Promises to Keep – Socratic Seminar Questions

Product description

From the author

Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America by Sharon Robinson tells the story of how her father, baseball legend Jackie Robinson, broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947. The story recounts the obstacles and barriers Mr. Robinson faced as he courageously stood against racism and bigotry to bring about a monumental change in American culture.

This PDF file of Socratic Seminar & Discussion Questions contains thirty-seven carefully crafted queries on thirteen pages. The first twelve pages pose short-answer questions taken from the text, while the thirteenth page contains a summary question which requires the students to give a more detailed response. All of the questions can be used to facilitate in-class discussions and understanding about the biography.

The Socratic Seminar & Discussion Questions can also be used for other purposes, such as homework assignments or classroom quizzes, and the pages will help teachers gauge whether or not the students have read and understand the specific sections of the biography.

It is my hope that these Socratic Seminar & Discussion Questions will be helpful to teachers who present Sharon Robinson’s Promises to Keep to their students, and I believe that as the students read the story they will find that the questions help them develop critical thinking skills in English and Language Arts.

Common Core Standards for Reading and Writing for grade five follows immediately after the Answer Key.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Students will answer text-based comprehension questions in complete sentences, citing specific chapters of Promises to Keep.
Students will explain the reasoning and evidence behind key events in Jackie Robinson's life, such as his teammates' and opponents' reactions during the 1947 season.
Students will write a concluding essay describing Jackie Robinson's legacy, supported by evidence from the text.

Teaching tips

Use the page-range citation on each question set (e.g., 'Pages 38-43') to assign discussion questions alongside the matching reading, rather than saving all 37 for after the book is finished.
Reserve question 37, the concluding essay prompt, for a culminating in-class write or take-home assignment, since it requires a more developed response than questions 1-36.
The answer key's model responses note where student answers may reasonably vary (e.g., question 37); use them as a guide for what to accept rather than a single fixed answer.

Skills covered

Text-based comprehension — answering chapter-specific questions in complete sentences with reference to the assigned page range.
Evidence-based reasoning — explaining motivations and reactions (e.g., teammates', opponents', Jackie Robinson's own) using details drawn from the text.
Argumentative/reflective essay writing — question 37 asks students to state and support a claim about Jackie Robinson's legacy using textual evidence.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

How are the questions organized relative to the book?

Reading-linked question sets follow chapter titles and page ranges. The concluding legacy essay draws on the book as a whole.

What does the concluding question ask students to do?

Question 37 asks students to write an essay describing what they believe Jackie Robinson's legacy is and to give an example of how that legacy is kept alive in America today, using evidence from the text.

No reviews yet

Downloaded this resource? Tell other teachers how it went.

Curriculum

Standards, concepts & topics

Standards

RI.5.1

Core concepts

Jackie Robinson
Civil rights
Racial integration in baseball
Memoir
Textual evidence

Topics

Promises to Keep Socratic seminar Discussion questions

Explore more

Categories this resource belongs to

Worksheets & Printables Novel Studies

Explore related searches

More to explore