Socratic Seminars Are Not My Thing

I have never really been one to be excited when it comes to socratic seminars. I have been participating in them ever since middle school, and whenever I hear that we’re going to be having one, I get nervous. Talking in groups has always been something that makes me feel very anxious because I have this mindset that what I say might not make sense to the group, and then I just end up looking dumb. I’ve tried to get rid of this mindset, but for some reason it always sticks with me. Although for this socratic seminar, I went in with a positive mindset.

Even though I didn’t talk much, I feel like the group I was in was one of the most comfortable socratic seminars I’ve been in. I don’t know what about it made me comfortable, I just wasn’t as anxious as I usually am. What really helped me prepare for this seminar was using quotes as evidence from the different readings we read to support my claim. I found this very helpful because not only did it help during the discussion, I know that it will help in the future when I write a research paper and I have to use evidence to support a claim I am stating. Also, creating an outline that had the main points that I would bring to the discussion was helpful. I found it helpful because instead of looking through my entire answer to find my point, I could easily look at my outline.