I read this for my freshman seminar that was taught using a new pedagogy a professor at my college came up with. We played Ancient Greece as a game and were assigned roles with objectives that, if achieved, would mean winning the game (and a half grade bonus
). The roles were divided into factions (Socratics, Radical Democrats, Moderate Democrats and Oligarchs) each with their own special interests, and a faction-sized group of independents who had random specific goals for themselves (a rich athlete, a woman disguised as a man, and so on). Anyway, we used the Republic as the text to inform our behavior in class and we would vote on issues everyday after making our respective arguments. It was a helpful way to think about Socrates' idea of the ideal republic (1) in the context of the political opposition he met, which coincidentally led to his execution in the end, (2) in the context of having to put it together as an argument against pure democracy, and (3) as an ideal that I (as a member of the Socratic faction) would have to learn enough about and understand in a way that I could apply it to my behavior in class every week.
I realize that telling you about my class isn't directly answering your questions about the text, but maybe looking at it in this light will help you fish out the more important information in your reading. If it would help, I could even give you the basic structural outline of Socrates' ideal socio-political structure that we used to frame our game. I love to talk about what I learned in that class, and I'm just a PM away.
Good luck!