Socratic Seminar

What is a Socratic Seminar?

Socratic seminars are student centered discussions in which a broad, often timeless, question is addressed and deliberated.

Six to ten students generally sit in a circle and converse about questions that are relevant to what is being studied. Skills of intelligent, interrogative analysis are nurtured and practiced as students thoughtfully create answers to difficult questions informed by various historical and literary readings.

Most often this technique is used in the Humanities Center core classes (English, Social Studies and Perspectives), though it is also incorporated into non-core Humanities Center classes, such as biology, to discuss issues of ethical concern.

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