On a Monday morning in June, during second period,W I had a chance to observe Mr. Nickerson. Mr. Nickerson’s second period class was filled with junior honors students, who were in the middle of reading The Great Gatsby. Mr. Nickerson is a master teacher, who had taught for over twenty years. His classroom walls very bare besides a few pieces of student work and a few grammar tips.
The class began with student putting their chairs into a small inner-circle and a larger outer-circle. This Monday was a Socratic Seminar discussion day. Students were prepared, after reading Chapter 8, with notes from Friday and questions they answered over the weekend, which would spring-board their graded discussion. This discussion set up was a well-oiled wheel for this classroom. Students already knew the expectations, the directions, and they started discussing the first question–“Defend your character”–right away.
Mr. Nickerson sat outside the circle and interrupted when students needed a subject change, or he wanted to hear from someone in specific. There were only six people in the inner circle discussing and the rest of the class sat quietly and took notes on their answers and opinions, which were due for credit at the end of the day. The inner circle switched half-way through the period. Mr. Nickerson graded with a “check plus or check minus” system, which he completed after they were done discussing. While they discussed he took notes of specific quotes he liked from students, which he then repeated back to the group as spring-board comments. This proved very useful to these honors students. At the end of the discussion, which lasted the whole period, Mr. Nickerson explained the goal for tomorrow’s class and what to look forward too during the week.
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