Catherine Gewertz in her excellent Ed Week blog recently reported on a meeting at the Aspen Institute where school leaders from around the country got the word about how the new English standards in the Common Core place a heavy emphasis on having students do a ‘close reading’ of the text without too much teacher interference:
In contrast to common practice, in which teachers explain reading passages and supply background information before students read, “close reading” confines initial study to the text itself. Students make sense of it by probing its words and structure for information and evidence. Through questions and class exercises, teachers guide students back through the reading in a hunt for answers and deeper understanding.
Gathered for a leadership-network meeting facilitated by the Aspen Institute, the chief academic officers of the 14 participating districts expressed praise for the approach, but deep concerns as well, about providing the type of professional development necessary to deliver it well in their districts. To preserve the frank, problem-sharing nature of the meeting, the Aspen Institute asked that Education Week not quote district leaders by name.
“I’m really worried that we haven’t prepared our teachers for this,” one chief academic officer said. “The academic and cognitive demand [on teachers] is quite high.”
Moving teachers toward this way of working will require “some significant professional development” as they learn to refrain from providing quick answers, figure out instead how to formulate new kinds of questions that take them and their students back to the text repeatedly in their search for understanding.
None of the chief academic officers at the Aspen meeting criticized “close reading” as a goal, and most lauded it. But they saw a rocky road ahead in reaching it… How would teachers respond to a “sea change” that reframes their role from provider of information to facilitator of a group inquiry? And where would they get deep, focused lessons and units for such instruction?
“The percentage of my teachers who weren’t ever taught some of the skills you’re talking about here, like the ‘pivot point’ in a paragraph,” said one official, her voice trailing off in a sigh. “The teachers themselves don’t know many of those concepts.”
For some of us, we can only say – huh? This is really not new. One need only hop over to Annapolis or Santa Fe and sit in on classes at St. John’s College, the Great Books college (I am an alumnus). This is the way St. John’s has been doing it for 80 years – close reading of the Great Books, from Plato to Freud; no in-class lecturing, just students trying to figure out the meaning of the text with very deft probing by teachers (called tutors at St. John’s, not ‘profess-ors’).
This approach long-ago spawned the Junior Great Books program (and Touchstones, developed by 2 St. John’s tutors) used widely. So-called Socratic Seminar emerged out of this, trumpeted first by Mortimer Adler in the Paideia Proposal 30 years ago (which led to a large network of schools). Many teachers – me in the day, my wife, and my daughter! – have taught this way. It also has a long history in prep schools, especially Exeter where it started as the so-called Harkness method, named thusly because a Mr Harkness gave beautiful tables to Exeter 100 years ago for students and teacher to sit around and discuss.
We used the Paidiea structure in the Coalition of Essential Schools to help people understand the Coalition mantra Student as Worker, Teacher as Coach. I routinely trained people in such teaching 25 years ago, and at many of our workshops we do a mock seminar with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. UbD was an outgrowth of much of that CES work. And in UbD we explicitly distinguish between Meaning-making and Acquisition (as well as Transfer) as goals to highlight the difference between ‘teaching’ knowledge and skill and ‘facilitating’ meaning-making by students of texts, data, experiences.
So, this is hardly new stuff. What I think is really underscored by the article is that far too many folks in this field are unaware of ‘best practice’ – whether it be Socratic Seminar, Problem-Based Learning, Reciprocal teaching, UbD, or dozens of other important approaches linked to sophisticated and vital goals.
The scandal here is that many Assistant Supts. subject-area supervisors, and English Dept. Heads are ill-informed; they often don’t know this stuff first-hand or even that there are teachers right now teaching this way in their system – as outliers rather than models. So, leaders too often end up just supervising a safe adoption of textbooks or readings instead of forcing investigation and adoption of a best-practice-based local curriculum. Here, then, is a practical tip. In every curriculum, be it written or online in maps; or in individual units: there should be a column for validating, via footnotes, all instructional choices against best practice, in light of the kind of goal identified, to ensure that pedagogy matches desired outcomes. (In UbD the 3 distinct goals of transfer/meaning/acquisition have to be identified by every teacher-designer, and the essence of the design process is to force alignment of goals/assessments/instruction.)
