The habit of questioning:
Tremayne just starts writing questions and answers in his journal after he finishes reading Wemberly Worried in guided reading.  I know that he's doing it because it's what he expects I want, and so it's not as powerful as it would be if he were doing it after finishing an independent reading book, but it's a start.

Tremayne's questions:
-Why did Wemberly laughed and said I will?  Like in the end of the story the teacher said everyone please come back and Wemberly said I will, I think she might like playing with her friends now. 

gr new york

Omar: right there and inferred traits of characters like Sharie
Vianey: also inferred about Sharie, that she doesn't pay attention
They also took notes on Bebe.

Vianey: Is all of Wayside School not normal?
Does Ms. Jules need glasses?

We start popcorn reading the next chapter.
Omar: How is that the best seat in the class?
Vianey: Maybe because it's the seat where he won't get caught talking.
Tommy: Why couldn't he be sent to the office instead of being written on the board under discipline?
 At the end, I modeled how to ask an evaluating question.
Vianey beats me to the punch and asks a question based on the pic for the next chapter: What can Ms. Jewels do to help Dana?

more thoughts

i think a large part of student motivation to generate questions and research is going to hinge on choice, and whether students can choose the topics they're really interested in learning more about.  For example, Demarrion told me this morning that he had youtubed Because of Winn Dixie.  This might not seem like much, but it does mean something that a low reader like Demarrion would be so interested by a text that he'd want to learn more about it at home

I Search notes with Debbie

research organizer: a bigger piece of paper

post questions on columns (underneath categories for topic, ie: early life, education)
rows: are different sources (may see discrepancies among different sources around a question

I Search:
Part 1: why I chose this topic... (rationale)
Part 2: The story of my search
Part 3: What I learned about my topic...
Part 4: What I learned about "searching and researching"

Pedagogy:
-she modeled each section, then students did it
-students picked their own topic
-bbk for writing: kwl, generating questions

gr group tennessee

Darvell: How did they rebuild all the stuff that burned down?  How long did it take?
Nyrissa: How long did it take to take to rebuild everything that got burned down?
Dameko: Why were the buildings made of wood?
Malik: Did the lady die before the news asked her?

I talk to them about making their questions more specific to find good research answers.

What do we have to do to make our questions better?
Nyrissa: We have to make our questions about the Chicago Fire.  Like: how did all the stuff get burned down by the Chicago Fire?
Dameko: How did all the stuff get burned down in the Chicago fire?
Me: what about the word "stuff"?
Nyrissa: Like the houses and buildings.
Me: what if we put that in the question?
Nyrissa: In the Chicago Fire, how did all the houses and buildings get burned down?
Malik: I think I can improve my question.  In the Chicago Fire, did Ms. O'Leary die before the news asked her how did the fire start?
Dameko: Where are the O'Leary's in the Chicago Fire?
Me: that's confusing, are you talking about where they lived?
Dameko: No, we know where they lived.  When they opened the door the O'leary's weren't there.
Me: So what are you talking about then?  Do you mean where did they go?
Dameko: Where did the O'Leary's go when the Chicago Fire started?

They start researching, but Dameko and Malik want to change their question.

Research findings:
Darvell:
-The wooden building burned quickly which helped the fire speed towards the center of the city
Nyrissa:
-The fire spread quickly because all the houses were made of wood.
Malik:
-Ms. O'Leary was in bed and Michael Ahern made up the story about the cow kicking over the lantern.  Nobody knows how the Chicago Fire started.
Dameko:
-Because it was the fast to make them out of wood, and the cheapest.

gr group iowa

Kashira ended up reading beyond the chapters that we assigned for our next gr group meeting and finished the whole book so right now she's writing down questions she had about the 2nd half of the book as she skims and rereads it.
She wrote a TON of questions, mostly understanding and analyzing.  I asked her if she'd like to learn how to write questions at the highest level of thinking on the pyramid.  She said yes, and when I modeled how to ask evaluating and creating questions, she was able to come up with her own as well:
-What is special to Junie B. Jones?
-How can Junie B. Jones get better in school?
She then categorized all the rest of her questions, now she's prioritizing the question about what is special to Junie B. and will research it on her own.

Anyah is reading the second half of the book for the first time and writing down questions as she goes.
-What did Grandma get Junie B.
-Why is she going to get a raccoon.
-Why does Junie B. Jones calls her book smells somthing Fishy.
-does lucilles talk a lot
-Why is she talking to the worm?
-how did the new friend feel in her hands
-how can she take that big fish to school

Trae is just reading, I noticed he doesn't like to stop and write questions.

gr group texas

Cyrus self generated a question and began writing it under his Qfocus of "Big Al", but when I turned back to him, I saw that he'd only written half the question and then had begun reading again.  When I asked him why, he told me that he wanted to keep reading so he made sure he finished.  I think this might be one reason why some students stop less often to write down questions, they simply don't want to be slowed down from reading, similar to me I guess.  I wonder if this process is too academic and not functional enough. 

Emon wrote and categorized "Why does Big Al have no friends" (analyzing) and "Do the fish like Big Al?" (understanding). 

Eventually Cyrus's question that he wrote out stated: "Wy does Big al acts like other fish but he was doien big  he rely didnt have acit like others Be yoursellf and don't juge pepol without geting to know them"

Zion wrote some basic level inferences in her reader's notebook, but it's good because they show that she had a solid understanding of what she was reading.

gr group california

They're reading a fable and trying to find the moral.  Tynajah spontaneously generates a question: "Why is the hunter trying to catch the dove?"  Tremayne wrote: "why did the ant want a drink of water?"
Syriah shares a funny part of the book.
Tynajah shares her question and then the answer "I think the hunter is trying to get the dove to eat it."
Tremayne shares his question and Demarrion shares her question.

gr group new york

They're reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School and making a chart of character traits with "right there" traits on one side, and inferences on the other.  They also independently generated some questions that they wrote down:

