ABSTRACT

Two primary goals in my teaching are to help students think critically about the past and present, especially through inquiry and discussion, and to help them become more media literate. Here I present the Socratic seminar as a potential model to work toward both goals. I use seminars in my methods course to provide preservice teachers with a model for structuring the discussion of important texts and for using fi lm in their classes. I have found that using seminars to discuss fi lm leads to the development of critical thinking skills in analyzing fi lm as a text in a social and deliberative environment that also promotes democratic citizenship. Th e main goal of the Socratic seminar model is to help students better understand the “issues, ideas, and values” in a text (e.g., speech, diary, Supreme Court opinion, poem, song lyrics, fi lm). Th e key to a good seminar is selecting a worthy text. According to Ball and Brewer (1996) a seminar text should: (1) be “fi lled with issues and ideas worthy of discussion”; (2) be open to multiple interpretations, and (3) have enough complexity and ambiguity to sustain discussion and “allow for exploration of concepts” (p. 33). In addition to selecting the fi lm or text, the teacher needs to prepare for the seminar by identifying objectives, preparing preseminar and postseminar tasks, and constructing seminar questions (Ball & Brewer, 1996).