Rachel Penick

Block 5

This Socratic seminar was different from the ones that I am used to. My use of textual
evidence helped back up my points. After going through this Socratic seminar, I realized the
power s importance of backing up your ideas with text evidence. It helps to factualize your point
and legitimizes it for the other people in the class. I believe that I contributed well to the group
and helped people understand where I was coming from. Also, I countered other people’s ideas
and converted them to believing what I believe. I did this through not only providing textual
evidence, but also going into detail and elaborating on the connection between the text and my
personal ideas. But, not only did I explain my points well and provide new information, but I
also backed up other people’s points. I helped other people express their opinion. I also helped
other people to understand where people were coming from. I contributed well on the inner circle
and when it came to the outer circle, I gave good advice. I critiqued their mistakes and explained
to them how they could improve. I think my all-around performance in this Socratic circle was
good. In the next Socratic circle, I hope to go deeper into my explanations.
My group prepared well for this Socratic circle. We got together to compare our opinions
on the questions as well as our textual evidence that we had to back up each of our points. In the
inner circle, I enjoyed our conversations. We went against each other’s points and expressed our
opinions well. The difference in opinions made the conversation more interesting. People used a
lot of textual evidence in order to prove their point. But, on the other hand, when people agreed,
they backed up each other’s points nicely and went deeper. It was a good balance between
arguing and agreeing on questions. I think my friends on the outer circle gave me good advice
and I followed it. One thing I was critiqued on was saying “like” too much. I started to watch
how many times I was saying it and I stopped. This was a helpful change that came from the
outer circle’s help.
People follow authority whether it is right or wrong because they create a sense of safety.
Many people look to authority for guidance. They see the best in the authoritative figure and are
commonly blinded by their power. Many times, people have found that authority takes advantage
of their power. They do not have good intentions and they use their power to persuade their
followers to see things from their point of view. I have seen this many times throughout my life.
One time when I was in middle school, this girl won class president. She began to order people
around and they thought that they had to listen to her. She would force them to give her snacks
and carry her books. She abused her status and took advantage of her classmates. When she
would ask me to do something, I would say no because I knew that she was using her power
incorrectly. She was manipulating others and they were getting used to it. She didn’t even have
to ask people to do things anymore, they would automatically do it. Finally, a teacher realized
what was happening an had a talk with her and the other students. She lost her student president
role. The teacher talked to us about how that was a bad example of authority. They shouldn’t feel
manipulated and controlled by authority. Everyone learned something from this experience. This
is similar to how all the girls listen to what Abigail says and follows what she says to do. You
should never be manipulated by someone else to do the wrong thing.