Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School

by Matt Copeland

Book Overview

The benefits and importance of Socratic seminars are widely recognized, but little has been written on how to make them happen successfully in the classroom. In Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School, author Matt Copeland provides real-world examples and straightforward answers to frequent questions. He creates a coaching guide for both the teacher new to Socratic seminars and the experienced teacher seeking...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571103945
• ISBN13: 9781571103949
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Stenhouse Publishers
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Starter Book

This is a great book for someone interested in implementing socratic circles in their classroom. It is easy to read and understand and gives solutions to possible problems that may occur. I still recommend gathering ideas from teachers who've tried Socratic circles, but this book is a great start. There are useful forms in the appendix that are ready to use.

Fabulous!

This is an excellent book! Loved the easy style in which it is written, practical/useful content, step-by-step examples... It has been a great source of inspiration which is already helping me make a difference in my jr. high classroom. My students are catching on to the concept and are showing great enthusiasm for Socratic Circles.

Great book for teachers of any grade!

A teacher friend of mine recommended this book to help with creating Socratic Circles/Seminars. It's fabulous! The author writes smoothly and easily for anyone to understand and follow. He has terrific examples and gives worksheets and reproducibles to help teachers. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's new at conducting Socratic Seminars. It definitely helped me better than anything else.

Great ideas, great resource

I'd read Michael Strong's "Habit of Thought" book, and was looking for more help in bringing socratic learning methods into my classes at my university. Despite coming from a high school english literature context, I found this book enormously helpful. I've been using the ideas in my graduate computer science class for over a month, with adaptations (e.g., using long research articles), and it has been very successful. The rubrics and forms included with the book are excellent as well. My students have become much better discussants and seem to be really enjoying the experience.

Helping the lower end catch up . . .

I read this book over the summer on a whim and really enjoyed Matt's writing, his suggestions, and his format for socratic seminars. I have been to training on socratic seminars, but this book helped me more than anything. He gives you little steps to take on your way to a full blown successful seminar. His ideas help get your kids asking questions, discussing, thinking, and writing at a higher level. My discussions have improved in class, and even the kids who usually don't participate have gotten involved in discussing and sharing their thoughts.