs of Jewish women whose children have been wrenched from them by Nazi soldiers, the women look like my own mother and I think to myself, There but for the grace of God goes my own mother-and by extension, myself.” He’s saying that even though he doesn’t think of himself as a Jewish man, he still accepts himself as a mixed man with white, Jewish, and black. This is him thinking and representing the new paradigm, and he’s aspiring to be comfortable being mixed raced.

Reflection • What is possible?

Socratic Seminars