By Dan Lindstrom
Recently I sat down with Denise Ahlquist, our senior professional learning consultant, who has been teaching educators how to use Shared Inquiry™ in their schools and classrooms for more than three decades. Our goal was to explore the best ways to introduce students to Shared Inquiry, which is a concept new not only to them, but to most teachers when they bring Junior Great Books® into their classrooms for the first time.
Here is an edited version of our conversation.
What is Shared Inquiry?
Dan Lindstrom: Denise, first of all, how would you define Shared Inquiry? Most people aren’t quite sure what it is.
Denise Ahlquist: Shared Inquiry is a method of learning that involves collaborating to figure out the meaning of something that is more complex than any one person would understand on their own. So most often at Great Books we start with texts—texts that are rich in ideas, that have meaning, that prompt people to ask questions about, ‘What is the author trying to tell us?’ and, “What are we experiencing with this work of art?”
DL: So how do students and teachers get started?
The Importance of Sharing Questions
DA: It starts with Sharing Questions. That’s the name of an activity that comes right after the first reading of any Junior Great Books text, from kindergarten through eighth grade. You can use the same technique with adults.
DL: What is Sharing Questions?
DA: It’s taking students’ first reaction to a text and focusing on their reactions. We encourage teachers to read texts aloud to the students for a first reading, no matter their grade level, and, after this first reading, the teacher opens the floor to any student questions. At first, many students only think we want them to ask about vocabulary, which is fine. Gradually we model and expand that to include all types of questions, especially factual, interpretive, and evaluative questions.
For example, after reading “Jack and the Beanstalk,” a student might ask, “What did Jack steal the first time he went up the beanstalk?” That’s a factual question, and the class can answer it right away if there is time. Or a student might ask, “Why was the Ogre’s wife nice to Jack?” That’s an interpretive question, which is ripe for future discussion. Finally, a student might say, “I thought Jack was dumb for trading Milky White for some magic beans!” That’s an evaluative reaction that you can change into a question: “Why do you think Jack traded their cow for magic beans?”
All of these reactions and questions are welcome. When students are allowed to use the power of inquiry, it is a very natural power, and suddenly they are not being a “problem” by asking a question, they’re actually encouraged to name questions. And teachers are very often really quite surprised at the way this frees up engagement for a student—when they are enabled to ask their own questions, instead of having to go through someone else’s channel or entry point, the questions really start to flow.
I think one of the things we hear most often from teachers is, “I didn’t know my students would have so many questions” or, “My students’ questions were higher quality than I ever expected!” And there is also a common reaction that warms my heart: “I didn’t expect so-and-so to do so well at this,” a particular student who may have struggled in the past or not necessarily been seen as engaged with school-type activities.
DL: So once students get the message that they can ask questions and they really do feel free to do so, they’re able to ask high-quality questions and, as you say, students that may have been reluctant come out of the woodwork and participate a lot more.
DA: Right. And it’s important that they have a rich text to respond to!
But if students need support at the beginning, our rubrics show how they are moving from just commenting on a text—and that’s often true at the younger grades as well—for example, they will say, “That was scary!” or, “That was funny!” or, “I didn’t like that when that happened!” And those reactions are a great starting point for questions in many cases. Because then you can ask, “Oh, what was scary about it?” or, “Why do you think they included that funny part?”
And you can either model or sometimes ask students to explain what struck them as “stupid” or “dumb,” and then all of a sudden they have lots of answers, like, “They way this character did this and this!” So an aspect of the text that students might have been dismissing or not looking at closely can become fuel for discussion too.
Shifting to an Inquiry-Based Environment
DL: So one of the keys to introducing Shared Inquiry is to make students feel that asking questions is not only okay, but a very productive thing to do?
DA: Yes. And that’s why the biggest “shift,” as people sometimes call it, is a shift to an inquiry-based environment. So students who have had experiences like this, even if they’re not exactly Shared Inquiry, will likely take to that more quickly. But certainly starting with a strong Sharing Questions session—especially with younger students—is key.
When you collect student questions first, you have sent the right signal: this is the starting point. But students, especially younger ones, need to develop stamina to go through a text multiple times, and to have longer Shared Inquiry discussions. At first, five minutes can be a long time if this experience is new to them.
DL: So with stamina, you are referring to engaging with the same text and more or less investigating the same topic in one session?
DA: Right. And that’s an important part of many state standards: developing reading stamina is clearly stated as the goal. I have been looking at standards for middle school students, for example, where discussions might last 20 minutes at the beginning of a year when you first introduce students to Shared Inquiry. At that point students might be able to focus and hopefully listen to each other and respond for about that length of time. But by the end of the year, if possible, that could be 35 to 40 minutes. As they become more experienced with Shared Inquiry, they have literally learned how to have better discussions—how to have the stamina to focus, listen, and come back to discussion threads that seemed like they were off topic but actually just needed to be worked in later.
Rich and Complex Texts are Key
DL: So we encourage teachers to invite student questions, and then build their stamina to engage with a text and have longer discussions as they learn how to do that. What else should teachers know as they introduce Shared Inquiry to their students?
DA: A brief explanation of what Shared Inquiry is always helps, and we talked about that right at the beginning. Building stamina applies to both students and teachers; teachers shouldn’t expect to have long discussions right away. The multiple sessions and interpretive activities that we provide help students engage with a text as well: that’s why we have a note-taking or dramatization activity for a second reading, and there are art activities for younger readers. Providing multiple points of entry to a text is really important.
But the most important part of having successful Shared Inquiry experiences is the text! Having a text that is complex and rich enough so that it is suitable for Shared Inquiry is key. That’s why Junior Great Books are so great: the texts are so rich that students can hardly help themselves from asking questions. It’s especially important for your first discussions to have that kind of text.
And then the last thing I would always stress is that reflection after a Shared Inquiry learning experience is crucial, especially when participants are new to Shared Inquiry. So make sure you allow enough time that when you’re done that there is a chance to talk about what you did that day. What went well? What could be done better? Then you can set some goals rather than trying to frontload everything. If you proceed this way, each discussion gets a little bit better over time.
Shared Inquiry in the Content Areas
DL: I wanted to quickly return to something you mentioned earlier. You said Shared Inquiry applies to “works of art.” Does this mean art other than literature?
DA: Definitely. Most of my experience has been with discussing texts and teaching teachers how to lead those discussions. I’ve also had a number of experiences that involve performances, where the group was discussing a written text and then seeing a performance of an adaptation or version of the text, usually with theater or film. The group’s discussion is enhanced by everyone having had the experience of both reading the text and seeing the performance!
Shared Inquiry also works well with visual art. The first thing you ask a group when you are looking at a painting is, “What do you see?” People react very naturally, and you can turn their reactions into questions.
In K–12 classrooms, you can embed Shared Inquiry into content areas. For example, there are some really interesting presentations of the Golden Ratio. In math and science you want to look for things from the natural world. One of the most interesting videos I have ever watched was on the Fibonacci sequence in nature. Vi Hart does these amazing videos that are speeded up doodling, and they’re all related to a math concept that is also an art concept—something where you really feel like, “Woah, this is interesting, this has got a lot to it.”
Those are good hooks, and you want your text to be a hook. Spend as little time frontloading as possible; jump in and see what you get! Obviously you need to explain to your students what you’re doing, but shift to asking questions and don’t think you need to be the one telling them everything.
You can have a wonderful Shared Inquiry experience about so many things: literature, film, theater, paintings, concepts in math and science . . . there really is no limit. All you have to do to get started is welcome questions and be open to hearing different interpretations!