Synthesis Essays & Socratic Seminars: |
We began having Socratic seminars inside the classroom, most of which felt very opinion based and not so much fact based, they did though begin to open us up more to real world issues that we have to deal with as a society. Because of this we decided we wanted to each dig deeper into a an issue in the world we each felt passionate about that we could either normalize or de-normalize in society. I chose abortion since it is an extremely controversial topic and it had been a recent focus considering the recent election of a president who is VERY pro-life. The topics of essays around the class ranged from music to racial profiling to women's rights and even climate change. To prepare for our essays we read articles about our topics, not just articles agreeing with our point of view but also some with different opinions than ours. We began to learn more about each topic and then later started to write down our own opinions and ideas which later transformed into essays.
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The Enlightenment era happened in the 18th century and it was a movement in a cultural and philosophical aspect. During this time, people started having conversations about their ideologies. These philosophical conversations started taking over all of Europe. Somethings that played a big role in The Enlightenment were coffee shops. At this time, many coffee shops began to open and they became a point of reunion for people who wanted to not only enjoy coffee but also a place where they could hold these conversations. The conversations they were holding are known as "Socratic salons" and they led to people coming up with social contracts. Social contracts were where people would decide together what was and wasn't acceptable to do during one of these conversations. In social contracts, different roles would be set such as shepherd, referee, and investigator. The shepherd doesn't let a conversation get off topic, doesn't allow emotions run too high, and is in charge of inviting in others into the conversation. The referee guides the conversation and calls on people who are getting out of line. The investigator is in charge of summarizing main points and ideas as well as asking clarifying questions.
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