To help prospective secondary teachers (PSTs) integrate literacy skills into their content-area lessons, I planned and facilitated a two-part lesson on secondary literacy instruction. As described in my previous post, the first part of the lesson sought to provide PSTs with an understanding of two important concepts: content-area literacy and disciplinary literacy. In the second … Continue reading Lesson Plan for a Text-Based Socratic Seminar (Part Two) →

To prepare prospective English and Social Studies teachers to address important literacy skills, I planned and facilitated a two-part lesson on secondary literacy instruction. In this post, I share details concerning the first half of the lesson, which sought to provide prospective secondary teachers (PSTs) with the background necessary for participating in a text-based Socratic … Continue reading Lesson Plan for a Text-Based Socratic Seminar (Part One) →

In this post, I provide a checklist that teachers can use to plan a text-based Socratic Seminar. This iteration of a Socratic seminar supports the development of content knowledge, literacy skills, and higher order thinking through a versatile four-part approach: (1) Learning/Reviewing, (2) Reading, (3) Discussing, and (4) Writing. Although it can be tailored for … Continue reading Checklist for Planning a Text-Based Socratic Seminar →

Five years ago, I observed as a novice teacher implemented a Fishbowl Socratic Seminar--a complex and engaging collaborative technique--for the first time. I was inspired by her implementation of the technique and felt confident that the prospective secondary teachers (PSTs) in my methods course would be too. Since showing PSTs a video of the seminar … Continue reading Planning an Effective Text-Based Socratic Seminar →