🧠 Making Lincoln’s Speeches Stick (Even for Middle Schoolers)

Lincoln’s words weren’t written for 13-year-olds—but with the right scaffolds, your students can connect to his message. In this post, I’m sharing my 3-day strategy for teaching Lincoln’s four key speeches—from “House Divided” to “Second Inaugural”—in a way that actually makes sense to students and sparks powerful conversations about leadership, unity, and national healing.

Read the full breakdown + get a free classroom activity!

Turn your Socratic Seminars into confident, student-led conversations. This guide shares practical tools to help students gather evidence, craft strong responses, and build the discussion skills they need to speak up and stay engaged.

Help students grow as speakers with simple, skill-based goal setting. This post shares practical tips for guiding students to choose one discussion move to focus on—like citing evidence or building on others’ ideas—so they walk into the Socratic Seminar with purpose and walk out with progress.

Ready to supercharge your Socratic Fishbowl!

1. Power Up Contributions: Equip students with starters like “I agree with ___ because…” or “Can you clarify…?”

2. Mid-Seminar Check-Ins: Pause halfway for quick peer feedback—strengths & next-step tips.

3. Visual Trackers: Use colorful bookmarks and charts to monitor turns and evidence use.

4. Celebrate Wins: Highlight great citations, questions, or respectful challenges.

Keep every voice heard, every student accountable, and the discussion 🔥!

Originally posted January 2025. Updated August 2025!

Want to boost energy in your Socratic Seminar Fishbowl? Try sentence starters, mid-seminar check-ins, and visual tools like discussion bookmarks to keep students confident and engaged. Small moves lead to big conversations—and every voice matters.

Originally posted January 2025. Updated August 2025 with fresh images and streamlined instructions!