November 22, 2010Socratic Seminar Lesson PlanBen Krystal

Socratic Seminar Lesson Plan: The Great Society

Overview

The 1960s was a time of great political and societal change in the United States. The civil and equal rights movement took off while the role of government expanded. People became more acutely aware than ever of the problems facing an advanced and developed society. These issues included poverty, equal and quality education, civil rights, healthcare, and environmental deterioration, among others. The government addressed these concerns with various legislative acts such as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the Social Security Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Guiding the government during this time was President Lyndon Baines Johnson. His vision for a better America, a Great Society, is best described in a speech he made at the University of Michigan’s 1964 graduation. This lesson will use the Socratic seminar method to examine and discuss this monumental speech.

What is a Socratic Seminar?

A Socratic seminar aims to generate meaningful dialogue aboutissues and topics through the examination of a key text. For example, if a teacher wanted his or her students to dialogue about the civil rights movement and civil disobedience, he or she might use Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. A Socratic seminar includes several steps. First, the teacher should choose a text that has a strong voice, is accessible to students, and presents various issues, ideas, and values. Next, the teacher assigns the text to be read and examined before the day’s class. The students should complete a ticket to get into the seminar. Usually the ticket asks students to create a set of questions for class discussion about what they read. However, anything that indicates that students read the text can suffice as a ticket. The teacher or another student will then lead the seminar. He or she asks open ended questions about the text and issues presented in it. These questions should be prepared ahead of time. The goal of the seminar is not to have a debate or argument but a thoughtful discussion. The seminar leader should act mostly as a facilitator and questioner and refrain from answering the questions. For classes that are not experienced in Socratic seminars, the teacher should model the necessary skills before the actual seminar. Lastly, students complete an exit ticket to demonstrate what they have learned.

Rationale

Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech about his proposed Great Society is suitable for a Socratic seminar for several reasons. First, the issues and ideas expressed in it are equally present in today’s society. Students will have ample experience to engage with the text’s content. In addition, the text has a strong voice, is accessible to students, and expresses values. The speech works well as an introduction to a unit on the 1960s equal rights movement.

Grade Level and Class

This lesson is designed for an 11th grade Virginia and US History course.

Time

The lesson should take approximately one and a half 90 minute blocks.

Objectives

Academic Objectives

  1. Students will be able to identify the problems that 1960s America faced by examining Johnson’s “Great Society” speech.
  2. Students will compare modern day societal issues to those present during the 1960s through dialoging about the text.

While Johnson’s concept of a Great Society is not specifically mentioned in the Virginia Standards of Learning, it does relate to SOL objectives, mainly VUS.14. This objective deals with the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Students are required to know about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, both of which Johnson had significant influence over. Of the NCSS standards, this lesson most relates to strand ten which deals with civic ideals and practices.

Intellectual Objectives

  1. Students will demonstrate the ability to successfully dialogue about a text through the examination of Johnson’s “Great Society” speech.
  2. Students will demonstrate higher order thinking skills by dialoging about and interpreting the issues, ideas, and values present in Johnson’s “Great Society” speech.

Assessment

Students will be assessed based upon participation and a take home essay. This participation involves completion of the entry and exit tickets and contribution to the actual seminar itself. Students should be required to meaningfully participate in the discussion at least once. As long as students exhibit good effort on the tickets and during the seminar, they should receive an A in participation. Points should be deducted if students intentionally disrupt the lesson or clearly show a lack of effort. Students will also write a one to two page take home essay in which they discuss the problems that faced Johnson’s society and compare them to the problems the modern day world faces. While grading the essay, the teacher should also give feedback on each student’s participation in the seminar. Thus, the teacher should take notes during the seminar on each student.

Lesson Outline

  1. Preparation (the day before)
  1. Student Preparation
  1. Show the video located at It both explains the elements of a Socratic seminar and provides an effective example. (10 minutes)
  2. Explain to the class the purpose of a Socratic seminar and describe its essential elements. Stress to the class that they are to draw from the text to answer the questions presented to them by the discussion leader. Pass out the rules sheet for the seminar and/or write the rules on the board. (10 minutes)
  3. Model for the class the necessary discussion skills. Choose an open-ended, modern day issue that students are familiar with and hold a brief mock seminar. (20 minutes)
  4. Pass out an entry ticket to each student and a copy of Johnson’s speech. They are to read and/or listen to it and complete the entry ticket for homework. Explain to the students that if they do not bring it to class the next day, they will be excluded from the seminar and receive a zero on the activity. These students can observe the seminar and write a reflection on it for half-credit. (5 minutes)
  1. Teacher Preparation
  1. Create a set of questions about the text that will guide and facilitate the seminar. These should consist of a broad opening question that brings students into the seminar, core questions about the text, and any potential follow up questions.
  2. Decide how the classroom will be arranged. The best format is a circle so that everyone can see each other.
  3. Prepare a blank class list so that students who participate can be check off.
  1. The Seminar
  1. Make sure the classroom is already arranged before the students enter. This will cut back on time wasting and an unnecessary disruption.
  2. Write the rules for the seminar on the board.
  3. Have the students take out their completed tickets and place them in front of themselves. Go around the class and check off that the tickets are completed. Remove any students who did not complete it from the circle and have them observe as stated above. (5-10 minutes)
  4. Briefly begin by reviewing the rules, procedures, and expectations for the seminar. (5 minutes)
  5. Opening Question (5 minutes)
  1. Who is Johnson’s intended audience and what do you see as the purpose of his speech?
  1. Core Questions (35-40 minutes)
  1. According to Johnson, what constitutes a Great Society?
  2. How would you define a Great Society?
  3. What are the challenges that Johnson saw facing America in the 1960s?
  1. In terms of cities? The countryside? Classrooms?
  1. How do you see these challenges as being similar and/or different to those facing America today?
  2. When in your lives have you faced these challenges?
  3. Can the challenges that Johnson describes ever be truly fixed?
  4. Should the government take an active role in addressing society’s ills? How much government intervention is too much?
  5. Were you surprised that Johnson addressed environmental issues?
  6. How does this speech act as a cornerstone for the civil and equal rights movement that followed? For the development of healthcare and the war on poverty?
  1. Follow-up Questions
  1. Where do you see that in the text?
  2. What makes you think that?
  3. Do you agree?
  4. Is it really possible?
  5. What are the consequences?
  6. What do others think about that?
  1. Miscellaneous
  1. Leave plenty of wait time. Do not jump automatically to the next question. Chances are a student will have something to say.
  2. Refrain from interjecting your opinions and answers. The seminar is for the students. You are only guiding the discussion.
  1. After the Seminar (10-15minutes)
  1. Debrief with the class about how they think the seminar went. (5 minutes)
  2. Assign the take home essay for homework.
  3. Pass out the exit ticket and have them complete it for homework as well. (5 minutes)

