Socratic Seminar | Infer Compare and Contrast

READ RSVP: Read, Summarize, Verify, Prediction | Compare and

Contrast: This engagement READING protocol is used to build and refine compare and contrast thinking skills. Students need to make new connections when they compare and evaluate new information. Students discover and describe the difference(s) between what was inferred and the newly revealed information. This reading strategy promotes active close reading, Socratic thinking, text ranking and text coding, making an inference and comparing and contrasting skill. That means students are really thinking about what they are reading.

PROCEDURES

1. The teacher selects a one-page reading passage that is challenging.

2. The teacher ranks and annotates the passage for key words, phrases, statements or questions. The teacher compiles the best clues and creates a clue sheet for students.

3. Give mini-lecture on inferring, comparing and contrasting:

4. Give each student group or pair the clue sheet with a list of 5-10 keywords, 3-5 statements or phrases, and one open-ended questions. The list of keywords and text clues are placed in the order in which they appear in the text.

5. Students work with partners or a group of four to analyze the clues. Students think about the limited text clues and compare them to their prior knowledge.

6. Students share connections they are making with their partners. They record their predictions and conclusions using Cornell notes or flash cards.

Extensions: List multiple conclusions, and orally share a potential summary or write a feasible summary.

Extensions: The students are given just a keyword outline of the reading passage and the must use all the keywords in a summary. Students’ use the keywords in the exact order in which they appear in the teacher provided keyword outline. The Keywords that are challenging can be placed in a Cornell notes format with contextual exemplars not related to the original text and the terms denotations.

7. Students buddy read the one-page passage and compare and contrast it to their conclusions and summaries. Students reread do a text ranking of their favorite statements or passages, and they text code the passage.  Students participate in a Mini-Socratic-Seminar to discuss and share their conclusions and predicted summaries.

8. Students verify their predictions and conclusions with their reading partner.

9. Students come together and have a group discussion about anything they had to modify, confirm, verify and or correct from their initial inferences, conclusions, and predictions.

Extensions: Write a new summary using what you learned.

Extensions: Split the class in half, have each group make a clue-sheet for the other half of the class. The students prepare a reading passage using a Cornell notes organizer. Student text rank, text code, and analyzes the text for themes and main ideas. This extended reading protocol helps students deeply understand the close reading strategy and gives them a hands-on inferencing, comparing and contrasting reading activity.