Build a Culture of Questioning in Your Classroom
Recently, Great Books hosted a webinar with two of our long-term users of Junior Great Books, Erin Mohr and April Smith. In planning the webinar, we met to brainstorm which topic would be helpful to other teachers and how we could spotlight the work students do using Shared Inquiry™ and Junior Great Books®. Both educators agreed that the culture in the classroom starts from the teacher and what they do and their attitudes towards their students.
Erin stated it right at the beginning of the webinar in her introduction, “I firmly believe in the power of children’s thinking. When we as adults can get out of their way a little bit, kids really are capable of some really amazing thinking.” When she works with teachers in their classrooms, she asks them to challenge their assumptions about their students’ capabilities. She continues to support the idea that student thinking needs to take center stage in the classroom, and April adds that she does this by making her thinking visible to her students.
“I firmly believe in the power of children’s thinking.”
Erin Mohr, Assistant Director of Elementary Education, Hamilton (IN) Southeastern Schools
In the webinar, we asked the participants a series of poll questions that you will see below. Please answer the polls as you read, and we will report on the results soon!
Standards and Questions
We started the discussion by addressing the elephant in the room—standards and how teachers are expected to meet them in everything they do. April got us started by talking about the South Carolina standards that begin in kindergarten: “Students are expected to collaborate, react, and respond to information while building upon the ideas of others and respecting diverse perspectives.” April went on to say that students want the same experience as adults when they are reading: they want to have deeper conversations about the meaning of the story, rather than simply identifying the theme or answering a teacher question that only has one simple answer.
Watch April Smith build a culture of questioning in her classroom. Smith is the lead gifted and talented teacher for elementary schools for Orangeburg (SC) County School District.
Standards for students’ ability to ask and answer questions were on Erin’s mind, so the conversation shifted to the types of questions students ask and how we respond. Erin began by asking, “Why do we want students to ask questions?” This is at the heart of what good readers do; they engage with a text by asking questions. Erin also asked, “What are we here for? Fill students or develop thinkers?” This shows that Shared Inquiry is a tool you can use to develop your students’ ability to think and dig deeper into their understanding of a text.
Not All Questions are Created Equal
The questions that students ask tell us a lot about their thinking and how developed they are as inquisitors of a text. While there is nothing wrong with asking factual questions, and indeed those can show us that a student may be struggling with comprehension, we do want to spend time in discussion exploring questions that have more than one answer and that are supported by the text. These interpretive questions help our students hold space for multiple answers or interpretations of a text. These are the types of questions and conversations that truly prepare students for life.
When students start in Junior Great Books, they tend to ask factual questions about the text, but as they get better and learn to dig deeper, you will see that they are more comfortable questioning the author’s motive or the reason a character does something, rather than just asking why this character’s shirt is blue, as Erin stated. Factual and vocabulary questions can be answered by students, helping them build the muscle they need to take control and feel comfortable solving their own problems rather than looking to the teacher for answers.
Instead of answering the questions, students ask the teacher or leader, whose job is to ask follow-up questions to help them think more deeply and go further.
Speak into the Silence
April encourages her students to “speak into the silence” to help them become comfortable voicing their questions or thoughts. Building community through conversation and questioning is an intentional decision that April makes in her classroom. It is also what she models for her students when she makes her own thinking visible during work on challenging texts,
“Shared Inquiry became not just a part of our English language arts class. It became part of our class all day long.”—April Smith
Students are encouraged to keep their hands down and to navigate discussions civilly by taking turns and really listening to each other. This takes practice to perfect, but it pays off in the long run. April has found that her students are able to transfer these skills into other areas of the curriculum and in their own lives. When students feel confident doing difficult things, it can help them in all areas and build the stamina and strength to tackle greater tasks.
How to Get Started
You can unlock student thinking in your classrooms using Junior Great Books and the Shared Inquiry method of learning. Our highly renowned professional learning and unequaled rich text selections across genres are the tools you need to get started. Talk with your Great Books partnership manager today!
Professional Learning Consultant
Teri Laliberte has over 20 years of experience working with learners from a variety of backgrounds. Prior to working abroad, she earned her master’s degree in language and linguistics from the University of Georgia. With 15 years of experience working with English language learners, she has supported language growth and acquisition in her students, along with the needed academic skills of critical thinking, listening, and speaking. Prior to rejoining the Great Books Foundation, she spent 15 years working with adult learners in higher and continuing education, honing her skills by meeting the needs of various learners in literacy, communication, and critical thinking.