Tommy: Who are the three Erics?
Donnell: How can they talk if they're apples?  (Omar: maybe they had mouths  Vianey: I visualized the apples from the Jewel commercial) Why is Mrs. Gorf turning all of the kids into apples for simple stuff.  Who are three Erics (both Tommy and Donnell found the answer)
Vianey: Is Mrs. Dorf a witch? (Donnell: i think she kind of is because witches usually have big pointy ears and she's kind of a magician)
Omar: Do monkeys know that they are monkeys? (Vianey: that's a question from the book that Ms. Jewels asked.  Tommy: No, well I think they do because if they look at another monkey they know that they're their type.  Vianey: If they could talk then they would know. 
Me: Why did Ms. Jewels ask that question? (Omar: I think she said it because they were monkeys, but the kids were saying they weren't monkeys.  Tommy: And then that's when Calvin said if we were monkeys then we would know it, and then Ms. Jewels asked that question)

When Vianey went to the next chapter she spontaneously started a new character trait on Mrs. Jewels.  I wonder if she'll come up with questions that compare Mrs. Jewels to Mrs. Dorf.  This seems like something you might think about, subconsciously even, but not feel the need to write out an explicit question on.  It seems like comprehension and analysis questions lend themselves to vocalization more naturally in the course of reading, and evaluation, applying, and creating questions lend themselves to more intentional tasks and projects.

gr group tennessee

While he was reading to me, Dameko stopped and said I don't get it when he got to a sentence with a weird sentence structure: "The evening of Sunday, October 8, 2871 was a warm one in Chicago".  He reread it and then said "Oh, it was warm in Chicago".  Nyrissa also stops to write down questions spontaneously.  Darvell and Malik need more prompting to do this. When I ask Malik higher level questions, he's able to answer them pretty completely so maybe he's not stopping because he doesn't have miscomprehensions.  How to get him to want to stop and ask high level questions and investigate things further?  He needs differentiation. I conference with him about asking higher level questions and he asks a question about how people decided that Mrs. O'Leary's story about how the Chicago Fire started is the true one.

questions they prioritized individually to share:
-How did they rebuild the stuff?  How long did it take?  --> understanding
-Did the lady die before what the news asked her how did the fire start? --> Malik thought it was evaluating, I disagreed because it was a fact, he changed it to remembering
-Why was the president not doing stuff to stop the fire?
-Why are the buildings made of wood?

What makes a question good to research?
Dameko: easy to research?  sometimes people will try to research but they don't know what to put
Nyrissa: I think it should be hard.  Like we should make it hard because we should make them think a lot.
Darvell: I think it should be like the same thing as Dameko's but different because if you're researching a question it might give you time to research and rethink about the question.
Nyrissa: i still disagree because it's going to be easy to research then they already know the answer.
Dameko: Malik we haven't heard from you.
Malik: I agree with Nyrissa because I want people to challenge themselves.
Me: I love the conversation, can I add one thing?  it should be about an important main idea of the chicago fire.
Malik: I wanna know if important people died during the fire.
Nyrissa: I don't want to know that, I think we should combine two of the questions we had together. 

gr group Iowa

This is obvious but sometimes students don't ask questions about what they're reading because they understand what's going on in the book.  Iowa is reading Junie B Jones: Something Smells Fishy with me right now, and not writing down very many questions.  When I pressed Kamari about why he didn't write any questions after reading a sort of cliffhanger at the end of a chapter, he explained that he knew why Junie B. had called her grandma a genius- because Junie B. really was going to do what her grandma had joked about.  I think this group also may only be thinking about questions on a continuum between remembering and understanding, they may not have enough experience or practice asking higher level questions.  Kashira is writing a lot of inferences in her notebook and one question: "why would she go to look for a raccoon in the morning?"

Group share:
Kashira: I think Junie B. is picky.  Aniyah agrees.
Anyah: What do Junie B. get from her grandma?
Kamari: I think it's obvious from the cover that it's a fish from the cover, and her grandma said it wouldn't bite and stuff.
Kamari: Did Junie B. catch a pet for pet day? (everyone shrugs)
Kashira:I can predict to that.  I predict that she is going to bring a fish on a leash and her teacher is going to tell her that she couldn't bring it unless she had it in a cage.
We talk about changing questions to make them clearer.
Trae: Do she like raccoons?
Anyah: I don't think she likes racoons because maybe she hasn't seen one.
Kashira: I think she do because when her mom was eating cereal she says that she's going to try to catch a raccoon. 

questions with gr group Texas

I told students to write down what they learned and questions they had after they finished reading a brief biography on President Obama.  I intentionally did not give them a format or organizer for writing this out in their notebooks.  Cyrus spontaneously wrote down: "Q Focus: President Barack Obama"!

questions that they wrote:
Emon: Why did President Obama do all these jobs like: being a teacher, lawyer, senator.
Dequawn: Who was he vs. in 2008.  And how old was he when he was a lawyer
Cyrus: Where was Michelle Obama first born?  What does President Obama do in office?  What is their daughter's favorite piano note?
Zion: Do Barack Obama like living in the White House?  Is Barack Obama's family rich?  Are there many rooms in the White House?

After we shared, I asked them to categorize their questions according to Bloom's Taxonomy.

Cyrus wanted to prioritize his question about what president obama does in office.  when i asked him why he wanted to prioritize that one he said that the other ones didn't fit in (I think he meant with his qfocus)

Zion prioritized her question about Barack Obama liking living in the White House.

Dequawn prioritized the question of who he was running against?  

questions with gr group California

It's the much anticipated 1st day of guided reading and I'm already blown away!  California is my lowest guided reading group and we were reading a level G book called "Rex Runs Away" about...you guessed it, a run away dog!  Even though it was a simple text, Tremayne asked some very good questions and the answers that they had really reflected good comprehension of the text.

Tremayne's questions:
1. Why did Rex get a bone for running away? --> great critical thinking, he's evaluating Rex's actions and thinking about how they don't merit a reward.  Demarrion did some nice thinking about Rex's character trait of being friendly and how that made people want to be nice to him
2. Why did Rex run away? (Tynajah also asked this question) --> probably the big question of the book.  Demarrion and Tremayne both thought it was because he wanted to get food.  This was a solid inference because they noticed that all the places Rex stopped were food places.  Tynajah thought it was because he wanted the boy to chase after him
3. Why did he dig a whole? --> not a super-deep question, obviously to escape.