Materials

  1. Copies for each student of Johnson’s speech.
  2. A rules sheet for each student.
  3. Entry Ticket for each student.
  4. Exit Ticket for each student.

Differentiation

This lesson provides several opportunities for differentiation. First, it addresses different types of learners. Students who learn best through reading can read Johnson’s speech while more auditory students can listen to it. And, students who do not learn well from lecture will likely find the discussion and dialogue more accessible and engaging. If the teacher has a student who is extremely advanced and gifted in discussion, he or she could have the student actually lead the seminar. Overall, the lesson represents a differentiation from the traditional curriculum. Rather than listen to lecture, this lesson provides a needed change and allows students to practice vital discussion and critical thinking skills.

Adaptations

This lesson is adaptable for students with IEP and 504 plans and other learning disabilities. For example, a student with a reading disability such as dyslexia would likely find it easier and less frustrating to listen to the speech rather than read it. In addition, the Socratic seminar method allows struggling students to cooperate with and learn from their peers and stresses inclusion if done properly. The seminar also provides an opportunity for constructive socialization for students who find it difficult to stay quiet during traditional instruction. The teacher can give out the discussion questions ahead of time to specific students so they have time to prepare. The teacher can also directly bring into the discussion students whom he or she feel are not being given a chance to voice their opinion.

Reflection

The most difficult aspect of designing this lesson was finding an appropriate text. Many of the texts I perused were important but not open-ended enough for a Socratic seminar. My biggest concern with using the Socratic seminar method is participation. I hope that the entry ticket will make students comfortable enough with the text to actively discuss it. If some students are not participating, I will ask them directly what they think about the idea we are discussing. I am not as concerned about the seminar getting off track as long as the topic the students are dialoging about is causing them to think critically and practice seminar skills. If the discussion is way off topic, I will direct the class back to the core material. Student behavior is always an issue I worry about when doing an activity that requires the class to talk and interact. I will remove students from the seminar if I feel they are being particularly disruptive, and they will receive a zero on the activity.

Lyndon B. Johnson’s Speech “The Great Society”

  1. “President Hatcher, Governor Romney, Senators McNamara and Hart, Congressmen Meader and Staebler, and other members of the fine Michigan delegation, members of the graduating class, my fellow Americans:
  2. It is a great pleasure to be here today. This university has been coeducational since 1870, but I do not believe it was on the basis of your accomplishments that a Detroit high school girl said (and I quote), "In choosing a college, you first have to decide whether you want a coeducational school or an educational school." Well, we can find both here at Michigan, although perhaps at different hours. I came out here today very anxious to meet the Michigan student whose father told a friend of mine that his son's education had been a real value. It stopped his mother from bragging about him.
  3. I have come today from the turmoil of your capital to the tranquility of your campus to speak about the future of your country. The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation.
  4. For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.
  5. Your imagination and your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.
  6. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.
  7. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what is adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.
  8. But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.
  9. So I want to talk to you today about three places where we begin to build the Great Society -- in our cities, in our countryside, and in our classrooms.
  10. Many of you will live to see the day, perhaps 50 years from now, when there will be 400 million Americans -- four-fifths of them in urban areas. In the remainder of this century urban population will double, city land will double, and we will have to build homes and highways and facilities equal to all those built since this country was first settled. So in the next 40 years we must re-build the entire urban United States.
  11. Aristotle said: "Men come together in cities in order to live, but they remain together in order to live the good life." It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today. The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. Open land is vanishing and old landmarks are violated. Worst of all expansion is eroding these precious and time honored values of community with neighbors and communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference.
  12. And our society will never be great until our cities are great. Today the frontier of imagination and innovation is inside those cities and not beyond their borders. New experiments are already going on. It will be the task of your generation to make the American city a place where future generations will come, not only to live, but to live the good life. And I understand that if I stayed here tonight I would see that Michigan students are really doing their best to live the good life.
  13. This is the place where the Peace Corps was started.
  14. It is inspiring to see how all of you, while you are in this country, are trying so hard to live at the level of the people.
  15. A second place where we begin to build the Great Society is in our countryside. We have always prided ourselves on being not only America the strong and America the free, but America the beautiful. Today that beauty is in danger.