Socratic Seminar Reflection #2

    The seminar influenced my thinking because my perspective on the chapters that we had to read

changed.  We talked about a lot of Level 3 questions.  We were able to connect what was going on in

the book to our own lives.  The questions that asked how the reader would feel if they were in certain

situations of the book were the questions that generated a lot of discussion.  The connection to our lives

helped us see what Oceania was like.  The question about why the Party didn't allow sex except for

creating more members made me think a little bit because I hadn't thought about it a lot before.

    I agreed with the statement that the Party members felt threatened, which is why they were a

dictatorship.  They were afraid that an uprising would occur.  I disagreed with the statement that even

though vocabulary was decreasing, it did not affect the thought process of a person.  Thoughts lead to

speech, so if the vocabulary was decreasing, it would also affect how someone thought.  If I could go

back to the seminar, I would have asked a question because I had several that might have sparked good

discussion, but I couldn't bring myself to ask them.

     The seminar flowed very smoothly.  There were no interruptions and everybody listened to each

other.  Because of that, people built off of others' ideas and the discussion was thought-provoking.  No

one disrespected another person's ideas, if someone disagreed, they did it respectfully.  Everyone had

good ideas and contributed to the discussion.

      For the next seminar, we could do a better job talking about the book itself.  It seemed like the entire

discussion consisted of Level 3 questions.  Those kinds of questions are great, but we kind of got away

from the book a little bit.  It would be good to talk about the book so everyone could have a good

understanding of it.