Interesting to note that he asked 3 analyzing questions, probably reflects a good understanding of the book.

research thus far

10/17/12

So it's been going ok so far...  One thing I'm learning is that this whole questioning process, plus the research, looks a lot different with 3rd graders.  They've been having a much more difficult time categorizing questions, but that's ok, because we'll be practicing that all year and over time they'll get it.  I just have to remember to keep spiraling.  Today we worked on researching those questions they prioritized from the ones we generated about the Transcontinental Railroad.  It's actually surprisingly difficult for kids to effectively do a google search that gets them good results.  There are a lot of skills we take for granted when we search on the internet.  Students worked on thinking about what was the main idea, what were the key words within their question that they needed enter into the search engine.  Also, students sometimes had to perform separate, smaller searches to answer a larger question.  But students did get good results, nobody wrote down a ton on their research organizer, but what they did write was for the most part relevant and insightful.  I'll obviously break down their work more concretely and specifically after we finish researching tomorrow at the computer lab and they start putting their research together into a final answer.  I think I'm going to roll this answer into the work we're doing in expedition around paragraph writing.  Yay!  (eye roll)

Pg. 56 of Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry

Pitfalls of Essential Questions:
-requires only information retrieval
-begs the question
-is leading
-too generic or general
-too narrow

After coming up with your essential question(s), step 2 is identifying final projects.

The direction for this week

This week I'm going to have my kids read over all the questions that I transcribed from the KWL chart last week.  I'll have them star up to 4 questions that they think are really really good.  I'll ask them to write down what level of thinking they think those questions are, and why they think they're good questions.  We'll use this as a launch into our 1st guiding question: What makes a question good?  I haven't decided how to post guiding questions in the classroom.  Right now I have students post informal questions on the aforementioned KWL chart, and we post questions that students are researching in their independent reading books and that we share and discuss during reading share after independent reading on the clothes line below, underneath the correct category from Bloom's Taxonomy:

I'm thinking guiding questions could be posted at the end of the clothesline, and students could post their research below the question.  This would be different from a Qfocus.  It's important to draw the distinction between a guiding question that I prioritize for students to research, and a Qfocus which my students use to come up with their own questions to research.  I think both have their place, Qfoci let my students take more ownership and independence, guiding questions help the class probe deeper about a more specific topic.  I'm thinking about revamping where students can post their questions about a Qfocus so it looks more like my friend Sari's:

After students prioritize questions and we discuss what made the best questions the best questions, I'll have students research one question in the computer lab (explaining that with questions that have an informational/non-fiction bent, you use different resources than you would for a question based on a fictional text).  After the preliminary research that we do on a research template (modeled by my research on Tiger Rising) we'll talk about how researchers try to compile their research and organize it into an overarching theory, something refined and final that they can present to their peers.  Students will work on this process with a Theory template I've developed.  At the end of the week we'll have select students present their research, and I'll show students that this is a replicable process that they can repeat using the templates and signing up on the calendar for presentations the same way that they sign up for book talks, just with a different color of post-its. 

I'm very curious to see how they take to this process, if they do find it valuable to replicate, and whether I can keep everything about research and questioning straight in my head.  To recap for myself the progression of all these techniques conglomerated:

Think Tank (where I post the current Qfocus of the class and students write smaller questions that they could research and post them in the right level of thinking in the tank)
+
Book Nooks (I'm considering adding a component within this personalized space where students share their personal qfoci and research--> this would give them the space and opportunity to ask questions besides the ones within our whole class Qfocus)

Clothesline (this space could be used either as it is now-for really good questions about any topic/qfocus, or about the really good questions students post on the Think Tank that we vote on as a class to prioritize onto the clothesline.  I'm leaning toward this latter option, and I really want to hype it up and make some sort of really special paper for them to write up prioritized questions that they hang up on the clothesline)

Theory Final Presentation Area (On the other side of the room from Fish Tank and Book Nooks, appropriately connected by clothesline.  This would be where final theories (ie. substantive answers to prioritized questions would go)  This area needs to be hyped too, with pictures of students who post final answers + some sort of title.  like... Master Researcher bestowed upon any student who makes it to this level.  This is an idea inspired by the Light Leader title at Polaris (my school))

thoughts on the direction to go with questions + mini-lit review of inquiry

This was from last week, most of the post-its were inspired by the video we watched on the relationship between cowboys and the Transcontinental Railroad.  Others are miscellaneous.

Here they are transcribed:
-How much cargo fills a car? -Vianey
-Who was the 1st ever cowboy?
-Why are they running when no one is chasing them right now.
-Why did they set there clock by the sun.
-Do people get 5,000 dollars for killing male cows.  Tremayne Miles
-Did these people build trains in the citys
-Why do the shoot the guns in the air and almost kill people. -Anyah 
-Are cowboys vegetarians? -Vianey
-Why would he like guns? -Vianey
-Do all cowboys have a western accent? - Vianey
-What is terrain -Vianey
-Where there moms helping the babys. Emon
-How do cowboys survive -Vianey
-What do cowboys protect cows from? -Vianey
-What do the cowboys protect cows from? -Vianey
-How come cowboys get $1 a day and they risk many things? -Vianey
-How did they put up the barbed wire without herting thereselves? -Dameko
-Do cowboys EVER kill their cows (the ones they are protecting?) -Vianey
-Why didn't the slaves go to Chicago instead? -Vianey
-Why did he make the barbed wire -Kamari
-What do cowboys eat for lunch? -Vianey
-How many cowboys do they save in a day -Vianey
-Was Christopher Columbus a cowboy? -Vianey
-What is a dolphin doing liveing in the river of a swamp
-Why do the Proboscis monkey have big noses
-How old do you have to be to be a cowboy? -Vianey
-Why did they moved the hands? -Zion
-Do cowboys have uniforms? -Vianey
-Why is the woodchuck having these dreams -Malik
-Why is cowboys walking were those thinks are. -Emon
-What is carnige? -Vianey
-Is cattle safer in texas than mexico? -Vianey
-Did cowboys live in trains -Vianey
-I want to ask you did the people's was working hard Because if I was wroking on the trains it will take a long time. tremayne
-Why didn't they build cars to so it can be faster.
-how long did it take to build a city
-I wonder why the cowboys was going to fast? Kashira
-Why did he have fire in his hand
-Why do they sometimes make noise on the horse? -Anyah
-If they had barked wire how could we still have beef? -Malik
-Why did they try to heart they cowboys? -Kim
-Why is he selling clocks? and geting mony.
-do they eat I mean cowboys? Emon
-why did a lot of cowboys kill the cows -Kim
-Why do the cowboy keep on saying woohoo? -Kim
-why do they keep shooting? -Kim
-why is he selling watchs. -Kim
-Why is cowboys being mean to the farmers? -Kim
-Why are they killing there own kind and other people.
-Did the railroad destroy habitats? -Vianey
-Can you get diseased by nitroglycerin? -Vianey
-What is a railroad salary? -Vianey
-wasn't that last town  a divisional station? -Vianey
-What are locomarkets? -Vianey
-Don't the cowboys eat beef? -Vianey
-Why did he want the cows to go away instead of killing them and eating them? -Vianey
-Demarrion wrote a question but it was illegible


