In classroom 004, during one of English 10 teacher Mary Palisoul’s classes, students are spread around in chairs making a circle around the center of the room. There is a lively discussion between students as they discuss their findings and thoughts about the novel they are currently reading: “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding published in 1954. The unit is meant to open the eyes of students to utilization of symbolism in novels.
Students are diving into the question of how the boys transitioned from morality to savagery, specifically talking about the example of one of the main characters, Simon, getting murdered by the other boys.
In this unit, students tackle quizzes, Socratic Seminars, projects and essays of multiple prompts to help further their understanding of the novel.
According to Palisoul, the novel makes for intriguing discussions and contains many important aspects of story writing for students to learn.
“Golding made very purposeful choices in this text,” she said. “He wrote this book as an allegory, so there are lots of layers of symbolism. It is great for students to be able to analyze his choices and connect them back to an idea about human nature and society.”
Among the projects associated with the book is to make a graphic map of a particular symbol of a story. This project accentuates how objects are symbolic and how they change over the course of the book. Students have the choice to work on the conch, fire, glasses or pig, among other symbols in the book. Not only are students analyzing the symbols themselves, they are also demonstrating their understanding of the text, Palisoul said.
Aside from projects, students also participate in Socratic seminars. The goal of the seminars is to have students articulate their thoughts and their feelings of the book without too much pressure.
These seminars are student-led and contain no teacher presence. Students gather around in a circle while they try to talk about a prompt for a certain amount of time. During this, the teacher does not speak at all and has students direct and guide the discussion all by themselves.
In most English classes, there are requirements on how many times each student must contribute in order to succeed grade-wise. But, with Palisoul’s structure, the conversations can go whichever way students want them to go.
“I don’t want [student] ideas to always bounce off me,” Palisoul said. “I want [student] ideas to bounce off each other.”
The Socratics provide students with more natural discussion among peers, and allow them to work together to analyze the text closely, she said. Frequently, there is also a chance for quieter students to get their moment of spotlight.
Sophomore Kitty Gechlik said she thinks the book has given her a new view on how society functions, and that the literary devices were fun to navigate through the work done in class.
“I liked the projects a lot,” she said. “It was better than just writing about the book and I liked it because we got to listen to other group’s presentations and listen to their interpretations of the text.”
She added that the Socratics offer her a chance to get other students’ perspectives and let her think about the reading more.
“Overall, I thought the book was interesting to read and the work was pretty manageable,” she said. “The deeper meaning behind the book really gets you thinking about the different views of our society.”
