ABSTRACT
One of the best Socratic circles the author have ever led—one that stimulated the greatest amount of student participation and the greatest variety of viewpoints—was on the opening two paragraphs of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, conducted with an American literature class of high school juniors. This dialogue was completed in March after students had been experiencing and learning from Socratic circles for the first three quarters of the school year. The twenty-five students in the class were all of average intelligence, represented a cross section of the student body, and would fit very well the description of a typical classroom full of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds. However, one thing does separate this class—and this discussion—from others: these students demonstrate the very best of Socratic circles and the very best of the inquiry, exploration, and discovery that can take place when communities of learners (both the students and the teacher) allow these processes to take hold.