-I learned that a rover is a robot on wheels.  -Zion
-Cowboys learned to shoot guns by learning by themself. -Anyah
-I learned that when you dig holes in vocanoes lave comes out. -Zion
-I know that cowboys have every thing they need. -Zion
-I know that they are listing so they can cach it. -Emon
-I know how the painting on the ceiling look.  Because I found it in the dictionary. -Kim
-I learned that you have to do alot to publising. -Kimmy Jones
-A lot of cowboys were Native Americans. -Donnell


So, it was definitely time consuming to transcribe all those post-its, but at the same time it was enlightening and amusing at times.  It gave me a nice window into how my students think, what they wonder about, who is questioning a lot, etc.

Vianey was a very prolific questioner, she is also the highest academic performer in the class.  I wonder how strong the correlation is between academic performance and inquisitiveness?  In Sir Francis Bacon's words: "He who questions much, does and discusses much, shall learn much."

As I transcribed the questions I noticed that I had a range of responses: amusement, bemusement, embarrassment, excitement, admiration, etc.  I want to have more moments of astonishment and admiration when I read students' questions.  In other words, I want my students to ask more good questions.
My question: what makes a good question?
-it's not necessarily a question that falls into a higher level of thinking according to Bloom's taxonomy.  For example, there were a lot of analyzing questions like Kim's question: "why is he selling watches?" that don't really take you to anywhere that's intellectually interesting or surprising.  So a good question needs to require an answer that is not obvious, it needs to have a level of abstraction, application, analysis, creation, or comprehension, that pushes thinking.  That being said, what's to say that Kim's question isn't a good one for her?  It may push her thinking to comprehend concepts about the importance of keeping time for farmers and train employees in the 19th century.
-topical/relevant to topics that we're exploring
-builds on prior knowledge to heighten the complexity of the question (Vianey's question on habitats, divisional stations, etc.)
-uses high level vocabulary

These characteristics are consistent with what cognitive scientists believe make up "communities of practice".  "Cognitive scientists define inquiry as the process of accessing, building, extending, and using knowledge consistent with what is thought and known in a discipline." (Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry by Jeffrey Willhelm pg. 11)  Said another way: "Inquiry inducts students into a community of practice; they come to think and act more like people who work with the disciplines of math, science, social science, ethics, literature, philosophy, government." (pg. 24)

Questions from KWL Chart

From Oct. 5 (forgot to post)

This is a chart I laminated and keep in the back of the room.  I'm encouraging students to post any questions that come to them during any part of the day.  Here are the first batch:

- Why does Melvin want to get George and Harold?
- Did people live in these citys and Montana whe the train was buit?
- Why do the Union Pacific kill the Bison just so the indons go away?  by Cyrus
- Dear, Mr. Welch  How did thay get the chine men thare if thay can't spek Chines.
- How big was the first transcontinental railroad?  Donnell
- Is there a head of all the railroad companies -Vianey

There was also one post-it in the learned section:
- I learned that the Indians ate buffalo.  Darvell

On the Road Again

So another year has started, and I'm at a new school.  The school is great, colleagues knowledgable and friendly, but it's still been a tough adjustment to learn a new curriculum, a new culture, a new way of doing things.  I'm finally at the point where I'm feeling ready to try picking up where I left off at the end of last year in terms of my action research.

I'm in the middle of exploring the questioning process with our first whole class Q Focus around "school".  I launched this Q focus with the read aloud "A Fine, Fine School".  Students had no problem generating questions in groups, and most groups generated many questions around school.  However, I feel like I may have rushed us into the prioritizing of question.  I used Jon Muth's "The Three Questions" to try and prompt students to get into the mindset of deliberately choosing the most important question from the list that they'd generated.  But I felt like once I let my kids off, the process was very muddled.  Many groups chose questions that felt random, like "Why don't they serve dessert during lunch?"

I think that this is a result of me not being specific enough with the Q focus.  I think I could improve the Q Focus to: "School's effects" or something like that. But at this point, I think it's going to be more productive to just move forward and use this 1st experience as a learning one.  I will give students a short questionnaire tomorrow to see how students explain their reasoning behind the question that they prioritized.

When we start a Q Focus around "Tiger Rising" then I'll teach them about categorizing questions around Bloom's Taxonomy, and we'll look back on this first round of questions, categorize them, and reflect on what types of questions they asked about the first q focus.  I'd like to start teaching them Bloom's to help them start applying questioning with their independent reading books, and get them to start thinking about how the types of questions they ask about their books reflects how well they understand the book and how much they're getting out of it.  I also need to get the Book Nooks up so that students can start publicly displaying their questions.

I think that my research question is starting to come into focus for this year.  Something like:
"How does teaching students to the Question Formulation Technique in conjunction with Bloom's Taxonomy affect how they read?"

