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Reading schedule · Grades 9–12

The Trial and Death of Socrates in 4 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A four-week plan for reading The Trial and Death of Socrates by Plato, one section a week. Each week gives the reading, a short summary of what happens, three discussion questions and the escape room that goes with it. For grades 9–12, in class or at home.

Pacing

Rhetoric-stage students (grades 9–12) can read a section a week independently, with time to annotate and to write. The questions suit seminar discussion or short written responses, and the escape room makes a quick check on the reading before the conversation or the essay. Some sections are much longer than others, so look ahead and give the heaviest weeks extra time.

Each week ends with an escape room on that week's reading: seven self-checking locks that run in any browser, with no logins, and progress is saved, so a room can be finished another day. Every room has free taster locks to try, and members can open them all.

Print this schedule Escape rooms on The Trial and Death of Socrates

Week 1: Euthyphro

Read: Euthyphro

Outside the court where Socrates must answer the charge brought by Meletus, he meets Euthyphro, who is prosecuting his own father. Socrates asks him what piety is, and each of Euthyphro's answers falls apart under questioning.

Discussion questions

1. Does the gods' love make a thing pious, or do they love it because it is already pious?
2. Why does Euthyphro leave without an answer?
3. What does the dialogue show about the way Socrates questions people?

Escape room: The Question of Piety (lockedlessons.com/rooms/plato-euthyphro/)

Week 2: Apology

Read: Apology

Socrates answers the old slanders against him and the new charges. He tells of the oracle and his search for a wiser man, questions Meletus, and after the verdict proposes his penalty and speaks his last words to the jury.

Discussion questions

1. What does Socrates conclude from his search for a wiser man?
2. Why does Socrates refuse to beg for mercy?
3. Is he right not to fear death?

Escape room: The Gadfly's Defence (lockedlessons.com/rooms/plato-apology/)

Week 3: Crito

Read: Crito

Crito visits Socrates in prison early in the morning with news, and Socrates tells of a dream. Crito gives his reasons for escape, but Socrates holds that one must never do wrong, and he imagines the Laws of Athens speaking to him.

Discussion questions

1. What reasons does Crito give for escape?
2. What do the Laws argue that Socrates owes them?
3. Do you agree with Socrates' choice?

Escape room: The Prison at Dawn (lockedlessons.com/rooms/plato-crito/)

Week 4: Phaedo

Read: Phaedo

Phaedo tells Echecrates about Socrates' last day with his friends in the prison. Socrates argues that the soul lives on after death, answers the objections of Simmias and Cebes, tells a story of the true earth, and dies.

Discussion questions

1. Which argument for the soul do you find strongest?
2. Why does Socrates welcome objections?
3. How does Phaedo want us to remember Socrates?

Escape room: The Last Day (lockedlessons.com/rooms/plato-phaedo/)

Nothing in this schedule is quoted from any translation, so it can sit beside whichever one your class reads.