I want to make clear, however, that my belief in this kind of pedagogy in no way sanctions an unthinking and excessive use of it in schools. There is a kind of naiveté permeating the Common Core support materials so far. (I have found David Coleman’s otherwise interesting videos on this approach very thin gruel in terms of how to actually be such a facilitator, not to mention move the change forward. He doesn’t even really model being such a facilitator; he just kind of talks you through a close read.)
We know from first-hand experience in doing model classes that when you have 7 different grade levels of reading ability in a class and a great deal of pent-up student boredom and intellectual laziness that this vital approach won’t work quickly; you can’t just plunk Socratic Seminar into conventional classrooms without hardship (hence, firm leadership). On the other hand, when my colleague Denise did a mock Seminar with 9th graders in a poor Louisiansa HS, the immediate reaction of kids was – this was way more interesting than typical class. And the Principal blurted out something that was unfortunate but revealing – wow! I had no ideas our kids could think like this!
That’s the point of academic leadership and professional development: we know it is the right thing to do, so let’s plan backward from it as a result, starting now, working to make the most seamless and happy transition possible.
PS: We stand ready, based on decades of direct use and training of teachers, to provide professional development assistance in this kind of pedagogy.
14 Responses
Grant: Thanks for referencing the post (and story, by the way) on the Aspen close-reading session. Reading your post, however, I can’t help but quote Ted Koppel, who was so fond of saying, “Thanks for making my point for me.” The fact that this technique has been used in prep schools or an occasional network of schools, but not broadly, is the point. And the fact that these CAOs saw clearly the steep challenged involved in doing so is, again, exactly the point. ’nuff said. Thanks for good dialog. –catherine
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I completely agree, Grant. There needs to ne a universal focus on teaching kids to think AS they read and write with less emphasis on ‘test prep’….
Who are the kids who do well on ANY test, ANYWHERE, ANY TIME? Those who can read, write, think independently.
That simple, yet sadly, that hard.
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Been trying to figure out how to reply to your post on Socratic seminar. I admire your thinking about this at the highest level. I feel like I have been living my professional life as you describe in the post. I didn’t attend St. John’s but I have taken a couple of summer courses, studied and implemented Socratic most of my professional life, familiar with the folks at Touchstones and use their high quality material, followed you and Sizer’s work with the coalition, studied with Dennis Gray and his work with Socratic, studied Adler and his work . . . and still am somewhat frustrated by the lack of movement in our profession.
We do school-wide seminar every week and I see the impact it is having at our school. Maybe that is all I should worry about but if I only had others in the field who were interested in doing the same thing I would have colleagues to visit about moving schools in a better direction. Sorry, if this sounds like a rant. This (Socratic) is not that hard to do, if we can do it then anyone can but I struggle with getting others interested. Why is that the case? Your thoughts are welcome.
Finally, so glad you wrote the piece. Really important for me that you continue to push and probe. Thanks
My pleasure, Greg! Great to hear from you after so long.
I think the answer to your question (why is there a lack of Socratic Seminar in classrooms) can be found in one of the Aspen officials comments. She worried that too many of her teachers had not been taught this method and were not familiar with using it in their classrooms. Teachers usually emulate the structures they saw in the classroom, as students. I am afraid that most teachers did not sit in classrooms where Socratic took place. They, instead, sat in rows, read text from a basal, and independently answered questions at the end of the selection. There never was a negotiation of meaning. Each student simply wrote enough to satisfy the teacher and never was required to think very deeply about the text.
I do agree that Socratic could work to help students develop a deeper meaning of the text– only if teachers know how to facilitate the kinds of quality discussions necessary. If we don’t provide teachers with PD around the types of probing questions necessary to foster a deep understanding, students will simply be answering the same back of the reading selection questions they have always been answering– only now they won’t even be writing their answes; they will be verbalizing them.