Application questions

I've noticed that students are much more apt to apply knowledge/create application questions.  When were learning about circuits last week, Davontae raised his hand and said, "Mr. Welch I'm going to make a uh...(looks up at Bloom's Taxonomy chart) an application.  When I saw my dad jump our car, he had to put one of the wires on either side of the battery.  That's like what we did with the circuit."  In social studies we were studying the Freedom Rides when Tyshaun asked: "I wonder how are the Freedom Rides similar to the sit-ins?"

observations about kayla and jaymon's progress

Kayla and Jaymon are the other two members of the lowest guided reading group (Donte and Deavion are the other 2 members), and I have noticed some things about their reading in the last month that reflects improvement. As mentioned in the previous post, Kayla is autonomously generating questions about her book (her partner readers may have helped facilitate/model this process), and is looking for the answers as she reads. She's tracking questions as she reads! Another example of this came about when I conferred with her. She said: "I got this question I keeping thinking about. Why does she keep getting mad?". I think this question shows that she's thinking deeply about the character that she's reading: she's noticing a character trait, and noticing it consistently across many scenes in the book, AND most importantly, she's looking for reasons/clues why she is this way. She is analyzing. Jaymon actually researched Martin Luther King Jr. at home, and told me on the following morning about some of the facts that he'd learned. During independent reading, he's reading much more cognitively and intensely. He's observing things in the text that weren't even on his radar at the beginning of the year. For example, as he was reading "Martin's Big Words" he noticed that MLK's words were given a special font and print, and he thought about why the author did this (author's craft). Also, he volunteered his favorite part of the story about how MLK chose a nonviolent approach for the Civil Rights Movement.

observations on questioning and research during independent reading

One thing I've noticed is that students are really engaged to research. Olajuwon, Jaymon, Tyshaun, and Donte are constantly asking me if they can research during independent reading. I wonder what gets them so psyched for it? As this GR group was reading, they were asking questions that definitely showed they're starting to move up Bloom's taxonomy and ask higher order questions. Tyshaun: Is this an important date? Rashad: Why do they love to hook up their spaceships to others? I'm seeing them stop and think a lot more about: -what Apollo 11, 10, 9, etc. were, and why they are named that way -why they do countdowns before lifting off -how astronauts train -the purpose of rockets and where they go when disconnected -what creates gravity Guided reading group Illinois (Shimya, Antwanay, Sunshine, and Brianna) came up with these questions about the same text: -Why do they have to practice in a fake spacecraft? -Why did they have to hook spacecraft onto other spacecraft? -Why is it so important for them to go to outer space? I notice that this group asked understanding and analyzing questions. It's so much better that they're coming up with these questions because they're a lot more invested in finding their own answers. There's a lot of ownership here. Students will also frequently return to questions: Kayla inferred that Libby was older than another character in her Judy Blume book because in the text Libby was worried about going to 5th grade. I was so pumped when she told me this during a conference during independent reading because she had brought up that question with her partner readers the previous day. So she must have been reading and intentionally looking for the answer to that question so that she could better understand the text. Along similar lines, Shimya said: "I know where they're going (points to map on back) but I want to know what they do at these places, what do they find, what's the mystery?" Alex has 2 pages of great questions about Edward Tulane

All of these examples show how questions can be a critical scaffold to understanding of text. It gives them more of a purpose and focus as they read the text, it prompts them to investigate and really think about what they read. Riana: We were making a timeline because we didn't understand some of the stuff so we went back.

questions on the Freedom Riders

Examples of questions that they self-generated after learning about the freedom riders: -What would you do if you was a freedom rider? -Why did white people decide to be freedom riders? -Why didn't white freedom riders fight back? -Why did the police leave the freedom riders? -Where was MLK and Rosa Parks during this time? -Were they able to escape? -Why did they beat the black people up just coming in stores? -What was on the black minds with all these unequal rights? -Why are they called Freedom Riders? -Did the Freedom Riders know MLK? -Did that man help all the people off the burning bus? -Why did they burn that bus during segregation? -Why did the white people beat up another white? -Could white freedom riders fight back? -Why did they hate us because of the color of our skin? +I have a theory that as student knowledge of some content progresses, so does the average level of their questions on Bloom's Taxonomy. To test this out, I should ask them to generate more questions about the Civil Rights Movement when we're done studying it. +I wish they would ask deep questions about the overarching themes of the 1960's Civil Rights Movement, like how and why the activists used non-violent resistance, and what the advantages and disadvantages of this ethos were. Do I need to step in and just ask them this? Next time I teach this unit, I'll be sure to do a few lesson on Ghandi and non-violent resistance to build prior knowledge.

questions with bloom's taxonomy

Woow, it's been awhile since my last post. First there was spring break, and then there was all the craziness of coming back. Questioning is still going well. I've been having guided reading groups practice asking questions as they read a book about the first man on the moon, and guided reading group New York has been doing the same with Hatchet. This has been a good way to start experimenting with different things to supplement with the questioning strategy, like teaching them the difference between "within the text", "beyond the text", and "about the text" questions, and finding the right key words to yield the best search results when they're researching on the internet. One thing that GR New York suggested today was categorizing the types of questions they'd asked before researching so that they didn't waste time looking for answers on the internet that they could simply read about in the book. Zeke has been particularly enthusiastic about the research process, maybe because I grade them now on their research performance. Nonetheless, his research is by far the most salient because he's looking up information that clarifies events in the story. For example, he looked up the sounds a porcupine can make today because he read a chapter when Brian heard a strange sound and then ended up tripping into a porcupine, so he wondered if the porcupine had made that noise. Lower guided reading groups like Wisconsin tend to ask more "within the text questions". We used the final events and epilogue of The Watsons go to Birmingham - 1963 to launch into questioning about the Civil Rights movement. Here are the questions they asked as a class: -What age was MLK when he gave the "I have a dream" speech? -Was slavery happening in Birmingham in 1963? -Why didn't changing the law change the way people acted? -Did Malcolm X die before the church bombing? -Who is Malcolm X? -What's wrong with black people using white people's water fountains? -What is nonviolent resistance? -Why does somebody's skin color matter? -Why didn't the white people like the black people? -Were the black children able to learn? -Why did everything start changing after MLK and Malcolm X died? -How did white people gain control? -Who is Mohandas Ghandi? -Who made the laws? -Did somebody bomb the church? -Did white people who broke the law have to go to jail during the Civil Rights Movement? My task now is to get them to prioritize questions and be cognizant of the quality of their questions. I want to teach them how to categorize their questions according to Bloom's taxonomy. I think we'll first do this together, categorizing the Civil Rights questions. Then I'll ask them to work in partners to categorize their questions about Rosa Parks and Montgomery bus boycott that we learned about today. And we'll continue the process as we ask questions about each subsequent Civil Rights event. Hopefully the quality of their questions will improve and they'll ask more higher order questions, though I should stress to them that lower-order questions are useful and important as well for comprehension.

