Socratic Seminar

The Socratic Seminar that took place this past Monday, in regards to “Where I Lived, and what I Lived For” by Henry David Thoreau was in my opinion just one example of how much our class needs to improve when it comes to group discussions and analyzations. There is much room for improvement when communicating one’s ideas and opinions, not only in the class but also in myself and this seminar served as good practice. Of course, there were obstacles that were insurmountable when it came to running a smooth seminar such as class size and the number of people discussing at once but some common courtesies were ignored. The sheer number of side conversations that occurred at any one moment was quite troublesome for me personally, as I saw other people actively participating in the group discussion while others were treating them with great disrespect by not paying attention and periodically interrupting them before they could properly explain their input. Remaining on track also seemed to be a constant difficulty that we had to contend with. Many questions posed to the group were never adequately answered, but thankfully with the help of the outer circle’s input and requests to clarify we sometimes were able to correct that issue. …show more content…
Of the responses offered up, those that were most appreciated when they utilized directly cited evidence to back up the claims made. So in future discussions, I hope that direct citation can become more commonplace amidst a group of claim making teens who seem to have no support for any of their declarations at the moment. The discussion of ‘living deliberately’ was somewhat enlightening but I don’t think that we, as a group, were able to really achieve any groundbreaking discoveries on the topic except for the information provided by some students about the ideology of transcendentalism at the