Part of the goal of the Humanities curriculum is to foster leadership and aid students in engaging in constructive dialogue. One of the ways that we do this in 7th and 8th Grade is to engage in “Hot Seat” discussion days for the text passages we read together. Currently, 7th Grade students are reading The Giver by Lois Lowry and prior to class, three students are responsible for creating discussion questions for their classmates. During class, they then lead conversation in a Socratic seminar-style dialogue. Students experience both sides of the Hot Seat: (1) coming up with robust, open-ended questions that foster discussion, and (2) respectfully offering their ideas to the group for refinement and mutual inquiry. Through this process, students gain listening and speaking skills and experience others building off of their ideas as they collectively build knowledge about our texts. Great job, 7th Graders!