SOCRATIC SEMINAR 2

Task: read the text and make questions of the types indicated after the text. Make such questions which can have many answers. Questions, for example, may begin with "how?" or "why?", "what means?" or "what.... mean?". Also read lecture 2 transcript and lecture 2 transcript (extra), texts for small groups 


TEXT

From John Roberts "The Penguin History of the World", 2012

Measured in years, more than half the story of civilization is over by about 500 BC. We are still nearer to that date than were the men who lived then to their first civilized predecessors. In the 3,000 or so years between them, humanity had come a long way; however imperceptibly slow the changes of daily life in them had been, there is an enormous qualitative gap between Sumer and Achaemenid Persia. By the sixth century BC, a great period of foundation and acceleration was already over.

Distinct civilizations had taken root in them, some firmly and deeply enough to survive into our own era. Some of them lasted, moreover, in gradually evolving forms, for hundreds or even thousands of years. Virtually isolated, they contributed little to mankind’s shared life outside their own areas, but they are of great importance in showing the extent of the possible in human achievement.

 Roberts, J M. The Penguin History of the World. Penguin Books Ltd.

Type of questions you may ask 

1.  Ask how the topic fits into a larger context (historical, social, cultural, geographic, functional, economic, and so on) Example: What changes have masks caused in other parts of their social or geographic setting?  

2. Ask questions about the text itself, as an independent entity (words or sentences or paragraphs). Example: what does this word mean in this context? How do these part fit together? 

3. Turn positive questions into a negative ones. Example: Why have masks not become a part of Christmas? 

4. Ask speculative questions. Example: Why are masks common in African religions but not in Western ones? 

5. Ask What if? questions: how would things be different if your topic never existed, disappeared, or were put into a new context?