Trying Socratic Circles

A couple blog posts ago I talked about Socratic circles, and I gave them a shot this week. On the whole, it was a great experience, and I’m looking forward to trying them again. But of course, there are things that I will modify for next time, and I thought it might be useful to reflect on what I liked and what I would change.

To start with, the kids need to be discussing a text they are somewhat familiar with, and we used Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” which I had assigned as their fluency reading for the week. Theoretically, all of them had read it at least five times, and I had asked them to underline words they didn’t know, and to write down three questions they could ask, so we had some questions ready to go. This was a good idea, and I think I would do something like this again, until we get better at generating questions more easily. The poem was challenging for fourth graders, and I am fine with that, although I don’t think anyone loved it just because it is quite a bit more difficult than other, more kid-friendly poems they’ve read. But they do need to grapple with challenging text, and this gave them that opportunity.

I had thought a bit about how to divide the kids into two groups, and when I saw how many kids had brought back their homework (not many), that solved the problem for me. I sorted the returned homework into two stacks, making sure that each group had some strong students in it (hoping that they would be leaders, and they were), and then I put all the other kids without homework into the groups, assuming they would sit next to someone with the text.

The inner circle sat on the floor, and I had the outer circle sit around them on chairs with clipboards for their response sheet. (See a copy of the outer circle response sheet below.) That worked out well, but all groups said they had difficulty hearing the students speaking, so by the last group I used our class microphone, which slowed the conversation down a bit but did make it much easier to hear. 

I felt that all groups really worked to do their roles. The outer circles concentrated on what people were saying, and how they were saying it, and the inner circles tried to ask and respond to questions. I think that was the hardest part, as many students wanted to ask their questions but weren’t always interested in thinking about other people’s questions. I’m hoping that changes as we get better at the discussion part. Many in the outer circle commented that all students did not participate, and I think that is a more powerful observation when it comes from one’s peers. It will be interesting to see if there is more participation the next time we try this. I know there are some very quiet students, and this is pushing them out of their comfort zone, so I need to do more thinking about how to encourage them to contribute.

Finally, my last observation would be that you need time to do this. The first group I allotted about thirty minutes, and this wasn’t quite enough for the first experience with the activity. The second group always has a shorter class time anyway, and we ended up breaking our discussion time into two days.  That worked better only because both groups had more time without feeling rushed, but I liked having both groups go on the same day to keep the discussion more fluid. 

Allotting forty-five minutes would have been the smart thing, which I’ll keep in mind for the next time.

Perhaps the best indicator of the success of my first Socratic circles would be the student responses. I had a number of students ask if we were going to do them again, and I was happy to tell them we would. I highly recommend you give Socratic circles a try!

Reading Professionally

I got an email this week from Heinemann publishers, telling me about a forth-coming book. “Ha! “ I said out loud. “I’ve already pre-ordered it!” I do love a good professional book, and I’ve got a cupboard full of them.  In fact, I make a yearly vow not to order any more, and then proceed to break that vow at least several times a year. I think reading professionally, although not to everyone’s taste, has really helped me to stay fresh as a teacher. So I decided I’d give a few of my recommendations, since not everyone wants to read long books all the time.

If you haven’t seen The Reading Teacher, and you teach elementary school reading, you are missing out. You get this magazine as part of your membership when joining the International Reading Association, and I think it’s the best professional publication devoted to reading and writing that you can find. While some issues have more that directly affects me than others, on the whole they have their fingers on the pulse of the latest research, and write in a way that is accessible. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve tried in the classroom as a result of an article that I read in this magazine. The cost of a membership is spendy (I think it’s about $67 per year, which I write off on my taxes), but it’s well worth it.

There are plenty of less expensive options for professional reading, though. Both Stenhouse and Heinemann, two of the top educational publishers, will often put all or part of their new books online to look at. I’ve saved a little money by reading them on my computer, taking notes on what I think I’ll use, and then not buying the book.  Ok, sometimes I buy the book anyway, but it’s nice to preview it first.

Then there are all the online options. Plenty of the people writing those professional books are also blogging, and I’ve found a wealth of information following their blogs. (See the list to the right for some of my favorite blogs.) One way I found out about some of them is through Twitter, which I lurk on regularly. I initially joined Twitter to find out more about using iPads in the classroom, so I followed people who were writing about education and technology. They would then retweet (or repost) other people in education’s tweets, and I slowly found myself broadening my Twitter scope to include other teachers, principals, and children’s book writers. I highly recommend trying Twitter – it’s free, it’s short, and you can follow up interesting links when you have the time. I know I should probably be tweeting (or posting) but I haven’t taken that step yet. I just read what other people are tweeting about, and therefore have access to speeches, conferences, and book lists that I would never have heard about otherwise.

I’ve resisted joining Pinterest, but I know that many people have gotten some great ideas off of that website. And there are probably other websites containing great ideas – even YouTube has videos you can watch that show teachers trying different teaching strategies. I think it’s important to try new things out, both for the kids and for me as a teacher. Keeping things fresh keeps everyone more interested, and for me, professional reading is the gateway to what is new. Are there professional resources that you rely on? 

