Educational Leadership - September 2015

n How could you look at this information differently?

Sometimes when I ask students questions like these, they don’t have a lot to say because they need time to read with the question in mind.

So I may ask them which question intrigues them most and what they want to look for as they read.

This gives students ownership. It’s important that I write down what intrigues them so I can touch base with them the next day by simply asking, “Hey, Tomás, what did you figure out about O’Brien’s use of time?”

Questions That Inform Instruction

When I want to find out what students know and need, I have to ask questions that give them multiple ways to respond. Their responses are entry points into their thinking and understanding. Questions like these work well:

n What do you need? n Is this boring or are you stuck?

What makes this boring? What do think is causing you to be stuck? What have you done before to get unstuck that might help you?

n Have you tried what we talked about in the minilesson?

n What’s preventing you from
working? What causes you to stop?
n Why do you think that?
n What might you try tomorrow?
n What do you know now that you
didn’t know before?

n What’s going on in your head as your read? What is your inner voice saying?

In the End, What Does
Matter Most?

In A More Beautiful Question, author Warren Berger (2014) invites us all— teachers, students, business leaders, innovators, and parents—to ignite learning by asking more beautiful questions. He writes, “In searching for common denominators among [the world’s] brilliant change-makers, one thing I kept finding was that many of them were exceptionally good at asking questions” (p. 1).

So I challenge you to allow students to ask questions more often. If you must be the question asker, I challenge you to pose this single, simple, beautiful question to your students—no matter the content, no matter the learning goal—“What are you wondering?” EL

References

Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question. New York: Bloomsbury.

Black, S. (2001). Ask me a question: How teachers use inquiry in the classroom. American School Board Journal, 188( 5), 43–45.

Tovani, C. (2011). So what do they really know? Assessment that informs teaching and learning. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Vogler, K. (2008). Asking good questions.

Educational Leadership, 65( 9).

Cris Tovani ( ctovani@hotmail.com) teaches English at Adams City High School in Commerce City, Colorado.

She is the author of So What Do They Really Know? Assessment That Informs Teaching and Learning (Stenhouse, 2011).

My students complete daily “activators.” These questions, at the
start of class, prepare students for the day’s lesson by activating prior
knowledge and encouraging them to make connections. During
our unit on The Outsiders, I had students read an article about author
S. E. Hinton’s use of Twitter. The activator question was “Should the
book be updated to include technology, and how would
technology change the story?” They came up with great
ideas: Would the characters smoke e-cigarettes? Would
the Socs film the drowning and post it online? Would
most of the harassment take place online and lead
to fewer physical fights? They all agreed that Darry
would sacrifice to get Ponyboy a computer, not only
to help with his schoolwork, but also so Darry could
take online college classes. These types of activities and
questions demonstrate student higher-level thinking and show how
well they have embraced the characterizations by the author. I often
use the articles and questions to incorporate nonfiction with fiction, to
tie in the Common Core State Standards.