January 13th meeting

On January 13, 2010, our group met for the third time with a goal of discussing our experiences with Socratic Seminars in our 8th-12 grade English classes. We covered those strategies and adaptations that we employed regarding time constraints, dealing with the rules, questioning techniques, and other unique approaches.
For younger students, having the rules and questions posted as well as clipboards for the outer circle seemed to work well. For other grade levels, it was agreed that having the students write the questions and then gather their thoughts in writing was useful, particularly when measuring how much their perspective was impacted by the group's discussion.
All group members agreed that the framing of the questions was the most crucial key to a successful seminar, making them open-ended, provocative, and based upon textual evidence to keep the ensuing discussion on task. We will continue to work as a group to refine our questioning technique.
We also discussed our use of a newly founded writing tutorial lab. The brainchild of Brittany Dougherty, this lab is manned by juniors and seniors who've demonstrated strong writing skills as well as a talent for dealing with younger students who come to them during their free periods and after school for support with writing assignments. This is an example of one of our Response to Intervention models that we are hoping will produce measurable results. Already, teachers are commenting upon how students are receiving the same kind of feedback normally offered by a teacher with better results because it is coming from a junior or senior. We continue to try whatever works.