Prompt: In Strategies that Work, Harvey & Goudvis list several characteristics of 'authentic questions' (p. 124) that are typically open-ended and encourage divergent thinking. Pose one or more of your own authentic questions for your colleagues to consider about ideas in today's readings (sample units, or reading strategies) and share your initial thinking to start a conversation with your group.
For this blog post, I have decided to focus on one reading strategy outlined in Strategies that Work. This strategy is "Some Questions Are Answered, Others Are Not" (p 112-113). In this strategy, the teacher reads a book to her class that stimulates questioning. After she reads the book, students are asked to share what questions they had before/during/after the story. These questions are then recorded on chart paper and discussed as a class. Together, the teacher and the students see which questions were explicitly answered in the text, and then discuss those that were not. They categorize the questions that were asked into different categories (answered from text, answered from background knowledge, answered through inference, answered through discussion, answered with research, confusion). After this, the students were given opportunities to practice this strategy together, and then independently.
I have a few questions about this strategy.
1. Why would it be important to categorize questions in this way? Is it more important for our students to ask questions or certain kinds of questions?
2. If I were to write students' questions on chart paper like the teacher in this scenario, I am not sure that all of my students would have a question to add (maybe the question they had was already written). In this case, how can I be sure that all of my students are questioning in the way that I want them to? Do you think there is a (better) way to be sure of this?
Personally, I have been working on questioning a lot so far this year in my classroom. I work with a guided reading group, and I have been working with the students on questioning text and thinking deeper about the text and elements within the text. I also do a whole class read aloud on a daily basis, where I work on questioning as well. During the read aloud, I will model my thinking/questioning to the class. They have started picking up on some of the strategies I use during the read aloud and they will ask questions that are not explicitly answered within the text. For my guided reading groups, though, this is harder because the text is in Spanish and I am not as comfortable coming up with questions in Spanish.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that it is important to categorize questions in this way, as long as there is a variety of question types included in a discussion. I think that it is a good skill to be able to read between the lines and ask questions that are not answered directly in the text. It is important for students to make connections and use background knowledge to ask & answer questions within the text. I wouldn't do the chart like the teacher did in this scenario, because my students have a hard time thinking of ideas when they have very specific guidelines and expectations to follow. I would probably have students come up with different types of questions and then just discuss the different types of questions. Is the answer given in the book? Do we have to use outside knowledge or make connections to answer the question?
I have been struggling with coming up with questions for the students in which they need to use background knowledge or connections. Is there an easier way to come up with this type of question?
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ReplyDeleteI think that it is important to categorize these questions in order to provide students with opportunities to think about their thinking. It is easier to help students find the answers that make sense if they can show you how they are thinking about concepts. "We have discovered that the unanswered questions often stimulate the most stirring discussions" (Harvey & Goudvis p. 113).
ReplyDeleteHow do we move students to these deeper questions if they are not generating them on their own?
Looking further into the chapter Harvey & Goudvis list ways that authentic questions are valuable. Examples include, "prompt thinking, may have many answers, dispel or clarify confusion..."
I feel that this connects to the ideas of discovery learning we spoke of yesterday at our PD at Midway.
One way that you could make sure that all students would be responsible for asking questions would be to have them post sticky notes in the book as they read. This would be helpful if they were able to follow along with their own copy of the book. If they had a question, they could write it on the sticky note and attach to the page that prompted this question. They then could share these questions with the class. If you didn't hear from a particular student, you would at least know that they were working on asking questions by whether or not they filled out any sticky notes. You could also write the questions that were discussed on the board and then have students stick their notes up on the board under the same question. Then you could see which students were questioning the text in the same way.
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