Prioritizing questions

Table 1: Why is Byron the oldest and baddest?
Youngan's answer: "Because he grew up in a bad neighborhood. Bad neighborhoods effect on people. I think it influence on people and kids. I think sometimes bad thing have negotine in your heart."
Table 2: How is Kenny going to be the bad one?
Alex's answer: "He is probaly going to bully on Joetta like byron did Kenny. And do the thing byron did to Kenny. Byron treated Kenny badly so Kenny might hurt Joey's felling's. I think byron is going to be good and Kenny might become daddy-cool.
Table 3: How do the Weird Watsons work out their problems?
Zeke's answer: "I think they work out theire problems by threatening, giving more chances, and forgiving each other."
Sunshine's answer: "My answer is like when Kenny and Rufus where fight when Kenny where laugh a Rufus with the other he went to his house and both of them solve there problem. When Joey did't like the angle her mother ask Joey and her mother help Joey solve her problem about the angle that Mz. Davidson gave her that how the Watson solve there problem."
Table 4: Why do Byron be disobedient to his family?
Rashad's answer: Byron be disobedient to his family because he think he daddy cool and buphead put that street mess in his head, and he don't listen when his mom told him not to play with fire. He don't follow rules. He get into lots of trouble. I can't blame him because his parent treat him from Kenny and Joetta. He also thinks his parents are not going to do nothing. he skips school. he trying to be a bad person. He's setting a bad example for Joetta and Kenny. If he keep setting bad examples for his family he and his family wouldn't be good and probably have to have bail money for their kids."
Table 5: Why do family members always love each other?
Shimya's answer: "I think every family member should always love each other because they sopose to. I think family supose to stay by each other becaus thats whats family's for and to protect each other.
Table 6: Why do Byron curse and don't get in trouble?
Kim's answer: "I think byron curse and dont get in trouble because he the oldest and he bad and I think there MaMa dont care about Byron because that his usall thing is curseing and Kennny want tell or Joey because they scared of Byron because they know that they going to get the beat down if they tell on byron and byron want taek up for Kenny at school no more."

Observations while prioritizing was happening:
Tyshaun: I like this one because we can really go deep into the text and find different ideas.

Zeke: I think that's a question people could answer right away no one would disagree.

Sample justifications of prioritized question from sheet:
-"Because I have a connection to when I curse" (Kim)
-"Because you can explain it in many different ways." (Riana)
-"Because it tell me more about the story" (Jaymon)
-"Because we can go deeper into the question." (Antwanay)
-"Because Kenny started to talk back to Byron." (Alex)
-"It makes sense and it's a important question and Kenny talks back to Byron." (Khalil)
-"Because there is more than one answer so it should make you think." (Zeke)


Random notes:
-I'm going to do differentiated Socratic Seminars next week (one high and one low). I'm going to ask people to read their question but not give their answer until everyone else in the group has discussed it. I want other people to put up their answers first.
-After this round of Socratic Seminar, I want to explicitly teach students about how questions can be within, beyond, or about the text. I want them to discuss the merits of each, and hopefully they'll start to generate some "about the text" questions, of which there are none right now. I also should at a later date teach them about question rigor (right there, inference, critical thinking)

categorizing questions

Today they categorized their questions as open or closed. Miscategorizations are in bold. Overall they did really well, with only 2 questions being miscategorized. I think them knowing the pattern for which words usually come at the start of open questions and which come at the start of closed questions really helped them. A couple of times they relied on it too heavily with the questions that began with "what" because the reference sheet I gave them said it could be open or closed, so a few times they just wanted to write open/closed without discussing whether it might just be one or the other.


Table 1:
-Why is Byron the oldest but the badest? OPEN
-Why is the family getting things for the Brown Bomber? OPEN
-Why did they send Byron to Grandma Sand house? OPEN
-Why is Kenny enjoying Byron leaving?OPEN
-How come the littlest look up to the biggest? OPEN
-Is the momma mad at Byron for being bad? CLOSED
-What does the daddy think about byron going to Grandma Sands? OPEN/CLOSED
-How come family have ot lookout for each other? OPEN

Table 2:
-Why is the Grandma in each family the meanest? OPEN
-Why didn't Byron mom and dad then send Byron to the grandma Sands the first time? OPEN
-Why do the dad alway be funny? OPEN
-Why do kid give there family a hard time? OPEN
-Why do people alway say they going to do some but don't? OPEN
-Why is mom makeing Byron go to Grandma Sand? OPEN
-Why do kid used bad word in there family? OPEN

Table 3:
-How do the Weird Watsons work out their problems? OPEN
-Why do the neighbors next door call the Watsons the Weird Watsons? OPEN
-Why do Byron be mean to his mother and father but they try to give him everything not like parents for their kids? OPEN
-What is important about family? OPEN
-Is Kenny going to get picked on when Byron's not there? CLOSED
-Why do Byron be mean to his family? OPEN
-Why do Byron be cursing around his family? OPEN
-Is Byron going to get in fights in Birmingham? CLOSED
-Is Byron really adopted? CLOSED
-Why is Grandma Sands strict? OPEN
-Is Kenny going to get picked on when Byron's not there? CLOSED
-Why do Byron be mean to his family? OPEN
-Why do Byron be cursin around his family? OPEN
-Is Byron going to get in fights in Birmingham? CLOSED
-Is Byron really adopted? CLOSED
-Why is Grandma Sands strict? OPEN
-Is Byron going to pull pranks when he's in Birmingham? CLOSED
-Why is Byron stupid? OPEN
-Why is Byron mean? OPEN

