Discussion-Based Toolkit | Socratic Seminar Grading Rubrics | Harkness Discussion Trackers
Toolkit for discussion-based teaching! This 10-page editable document includes participation evaluation worksheets, role-playing exercises, and discussion trackers that you might use to improve your Harkness discussions and socratic seminars.
Here is what you'll get in this 10-page document:
• Participation Self-Evaluation Worksheets: The first two handouts will invite students to reflect on how well they are listening, thinking, speaking, asking questions, and using evidence. These editable handouts can be used as a student self-evaluation worksheet; or they can be used by the teacher to provide feedback and grades on students' participation. (2 pages)
• Formulating Questions Handout: This handout provides students with advice about how to formulate effective questions. Whether your class is about to embark on a series of student led-discussions, or your class is about to write papers about topics of their choosing, this handout will help them to formulate genuine interpretive questions that are grounded in concrete textual evidence. (1 page)
• Discussion Role-Playing Exercise: Challenge your students to develop their discussion skills by assigning each student a particular role to play during a discussion. This handout contains a list of roles such as "questioner," "text referencer," "clarifier," "focuser," and so on. The experience of playing these roles will help your students to develop concrete skills and to expand their awareness of the range of different contributions they can make to a discussion. At the same time, it will prompt students to reflect upon the discussion skills they exercise habitually as well as the ones they experience as more challenging. (3 pages)
• Harkness Discussion Trackers: Four discussion tracking sheets will enable you to keep track of how many times each student spoke during a Harkness discussion. The trackers also feature "keys" that will enable you to keep track of the kinds of contributions made by each student: questions, textual references, building comments, etc. The keys are editable so that you decide to track the particular skills that your class may be working on at any given moment in the year. Want to track when your students work through a constructive disagreement? Just add "CD" to the tracking key! (4 pages)
My store is called “Rigorous Resources” because all of the units feature rigorous, content-rich lessons guaranteed to boost your students' close-reading and critical-thinking skills. All of the units in my store are designed to foster vibrant discussion-based learning!!
And like this resource, every literature-focused unit in my store is editable and can be customized to suit your teaching style and/or the needs of your students.
Thank you for choosing “Rigorous Resources”!!
Happy teaching!
Adam Jernigan, Ph.D.