Cross-Discipline Socratic Seminar: Refining Essays Transcript

Erin Gilrein: My name is Erin Gilrein.

Jennifer Wolfe: My name is Jennifer Wolfe.

Erin Gilrein: We are collaborative teachers

Jennifer Wolfe: At Oceanside High School.

Jennifer Wolfe: Erin and I teach a Nine Honors integrated Social Studies and English program here at Oceanside High School that includes a conferencing period.

Erin Gilrein: In our conference class, we teach a section and this time, for this lesson, we are doing a Socratic Seminar where the two of us are in the room and we are addressing a broader essential question about the role of religion in the lives of followers.

Erin Gilrein (in class): To prepare for the greater discussion we all need to have certain things out, right? Everyone has Siddhartha?

Erin Gilrein: The texts that we use here are Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and all of the documents that were part of the document based question that the students just wrote in their social studies class.

Erin Gilrein (in class): The point of this is to find any sort of extra material that might help you to refine your DBQ or refine your English essay. All right?

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Jennifer Wolfe: Before we had our conference period, students read things like the Ten Commandments, they read an excerpt from the Mahamranata, the Law book of Manu, a variety of things that would allow them to talk about Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and its effects on their adherents.

Jennifer Wolfe (in class): So, we've talked about this for a couple of days both in Social Studies and in English. You wrote a document based question for me or are in the process of doing that.

Erin Gilrein: To prepare students, we had them complete a hand out preparing question stems. Things like, "I'd like to talk to people about...," "what does it mean when the author says...," different ways for the kids to jump into conversation so they would think about the stem, complete it, link it to one of the documents and then anticipate some response.

Jennifer Wolfe (in class): I'd like us to think about using both our documents and our book from English - how religion effects the lives of its followers.

Student: They really focus more an afterlife - how the Christian religion, they thought that they would go to heaven.

Jennifer Wolfe (in class): Can you tell me where in the document you might find that information?

Student: In document 5, the kingdom of heaven or in document 6 that you would enter Nirvana.

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Erin Gilrein: As we're teaching the individual lessons for Siddhartha during conference, I am talking literature, Jenn talks Social Studies and the kids see that when we're talking about books that neither class is independent. When you're talking about literature, Social Studies is embedded, history is embedded and it's all a part of the experience.

Jennifer Wolfe: And I think they understand that without the history, the book wouldn't be as meaningful and that the book becomes a catalyst for them to want to learn the history.

Student: I think that religion has a huge - the religion you follow creates a huge effect on what - on your lifestyle. For example, in document 5 when it talks about Hinduism, your life is already set out for you before you are even born. If you're...

Erin Gilrein: With the Common Core, we are working really hard to make sure the kids are grounding evidence from the text. They are writing from the sources and every answer - whether it's a spoken answer or a written answer, they dig back in and they root their ideas back in the sources. Going along with what Leanna said, your djati - which is sub-caste - there was a little bit of wiggle room for you to move up or down in the caste system with the Brahmins and the Sutras it was very difficult to move upward.

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Jennifer Wolfe (in class): Let me see if I understand. What you're saying is - in the sub-caste, in the djati - which hare also based on your job. There's a little bit of - wiggle room. What does that do to one's behavior or how does that effect one's behavior?

Student: It's not just a culture of the "me" it's a culture of the "we" in which everyone in that sub-caste or djati has to work together to be reincarnated into a higher caste or a higher place.

Jennifer Wolfe (in class): So it's peer pressure?

Erin Gilrein: In the Socratic Seminar, the kids could use any document from their DBQ. Or from Siddhartha. And you'll find that I lot of them, yesterday were using from the DBQ so Jenn was speaking a lot during the Socratic Seminar because she was addressing those fundamental Social Studies skills and then I chimed in when the kids were speaking about literature.

Student: Buddhism appealed to many people in lower castes because they cold achieve enlightenment much easier.

Jennifer Wolfe (in class): Can you make a connection, Ethan, between that aspect of Buddhism that was so appealing and Siddhartha.

Student: In Siddhartha, the main character starts out as a Brahmin - the highest caste of Hinduism but still he doesn't feel that it's the right way to reach enlightenment for him and he goes on a whole journey. So he goes from the highest caste so an acetic and to a ferry man who serves other people but he ends up reading enlightenment through this.

Jennifer Wolfe (in class): Through which?

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Student: Through his journey.

Jennifer Wolfe: When we created our grading rubric, we called it, instead, learning targets where we pulled out the key Common Core qualities - preparation, listening, speaking and text analysis so the kids can see what they can do as observable behaviors and in Socratic Seminar. So, for example, one was, "I can review texts to be discussed and determine key points and central ideas." One of the key skills of the Common Core.

Erin Gilrein: I find these, "I can" statements to be really powerful because it is an active statement. Can I actually do this? I can come prepared with questions or thoughtful responses.

Student: Another example of how Siddhartha reaches enlightenment - how it was a clue - was because on page 137 in Siddhartha... Siddhartha asks him, "are you going into the woods?" And he says - Vasaduva says, "yes, I am going to the woods. I am going into the unity of all things." It's a hint that Siddhartha has reached his achievement of Nirvana and he doesn't really need Vasudava as a teacher any more.

Erin Gilrein: Could you tag back to the question that we started with? How did religion then reflect Siddhartha's life?

Student: He jumps from group to group - he started off with the Brahmins and he learned what he could from there. He goes to the Buddha and he learns what he can. He goes to the city where he learns more about the - reality - he learns to love, he learns to listen to Vasaduva.

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Student: Going back to what Matt said, on Siddhartha's journey, he found his true self. Do you think that if he started off being how Kamala and Kama swami were living in that world - do you think that he would have wanted to seek out the Buddha or the Mannas or even the Brahmins - a religion like that?

Student: No, I think that if he started out in the city and that's all he knew, instead of being the one that's laughing at them, he would be them. In their position. And he would know nothing other than that so no, he wouldn't ever try to be a...

Jennifer Wolfe: These were all Common Core lessons. Both in terms of text-based answers and understanding text complexity and Erin brought to our partnership that bridge between all of the Common Core standards for ELA and what I do in Social Studies.

Jennifer Wolfe (in class): Ms. Gilrein and I have something for you to take home for the next time we meet. It's a tiny one-pager. We're asking you to reflect on what was said, figure out what you know and don't know after the discussion and give that back to us tomorrow.

Erin Gilrein (in class): Make sure you grab one of these yellow sheets on the way out the door. Tonight, this is what you'll do for homework.

Jennifer Wolfe: What we will do with them the next time we meet with this group is we will have them take out their learning targets and see where they think they have met their learning targets. That's a really powerful activity to have them do some self-analysis on whether or not they think they can participate in a discussion by posing questions.

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Erin Gilrein: It's part of the Common Core for the kids to pose thoughtful so, in a way, we're baby-stepping them towards something more sophisticated that perhaps they will encounter in their 11th and 12th grade.

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