This strategy guide explains Socratic seminars and offers practical methods for applying the approach in your classroom to help students investigate multiple perspectives in a text.
Socratic Seminars
Grades
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Promoting Student Self-Assessment
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
In this Strategy Guide, you'll learn about a number of specific methods that will promote self-assessment and contribute to a richer understanding of student learning.
Grades
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Assessing Student Interests and Strengths
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
In this Strategy Guide, you'll learn about a number of specific methods that can help you to gain a fuller picture of the interests of your students as well as what your students understand, know, and can demonstrate by doing.
Grades
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Evidence-based Discussions
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide Series
These Strategy Guides offer varied ways to support students as they develop the skills and habits necessary to participate in evidence-based conversations.
Grades
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Inquiry-Based Learning
Grades
K - 12
Strategy Guide Series
In this series of Strategy Guides, you'll learn about different methods and activities to encourage inquiry-based learning in your classroom.
Grades
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Facilitating Participation with Silent Conversations
Grades
5 - 12
Strategy Guide
This guide introduces silent conversations, a collaborative learning technique that has students
thinking, sharing, and reflecting about important questions—but through writing rather than talk.
Grades
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Conducting Inner-Outer Circle Discussions
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
This guide shares the steps to take to get more students talking by dividing the group into speaking and non-speaking circles.
Grades
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The Art of the Doodle: Writing with Imagination
Grades
5 - 12
Strategy Guide
Use independent, imaginative artwork and varied writing prompts to assess understanding of a given topic for a student body with differentiated needs.
Grades
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Consensus Decision Making
Grades
7 - 12
Strategy Guide
This strategy guide introduces Consensus Decision Making, a method for facilitating and engaging students in a critical discussion of the central ideas of a text.
Grades
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Teaching with Zooming Slideshows through Prezi
Grades
6 - 12
Strategy Guide
Through Prezi, a web application, students create "zooming" presentations for various purposes, such as presenting research, defending an opinion, or sharing a digital story.
Grades
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Go Public!: Encouraging Student Writers to Publish
6 - 12
Professional Library
| Book
Intended for middle and high school teachers, Go Public! offers specific writing ideas and classroom activities to help students develop the confidence and ability to publish in a wide market.
Grades
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Designing Writing Assignments
9 - 12
Professional Library
| Book
Traci Gardner offers practical tips, starting points, and a companion website to help secondary and college teachers design effective writing assignments.
Grades
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Tracking the Ways Writers Develop Heroes and Villains
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Everyone knows that Star Wars character Darth Vader is a villain. This lesson asks students to explore how they know such things about heroes and villains they encounter in texts.
Grades
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All's Well that Sells Well: A Creative Introduction to Shakespeare
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students compare attending a performance at The Globe Theater with attending a modern theater production or movie. They then create a commercial for an Elizabethan audience promoting a modern product.
Grades
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The Ten-Minute Play: Encouraging Original Response to Challenging Texts
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Students use both analytical and creative skills to adapt passages from a novel with significant internal dialogue and conflict, such as Toni Morrison's Beloved, into a ten-minute play.
Grades
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Persuading Readers with Endorsement Letters
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students explore the genre of commercial endorsements, establishing characteristics and requirements for the genre. Each student then composes an endorsement of a product, service, company, or industry.
Grades
|
Writing Technical Instructions
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Standard Lesson
Students walk through the process of creating technical instructions by analyzing existing instructions, choosing an audience, writing their own instructions, receiving user feedback, and then revising and publishing their instructions.
Grades
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Designing Effective Poster Presentations
9 - 12
Lesson Plan
| Unit
Students explore the genre of posters, review informational writing and visual design, and then design poster presentations to share in class or at a school-wide fair.