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Reading schedule · Grades 9–12

Plato's Republic in 5 Weeks: A Reading Schedule

A five-week plan for reading The Republic 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 Plato's Republic

Week 1: Books 1–2

Read: Books 1–2

At a festival in the Piraeus, Socrates talks with old Cephalus about justice, and Polemarchus and the forceful Thrasymachus give their answers. Glaucon and Adeimantus challenge Socrates to show that justice is good in itself, and he begins to build a city in words, deciding what stories its guardians may hear.

Discussion questions

1. What is Thrasymachus' view of justice, and how does Socrates answer it?
2. Why do Glaucon and Adeimantus press Socrates so hard?
3. Why look at a city to understand justice in a person?

Escape room: Down to the Piraeus (lockedlessons.com/rooms/republic-books-1-2/)

Week 2: Books 3–4

Read: Books 3–4

Socrates sets out the stories, music and training of the guardians and the founding story of the metals. He describes the guardians' way of life, finds four virtues in the city, and then looks for justice in the soul.

Discussion questions

1. Should a city tell its citizens a founding story that is not true?
2. What are the parts of the soul, and how do they relate?
3. What does justice turn out to be?

Escape room: The Myth of Metals (lockedlessons.com/rooms/republic-books-3-4/)

Week 3: Books 5–6

Read: Books 5–6

Socrates faces three great waves of objection, beginning with women as guardians, and sets rules for war between Greeks. He distinguishes knowledge from opinion, tells the parable of the ship, and explains the Good through the images of the sun and the divided line.

Discussion questions

1. Are Socrates' arguments about women as guardians convincing?
2. What does the parable of the ship say about how cities choose their leaders?
3. How does the sun help explain the Good?

Escape room: Three Great Waves (lockedlessons.com/rooms/republic-books-5-6/)

Week 4: Book 7

Read: Book 7

Socrates describes prisoners in a cave who see only shadows, the long climb of one who is set free, and his return. Education is the turning of the soul, and the future rulers follow a course of studies that leads them towards the Good.

Discussion questions

1. What do the shadows, the fire and the sun stand for?
2. Why must the freed prisoner go back down?
3. Do you agree that education is a turning of the soul rather than a filling of it?

Escape room: Out of the Cave (lockedlessons.com/rooms/republic-book-7/)

Week 5: Books 8–10

Read: Books 8–10

Socrates describes four failing kinds of city and soul, ending with the misery of the tyrant, and pictures the soul as a beast, a lion and a human being. He returns to the quarrel with poetry and ends with the story of Er.

Discussion questions

1. Why is the tyrant the unhappiest of men?
2. Why does Socrates distrust poetry?
3. What does the story of Er add to the arguments?

Escape room: The Spindle of Necessity (lockedlessons.com/rooms/republic-books-8-10/)

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