My High School Seminar Course

I teach a course (and have taught something like it before) that is set up as a seminar.  I mention it often enough that I thought a written description of what I do, what we read, how we behave would be helpful.  Here it is.

The course is comprised of all Seniors in the private Roman Catholic high school at which I teach.  It is a required course, listed as the sole course in our Philosophy department.  It requires two main things of each student: participation in a daily Seminar of assigned readings and the writing of a year long Thesis paper.

Daily Seminar:

• Students are assigned a reading for each day of Seminar.  They are to submit an outline of the reading’s content prior to the day of the Seminar.
• If the class exceeds 14 students, we divide them into an Inner and Outer circle.  They find out which circle they are in each day when they come to class.  Each student is charted so as to spend about half of their seminars in each circle.
• In the Inner Circle, we begin the day by having someone summarize the reading and then do one of the following:  Ask a question of the author’s text, make a statement about the reading, or seek to apply the text to common life.  A discussion ensues from there.
• In the Outer Circle, the students pay close attention to the Inner Circle discussion and log on to an online chat forum where they are able to type comments and thereby carry on their own form of discussion during the hour.
• The teacher’s three tasks during this time are to (1) coach and guide the Inner circle, trying to get them (usually by around Thanksgiving) to where they are able to have Seminar without his help, (2) note the participation of each student in the Inner circle for grading, and (3) keep an eye on and help guide the chat discussion of the Outer circle.
• The texts read each year are here, in the order they are read.  Note that not all texts are read in their entirety.

Thesis Paper:

• Each student invents an issue they wish to write on, invents possible arguments for that issue, and then forms a thesis they will defend in writing and with an oral presentation at the end of the year.
• The paper is 10-15 pages, MLA.
• Each student is assigned a faculty member as an advisor, normally someone with knowledge in the field of the thesis.
• They are required to have at least 10 sources, including an interview with an expert in the field they are writing on, and two printed books.
• They submit the paper in multiple drafts for review and revision.  Once the final draft is in, they await an assigned date during which they will present their paper to the seminar in the same fashion as the readings they have been discussing all year.
• A detailed schedule including the following parts is given out at the start of the year:

Senior Thesis Deadlines 

Step	Description	Result	Deadline
1	Topic	Topic is chosen from List of Great Ideas	September 25
2	Whether Statement	Sentence stating the issue with both sides	October 16
3	Invention of Proofs*	ANI Chart	November 6
4	Thesis*	Thesis Statement	November 13
5	Research A*	Total minimum of 3 sources and notes	December 4
6	Research B*	Additional minimum of 4 sources and notes	December 18
7	Research C*	At least 10 sources with attending notes (Evernote notebook); 2 sources must be printed books, 1 source must be a personal interview	January 15
8	Arrangement*	Basic Outline – showing all major parts of paper	January 22
9	Rearrangement*	Detailed Outline – showing all paragraphs with some detail	January 29
10	Rough Draft of Proofs**	First draft of “body” of paper, showing all proofs and their sub-proofs, including citation	February 19
11	Works Cited and Bibliography pages**	All works cited in order of citation  A bibliography of all works engaged	February 26
12	Full Rough Draft**	Complete paper in draft form, ready for others to read editorially	March 4
13	Editing*	Advisor and at least one other editor mark up and give feedback.  Author uses this to revise their draft.	March 18
14	Penultimate Draft**	Based on editing, this is a revised version of the paper.	April 3
15	Final Paper**	Properly formatted, turned in to Instructor and Advisor both in printed and electronic form (Word document).	April 8
16	Presentation Outline*	Outline is made for presenting to Senior Seminar.  May be different from paper outline.	April 22
17	Presentation	Thesis is presented and discussed in Senior Seminar with Advisor and student body in attendance	See separate Presentation Schedule

 * = This deadline is presented to the adviser who reports to the Director for a grade 

** = This deadline is turned in through Turnitin.com and the Director grades directly