Share what you’re doing with you peers. Help cultivate Socratic in your building and then turn your efforts to the rest of your district. You can’t change everyone but you can be the influence to start a revolution.
From more than 25 years in the classroom, and now with my coaching work with teachers and students in multiple classrooms and districts, I have to say that the bottom line comes down to the “HOW” to truly ensure that instructional time spent in the classroom “REALLY” makes a difference for our students. Teachers want to do the “right stuff” and they are constantly seeking resources and relevant strategies that “really will work” to help make it happen. Thank you for pointing out that the practice of “close reading” is certainly not a “newborn” technique… but that there is certainly work to be done to support, expand, and sustain those in the trenches with a higher level of understanding the “HOW” of making that effectively and successfully happen in today’s diverse and ever-changing classrooms.
In graduate school, I finally had a professor who “did” close reading and required us to do so. It was never so named, however. Because I had been teaching literature for a few years then, I had begun to do some of that kind of reading and talking already; my work with B. Brunner solidified it. Also, I worked in a department who placed big value on interpretation and reading criticism – for themselves if not with students. I had motivation both personal and professional.
It is so important that literacy teachers be readers and writers, seriously, and readers of commentary — as a routine part of their professional lives. Some become this in high school and/or university, some by working in a great, rich literacy environment — and many, I suspect, experience none of the above. Their principals and chairpersons are likely to have other priorities these days. Plus, I believe younger teachers generally differ from my colleagues in various ways.
As I became more experienced, I realized that ONLY close reading of the kind you describe was not THE answer. Context for the literature and biography are frequently interesting to students as are photos, films, music and art. My colleague who was also a jazz pianist gave my students a small concert when we read “The Great Gatsby,” for example. I agree that David Coleman likely has a tenuous notion of what he’s prescribing.
Professional development of the more typical kind is not likely to help. Intensive reading and discussion of “real” literary texts, fiction or non fiction, along with lots of writing and reflection will be necessary.
How sweet it is to hear the echoes of my thoughts and experiences with Socratic Seminar. As Director of Socratic Seminars International (www.SocraticSeminars.com), I have dedicated the remainder of my professional career to training, coaching, consulting, and supporting new and veteran teachers in Socratic Seminar Leadership Skills. Having been trained and coached by Dennis Gray decades ago, facilitating Socratic Seminars by selecting complex texts and modeling for students how to collectively make meaning so that they learn how to do it on their own is what I did for 30 years in the classroom, and it is what I train teachers to do today. I too “stand ready” to provide this essential professional development. Those interested in a short video of Socratic Seminar leadership can click here. http://socraticseminars.com/education/socratic.html
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Would recommend reading “The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation”
The story of Jacques Ranciere, an exiled French schoolteacher “who discoverd in 1818 an unconventional teaching method that spread panic throughout the learned community of Europe.”
We have forgotten more than we know.
Enjoy!
So funny you should mention it!! I just finished it last week, after it was recommended to me by a friend. I had never heard of it. Fascinating and thought-provoking book! I was actually thinking of blogging this year brief reviews on books that most people may likely have missed that are must-read books and this was going to be one of them. Thanks!
I totally agree….not new! Those of us who have taught in the trenches and provided professional develpment for teachers have seen the cycle come back around…they just call it by a different name. What is described IS the true essence and purpose of guided reading, if implemented as designed. The Socratic method of inquiry is at the heart of small group reading instruction…the role of the teacher as facilitator is exactly how guided reading should be conducted…allowing students to process text and apply reading strategies without having too many ‘clues’ or the actual text read to them first…..ALL essential. MANY of us have been providing effective and engaging professional development in this for the last 15 years!!!!! Do many teachers still need it, especially in rural and urban districts? Absolutely! Is ‘closed reading’ new? Absolutely not! Eye on the child …