Table 4:
-Why do the Watsons decide to go to Birmingham for their summer vacation? OPEN
-why do Byron be disobedient to his family? OPEN
-Will Granda Sands whoop Byron if he be bad? CLOSED
-Why do people call the Watson family weird? OPEN
-Why is the Watsons different from other families? OPEN
-Why are some families mean to others even if that family didn't do anything? OPEN
-Why do the Watsons tease Byron? OPEN
-Is the Watsons going to get stuck with Byron in Birmingham? CLOSED
-Do Grandma Sands live in Birmingham or Alabama? CLOSED
-How old is Byron? OPEN
-When Byron gets back from Birmingham is he still going to be a juvenile delinquent? OPEN/CLOSED
-Will Byron find a way to get to Birmingham? CLOSED
-Is Byron going to make the boys in Alabama mean and a juvenile delinquent? OPEN/CLOSED

Table 5:
-Can family members always love each other? CLOSED
-Why do some families have bad kids? OPEN
-Why do some family members hate each other? OPEN
-Do familys care about each other all the time? CLOSED
-Why does Byron not like his family OPEN
-Can some family members do bad all the time CLOSED
-Do family all way's love each other CLOSED
-Why does familys have family reunus? OPEN
-Can family members do things that hurts there family badly? CLOSED
-Why family is important? OPEN

Table 6:
-Why is Byron mean and everyone else is nice? OPEN
-What is the Watsons going to do in Alabama? OPEN
-Why do family fight? OPEN
-I wonder if Sands is going to put up with Byrons mess? CLOSED
-Why do Byron sometimes be mean to Kenny and sometimes nice? OPEN
-Why do family do stuff to make people mad? OPEN
-Why do byron do things to make his family mad? OPEN
-Why did Byron do all of those things? OPEN
-Why did Byron say the s word? OPEN
-I wonder if Wilona is going to tell them about the baby? CLOSED
-Why is family important? OPEN
-Why do byron curse and don't get in trouble? OPEN


Students were very successful at switching their open question to closed and vice versa. For the question about how changing the question changes what answers they might get, some general trends from closed to open were:
-"you're saying more than yes or no"
-"it has more words"/"make the statement longer"/"it have a longer explanation to answer"
-"you can say he did this or that"
-"you might answer with a because"

general trends from open to closed were:
-"you might answer with a simple answer"
-"you will say yes or no"
-"your answer will be shorter"

New York guided reading session

Alex:
I asked I wonder why does Brian have to survive in the wild for 54 days? is he going to die? is his mom going to find him and take him home?
Zeke: maybe they're looking for him and they can't find him.
Amaya: He doesn't know what to do
Zeke: He does know what to do, first he found these nasty seeds but then he found these better seeds
Me; so what do you think that says about Brian
Amaya: He's smart and brave. I think he's still sad but he's doing what he needs to survive. I've got a question about the shelter, I haven't read up to that part. Is there anything else in there?

Brandon: Is there going to be a wolf later in the story? because why'd they put a wolf on the cover?
Amaya thinks it's a statue
Zeke: why would a statue be in the middle of the wilderness.

Zeke talks about the berries and when Brian walked into Brian.
I wonder why the bear walked away from Brian and ate the berries?
Amaya: he probably didn't want to eat him, smelled his blood, and wanted to eat animals not humans
Alex: He sensed the poison from the berries that Brian ate.
Zeke: I don't think that's realistic. I think he likes berries more than humans.
Me: What could you research online to get a better understanding of what happened between Brian and the bear.
Zeke: do bears like berries more than humans? do they eat humans?


How's this process going?
Zeke: i think it's good because if you gave us a topic we might not have an answer. I think its good because we can do our own questions that we can have good answers for.
Me: How do you
Zeke: so if we do our own questions, you should know how to answer it.
Me: Why?
Amaya: You said the question so you can understand it.

Alex: it's going ok, but when we come together we haven't read the same amount.
Zeke: if you read on your own you can ask more questions but some people can't discuss the answers with you.

Zeke's notebook has exploded with questions, research, theories about what's happening in Hatchett. He had a lot to say during guided reading today. I think he really likes being able to generate his own questions because it removes the anxiety of trying to find the answers that he thinks I'm looking for. He can research and think more freely this way.

second qfocus of Watsons go to Birmingham

Qfocus: Family

Table 1:
-Why is Byron the oldest but the badest?
-Why is the family getting things for the Brown Bomber?
-Why did they send Byron to Grandma Sand house?
-Why is Kenny enjoying Byron leaving?
-How come the littlest look up to the biggest?
-Is the momma mad at Byron for being bad?
-What does the daddy think about byron going to Grandma Sands?
-How come family have ot lookout for each other?

Table 2:
-Why is the Grandma in each family the meanest?
-Why didn't Byron mom and dad then send Byron to the grandma Sands the first time?
-Why do the dad alway be funny?
-Why do kid give there family a hard time?
-Why do people alway say they going to do some but don't?
-Why is mom makeing Byron go to Grandma Sand?
-Why do kid used bad word in there family?

Table 3:
-How do the Weird Watsons work out their problems?
-Why do the neighbors next door call the Watsons the Weird Watsons?
-Why do Byron be mean to his mother and father but they try to give him everything not like parents for their kids?
-What is important about family?
-Is Kenny going to get picked on when Byron's not there?
-Why do Byron be mean to his family?
-Why do Byron be cursing around his family?
-Is Byron going to get in fights in Birmingham?
-Is Byron really adopted?
-Why is Grandma Sands strict?
-Is Kenny going to get picked on when Byron's not there?
-Why do Byron be mean to his family?
-Why do Byron be cursin around his family?
-Is Byron going to get in fights in Birmingham?
-Is Byron really adopted?
-Why is Grandma Sands strict?
-Is Byron going to pull pranks when he's in Birmingham?
-Why is Byron stupid?
-Why is Byron mean?