Socratic Circles

One of the best things about being a teacher is having other teachers to collaborate with. I’ve had the very great fortune of working with many teachers who have great ideas and are eager to share them and talk about ways to make those ideas even better. When I taught in a triad, I had fewer opportunities to work with someone teaching at my grade level, but for the past two years we’ve had a dyad at fourth grade, and I have my teaching partner who shares the same students as I do, and a teaching partner who teaches the ELA content that I do. It is great to have someone to talk content with, and my partner and I have been eagerly looking for ways to incorporate more reading strategies that match the Common Core Standards.

One strategy we are eager to try is using Socratic circles in the classroom. I ended up buying yet another professional book, Socratic Circles by Matt Copeland (Stenhouse), because I needed more information than I was getting from the various websites I was exploring. Copeland gears the book for middle and high schoolers, but I think with some direction, my fourth graders can benefit from this strategy. Socratic circles are basically a way of discussing text, but with only half the class.  They sit in the “inner circle.” The rest of the class is in the “outer circle”, observing the discussion and noting who is saying what, and thinking about the quality of the discussion. After a set amount of time (Copeland suggests ten minutes, but we think we’ll start with five) the class pauses. The outer circle is then asked for their evaluation of the discussion, and after that the groups switch positions. The new inner circle has their own discussion, with the new outer circle now evaluating the discussion. I’ve oversimplified this for the sake of quickly describing it, but I think it gives a basic idea of the way the circles work.

Why do this? Copeland and other people who have used Socratic circles cite the quality of the discussion. Students need to come to the circle with a text they’ve looked over and possibly annotated, ready to dig deeper into the meaning of that text. In many ways, that’s what close reading is asking students to do as well, but this is in a discussion format, instead of strictly written. Speaking in a group and having a discussion is part of the standards, so this is a good way to meet that standard.  Furthermore, learning to have a good discussion that sticks to the text and ideas, but doesn’t dissolve into name-calling, is a skill many people need to develop.

My partner and I are going to start with Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”, and use that as a fluency reading first. We’ll ask the students to mark words they don’t know, and to write down questions connected to places they are confused. Hopefully this will give them some springboards for discussion in our first Socratic circle. I’ll report back here after we try it, and let you know how it goes.  Our classes are somewhat different in their makeup, and it will be interesting to see what difference that makes in the discussions our students have. Has anyone else tried these? Any suggestions for texts, or strategies for managing the circles? In the meantime, I’ll be reading Copeland’s book closely for his recommendations, and in a week or so, after our break, I’ll be jumping in to Socratic circles!

Reading Choice

In Friday’s edition of the Star Tribune, there was an article entitled “For A in empathy, read Chekhov.”  I mention this because we’re at the point in the school year where I’m starting to look more closely at what my students are selecting for their independent reading, and like usual, I’m a bit nervous.  It isn’t that my students aren’t reading during their independent choice time – they are.  The graphic novels in particular are flying off my shelves, and students are taking home those books all the time from my classroom library.  And I’m happy about that – I really am.  But in terms of difficulty or complexity, few students are choosing chapter books that are what I think of as fourth grade level chapter books.  Some are happy reading Magic Treehouse or Horrible Harry, but nobody is picking up Bud, Not Buddy or other more “classic” children’s books.  I’m not even sure if “classic” is the right word, since adult classics all seem to be hundreds of years old and are often difficult to get through, but I’m talking about more literary books that don’t have cartoony characters on the cover. I know many of those are really higher grade books, but the Star Trib article made me think about getting my students ready for those more challenging books.  Even reading books with more text and fewer pictures is daunting for some of my more struggling readers, and their guided reading books usually have quite a few picture supports. 

But at some point, students need to be preparing for more text and fewer pictures, especially in fiction. I hesitate to even bring up testing, but the state tests have very few pictures unless it’s a nonfiction passage that includes a graph.  Students have groaned when they see a whole page of text, so a whole chapter book that has page after page of text with no pictures isn’t at all appealing to them. I wrestle with how much choice I need to give, when I know that they need to build up reading stamina, and that reading longer books will also challenge their vocabularies and broaden their reading experiences.

 It’s at this point in the year where I break out some chapter books in a variety of levels, and give some quick book talks.  I then ask students to choose their top three, and I sort through and assign them a book to read.  I’ve had success with this because there is some choice involved, although I will put students in books that best fit their reading level rather than let them struggle (if their first choice is a book I know will be too much for them).  I then require the students to read a third of the book each week, and I put their section pages up on the board so they know how many pages they need to read each week.  I do have them fill out a short response sheet that asks about setting, characters, problem, solution, etc… but it doesn’t take too long to complete.  I try to meet with all the kids reading that book each week, so I can assess whether or not they’re understanding, but it isn’t like a full-fledged lit circle (although it certainly could evolve that way).  For some students who truly have a hard time choosing a book, having an assigned book helps them out, and for some students, this is the only way they will finish a book.  I have rarely had a student tell me they didn’t like the book they picked, but when it happens, I have always let those students read something else.

My selections are what I consider to be good children’s literature, and it makes me wonder if the aforementioned study that showed that reading literary fiction instead of popular fiction builds empathy also applies to children’s lit. At the very least, it gives kids exposure to writing styles they may not be getting with some of the more popular but casual styles of children’s books. And I’m all for reading those – I myself read a wide variety of material, some more high-brow than others. All of it helps our kids as readers.  Still, I want my students to have exposure to books they might not pick up unless their teacher assigns them; much of the time, they really like what they read, so I know it wasn’t a tortuous experiment.  How much choice do you give your students in selecting what they read independently?

Here's a link to the Star Tribune article: www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/226396821.html