Socratic Teaching: the Art of Asking Good Questions
“The right question is usually more important than the right answer.”
When I first entered the teaching profession, I felt the incredible burden of needing to know all the answers. I now realize that this was due to immaturity and inexperience as much as anything else, but it was also the model of teaching with which I was most familiar, the “sage on the stage,” as we used to call it. To some degree, I was able to pull this off during my first two years of teaching in low income schools, both in England and Dallas, but then I landed my dream “Dead Poets Society” job at an elite all-girl preparatory school.
During my onboarding week as a new faculty member, I quickly discovered that I was the youngest Upper School teacher, and more significantly, I was one of the few who had yet to earn a graduate degree (I was working on my masters at the time & received it the next year). Surrounded by professorial teachers and colleagues with PhDs in their field, I suffered from imposter syndrome and deep insecurity. As a result, I worked tirelessly, often staying on campus until 9 PM to complete meticulously designed lessons. A kind colleague who was retiring from the English Department that year advised me to slow down, explaining that my pace could never be sustained, especially if I wanted to have children someday.
I regret to say that I didn’t initially heed her wise advice, and it wasn’t until a series of humbling experiences that I finally admitted to myself the need for a drastic change. I couldn’t compete with the amazing master teachers who lectured down the hall, and I wanted to see my students challenged both intellectually and creatively in my classes. So I dove into pedagogical research. It was around this time that student-led learning strategies were gaining momentum in the educational world. I also looked to a few of my colleagues who were known to foster fabulous class discussions, most of which used either the Harness Method or the Socratic Seminar, or a blend of both.
What resulted over the next year revolutionized my approach to teaching, and I’ve never turned back. My method has evolved over the years, especially after attending Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Professional Development course: “Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions.”
What has remained the same is the necessity of teaching students the art & skill of asking good questions, and I do this through a simple concept I call the “Hierarchy of Questions.”
Storyweaver High School students creating their own discussion questions.
Best Practices for Student-led Discussions
Review the “Hierarchy of Questions” with students, making sure they understand the difference of each type/level of question.
Together, brainstorm themes & motifs within the literary text, making a list that groups ideas together that seem to overlap (which is common). As a rule of thumb, students can start identifying themes/motifs about a third of the way through a novel, halfway through a play, and at the end of a short story. I STRONGLY encourage you to allow students to discover the themes themselves instead of providing a predetermined list (SparkNotes style) at the beginning of a reading.
Once you have a list of themes, then break students into groups or pairs. Allow them to select their favorite theme to explore, or if everyone wants to do the same theme (this can happen if one is particularly juicy), you can assign them.
Set an amount of time (15 minutes is usually perfect) & ask each group to create discussion questions, focusing on "Inductive” and “Analytical” questions.
Once students have their list of questions, then have them star their favorite question, which will be the one that starts the discussion over that theme.
Questions created by students in my Honors Women’s Literature class last year. Bonus Tip: They love writing on these large Post-It Note Easel Pad Pages!
Peek into a lesson with my online High School class as I explain Inductive Questions.
