The Grapes of Wrath Socratic Seminar Final Reflection

The Grapes of Wrath Socratic Seminar Final Reflection

     The Grapes of Wrath seminar influenced my thinking on how the American Dream is different today than it was during the times of the Dust Bowl.  Throughout the conversation, I realized that the ideal life today is extremely different from the one most often sought back then.  While people during the Dust Bowl wanted to live as a family, work on farms, and have a nice house, the American Dream today is much more individualized and modernized.  One thing said which I hadn’t thought of so much in depth was how Rose of Sharon’s act at the end of the book could symbolize new life in times of hardship.  I had always regarded this part of the book as a little weird, and had never before thought that it could stand for something greater.

     The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the most is that Rose of Sharon’s baby provided juxtaposition against the unfertile land that the Joads were escaping.  I has thought of this too, and thought that it could maybe symbolize hope in an oppressing environment.  The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the least is that Ma’s role in the family was not very tough.  I disagreed with this statement because I thought Ma was the character that always pushed the family to find work and to stay together.  If I had the opportunity to respond to anything in the seminar, I would have talked more about the symbolism of the turtle crossing the highway.  Although we touched on it in the conversation, we never really talked about it in-depth.

     Something that worked really well for the seminar was asking questions and participation.  This was a first because asking questions is usually our weak point in seminars.  I think that with our own questions, we were eager to ask them since they were topics that we liked, instead of assigned questions that may not have interested us.  Another thing that worked well in the seminar was participation.  Everybody excluding maybe two people participated and provided interesting statements that we could talk about as a group.  I thought that this seminar may not have been the best in terms of grades, but it was definitely the most interesting.

     Something that needed improvement in the seminar was use evidence from the text.  This was surprising to me because our discussions do not usually lack evidence to support the arguments made.  I think the reason people did not use as much evidence was because nobody knew what the questions were going to be, and so nobody could really prepare textual evidence to answer each question.  The textual evidence that was provided was most likely thought up on the spot, or was said by someone who had a similar question.  Although our seminar did have this one flaw, I think that its powerful arguments and nice flow made it my favorite one so far.