Philosophical Chairs Brings Out the Passion in ELA Classrooms

The last time I did Philosophical Chairs with my class, a neighboring teacher came to check on me because of how excited my students were getting—some of them even standing on chairs to make sure their point was heard. It wasn’t just that one time: This level of engagement and excitement happens whenever we do Philosophical Chairs. And my students ask to do it almost every day.

Philosophical Chairs is a discussion-based activity that asks students to take a stance, listen to others, and reconsider their thinking in real time. It works like this: The teacher poses a single either-or question, students choose a side of the room based on their answer, and then they debate for a set amount of time. The extra dynamic part? Students may switch sides whenever they feel persuaded by a new idea. It’s a high-engagement, low-prep activity that gets students engaging with course content and using academic vocabulary without the need for elaborate materials or complex routines.

Like many English language arts (ELA) teachers, I teach a highly structured curriculum that dominates most of my contact time with students. Luckily, it’s easy to fit Philosophical Chairs into the curriculum with almost any amount of time.

Starting Simple

When trying Philosophical Chairs for the first time, keeping it simple helps reduce teacher nerves—and lower the stakes. Try using Philosophical Chairs as an anticipatory set with a simple question ahead of a new reading, concept, or unit, and schedule it to last 10 minutes or less. If a 10-minute trial run goes off the rails, you’ve only spent 10 minutes, not the whole lesson. For these shorter sessions, you want questions that require little background knowledge and little preparation for students, such as “Which chain has better pizza: Pizza Hut or Domino’s?” or “Would you rather travel to the beach or to the mountains?”

Philosophical Chairs also works beautifully as a replacement for an exit ticket. After reading “The Fall of the House of Usher,” my students debated whether they would turn back after feeling such a strong sense of foreboding when gazing at the House of Usher, as the narrator did in the story. This works well because students have only two options. The exercise teaches students the basics of using textual evidence during a discussion, and it allows the teacher to evaluate comprehension.

Philosophical Chairs can also work as an assessment at the end of a unit, in which students prepare and discuss for an entire class period. Students can debate essential questions and use evidence from various texts in a unit.

Finding the Right Moment

When choosing the right time for Philosophical Chairs, look for low points in the curriculum or the calendar year when engagement normally lags. The first time I did Philosophical Chairs was after reading The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. Students generally struggle to engage with the play, and we read it in February, traditionally a low-energy month. Students got to debate whether Prospero should’ve forgiven his transgressors at the end of the play, which many students had strong opinions on. It’s a great way to embed some excitement into a unit that students sometimes struggle with.

Crafting Your Question

Good questions for Philosophical Chairs are those that are clear, debatable, and answerable with two opposing positions. Here are some questions I’ve used successfully with high school students:

• Is college important for future success?
• Should colleges use the ACT when making admission decisions?
• Who is more sympathetic in The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka: Gregor or his family?

I also prepare some follow-up questions in case the discussion stalls. When reading The Tempest, many students think Prospero shouldn’t forgive Antonio because Antonio tried to kill him, even though he wasn’t successful. So, I’ll ask: Does the outcome matter when determining if someone is worthy of forgiveness? The more comfortable you get leading Philosophical Chairs, the less necessary this stage becomes, but I find it helps to create some questions to lean on the first time.

Preparing Students for Success

Just like how the teacher prepares, students should also prepare ahead of time. The longer you want the discussion to be, the more time students need to formally prepare.

Some questions don’t need preparation. For shorter discussions, a five-minute quickwrite is often enough. However, for The Tempest, students discuss during our entire 85-minute block, so they complete a two-column organizer to list evidence for both sides of the argument. Sometimes, I’ll randomize which side of the aisle students start on.

Setting the Stage

Before beginning, set the rules of engagement. Students should do the following:

• Be respectful.
• Allow others to share their perspectives.
• Criticize ideas—not people.

The teacher has three roles:

1. Referee: Make sure conversations stay respectful. Sometimes, if things get too heated, I enact a penalty box where students must be silent for three minutes before they can return to the group.

2. Engager: Try to engage students who are listening and reacting nonverbally. Anytime I see a student reacting to the conversation, but without actually saying anything, I gently invite them to share their thoughts, to get as many people engaged as possible.

3. Developer: Keep conversations moving forward. Students have a tendency to get stuck on certain points. To keep students moving forward in the discussion instead of going back to previous points, ask them follow-up questions and prompt the other side in their responses. 

To wrap up, have students complete a brief reflection that fits your needs. They can reflect on their individual performance, reflect on their group’s performance, or circle back to the original question to consider whether their answer has changed. This not only serves as closure to the activity, but also allows you to hear from students who might not have been as willing to share as part of the larger discussion.

So, was it successful? I like to measure based on engagement. If I see higher levels of engagement than I do on a typical day, I consider the activity a success. Students are engaging with the content and using academic vocabulary to analyze what they’re learning at higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

And nothing beats the moment, usually the very next day, when students walk in and ask, “Are we doing Philosophical Chairs again?”