Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Questioning-Sara Margaret West


In my opinion, one of the biggest challenges our students face is the ability to stretch their thinking and really dig deeply into the comprehension of what they are reading.  This may be because they have not been taught to ask thick or deeper level questions, they don't enjoy reading, they don't care, or they are not sure how to make sense of what they are reading.  Regardless of the reason, we must provide them with strategies that will get them thinking on a deeper level.  

Questioning is such a huge part of comprehension.  When I am working with students, I will initially ask them to use that strategy.  I want to see what they can do as a questioner of a text. I am looking to see if they know how to write questions and what kind of questions they write. 

Once I am familiar with their questioning technique, I add to it.  We then create t-charts with a question and answer column.  They must write a question, but then they have to provide an answer to the question they wrote.  Once they feel good about that, I add another column to the chart.  This column is labeled strategy.  In this column, the reader is required to record how they discovered the answer to their questions: did they reread, use their background knowledge, research, ask a friend, etc.  They are now aware of their thinking, know how to ask good questions, and know that their questions need answers.  Hopefully, they can take the answers and come up with new questions, thus encouraging more learning.

For this course, I chose to read This Is Disciplinary Literacy by Releah Cossett Lent.  I love how she has given the reader different strategies to try and has included an explanation of how to use them in your classroom. In efforts to add to my questioning strategies with students, I want to try the inquiry tactic of "Thinking Like a Skeptic".  In order to do this, the text must have a bias.  Students will read over this text in a small group setting while looking at it with a questioning lense. While reading the text, they will answer the following questions:

1.     What does the text say?
2.     What does the text mean?
3.     What has the author or creator omitted that should have been included?
4.     What would I like to ask the creators of authors of the text?
5.     What evidence have I found to support the author’s statements?
6.     What evidence have I found to refute the author’s statements?

This process allows them to practice critical thinking by questioning the text, the author, and questioning what they are reading.  

I am excited to try this out and stretch the minds of students!


3 comments:

  1. I enjoyed reading your blog post! I agree, questioning is so important when determining the comprehension of a text. I teach 4K so I try to make questioning fun for my students. I have story wands that have various questions on them, that I pass out to students, and allow them to answer questions. Reading is so important but can be very meaningless if the text is not comprehended.

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  2. Yes! Questioning is so difficult to teach! Students usually ask very surface level questions and it is harder to get them dig deeper into a topic. I often work on how to ask "thick" questions so that they have something to research and not just a yes or no answer. I like the list of questions you posted because it can help students break down their ideas into specific testable questions. Breaking it down in steps makes it much more manageable for students.

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  3. Hi Sara Margaret,
    I really appreciate how in this blog post you gave us background into your thinking about questioning and how you scaffold your use of questioning to help build student comprehension. You focused your strategy share on the Releah Cossett Lent strategy of "Thinking Like a Skeptic." This strategy to me really helps our students develop critical literacy and helps foster the importance of asking questions not only to learn and gain information but to determine the validity of the source.

    Thanks,
    Dawn

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