Table 4:
-Why do the Watsons decide to go to Birmingham for their summer vacation?
-why do Byron be disobedient to his family?
-Will Granda Sands whoop Byron if he be bad?
-Why do people call the Watson family weird?
-Why is the Watsons different from other families?
-Why are some families mean to others even if that family didn't do anything?
-Why do the Watsons tease Byron?
-Is the Watsons going to get stuck with Byron in Birmingham?
-Do Grandma Sands live in Birmingham or Alabama?
-How old is Byron?
-When Byron gets back from Birmingham is he still going to be a juvenile delinquent?
-Will Byron find a way to get to Birmingham?
-Is Byron going to make the boys in Alabama mean and a juvenile delinquent?

Table 5:
-Can family members always love each other?
-Why do some families have bad kids?
-Why do some family members hate each other?
-Do familys care about each other all the time?
-Why does Byron not like his family
-Can some family members do bad all the time
-Do family all way's love each other
-Why does familys have family reunus?
-Can family members do things that hurts there family badly?
-Why family is important?

Table 6:
-Why is Byron mean and everyone else is nice?
-What is the Watsons going to do in Alabama?
-Why do family fight?
-I wonder if Sands is going to put up with Byrons mess?
-Why do Byron sometimes be mean to Kenny and sometimes nice?
-Why do family do stuff to make people mad?
-Why do byron do things to make his family mad?
-Why did Byron do all of those things?
-Why did Byron say the s word?
-I wonder if Wilona is going to tell them about the baby?
-Why is family important?
-Why do byron curse and don't get in trouble?

michigan guided reading group

sharing of questions and answers:
Tyshaun:
Which bees are poisonous?
I think it's the killer bee because poison can kill you and the killer bee if it stings you will kill you.
Olajuwon: Why do think the killer bee is poisonous?
Tyshaun:repeats thinking
Olajuwon: ok
I step in and direct them to page 11 of Magic School Bus that deals with some people being allergic and dying after being stung by any bee

Rashad:
Why do bees sting people?
Bees sting people because they think you're a flower
Tyshaun thumbs down. Olajuwon says you can't judge. I clear up the difference between judging questions and research.
Tyshaun: I think they do it to protect themselves.
Me: Text evidence?
Tyshaun: page 10 "stinging is a way bees protect their hive and they usually sting because they have to."
Rashad: it said on google.
We talk about citing websites.

Olajuwon:
How do bees talk?
I went on answers.com and found out that the way they talk is by buzzing.
Rashad: he had 2 answers because right here on page 23 it say "if the bee wiggles striaght up, the other bee flies straight toward the sun..."
Tyshaun: You all wrong because the waggle dance tells what the food source is.
Rashad: I know but they talking because they tellin them to go that way towards the food. That's still talking.
Olajuwon: I've got text evidence: "Doesn't the dance language of bees give you a sense of wonder?" They are talking becuase they called it a language.
Tyshaun: it says they talk by smell on page 18. "Bees don't talk in words but they do communicate."

What did we learn about research?
Josh: We can all find different things
Olajuwon: there can be more than one answer to a question
Rashad: answers can be in the internet and book
Tyshaun: copy your link because you need text evidence because you can search in the computer

questioning with low guided reading group

Donte
Q: Why when you on the moon it look half earth?
A: It said on the internet, what you see when you look at the moon depends on the location and the relationship of the sun and the earth. You see a different fraction of the sunlight bringing reflection from the moon to the earth.
Me: Can you put that in your own words?
Donte seems stumped
Kayla: What did he say?
Donte: What you see is when you like when you on the moon it's like how the moon orbits around the earth.
Jaymon: I agree with you because when we was watching the video it was saying how the moon orbits the earth. Because since the earth is going around the Sun, probably the moon orbits the Earth and the moon is at the bottom of it that's why we see a half.
Me: Can you explain why the moon is at the bottom of the earth?
Donte: On the internet it showed a picture of how when the Earth is by the sun, you really can't see the moon. When the moon is at the bottom of earth it's a quarter moon. When the sun is by the side of the earth it's a full moon.
Deavion: I think in this picture it looks the black sky is reflecting off your eyes to make the Earth look cut in half.
Jaymon: Since North America is up, the sun shines at the top. But in the morning, Africa is all asleep.
Kayla: I was going to say something similar to what Jaymon said, the Sun goes around
Jaymon: No, when the Earth goes around the SUn
Kayla: Half of the Earth is black, and that half is asleep and the half that gets sunlight is all woke.
Me: What would have helped us understand Donte's answer better.
Deavion: Read it clearer.
Kayla: Put it into his own words.
Me: COuld you visualize what he was saying? What would have helped us see it better?
Kayla: Draw pictures.
Deavion: He did draw a diagram.
Me: Can you explain it?
Donte wants to revise it.

New question
Deavion
Q: How come you have to wear helmets in space?
A: It's not a lot of oxygen in space or on the moon and then when you take it off, your face puff up.
Jaymon: At first, when I had, I want to answer her question. I thought when I first saw the man had on the thing, I thought they were football players. It's similar to the thing.
Kayla: The only reason why I had asked that question was because you don't have to wear them down here but up in space you have to wear that.
Jaymon: Trees help us breath. But in outer space...I feel sorry for them. Oooh, I got another question. If the people jump on the moon are they going to float?
Kayla: They going to float. i think it said it on the brainpop video because it don't got no gravity up in space
Donte: well it do, just not that much
Kayla: I agree with that, it do have some but not much like it do down here.
Jaymon: I agree with Kayla but how do they walk on the moon though. Do they have special shoes?
Deavion: they have spikes
Kayla: THey got space boots with spikes to help them.
Jaymon: but these look like regular boots.
Me: Sounds like another question you can research.
Jaymon tries to phrase question: "Do they have spikes on the bottom of their shoes?"
They all say it's closed
Me: Why?
Deavion and Kayla change their answers
Jaymon: because it starts with do.
Deavion: you said it start with why it's a closed question.
Kayla: I think it's open because you can like discuss it, like why do they have spikes on the bottom of their shoes and they might have a lot of good answers.
Jaymon: It's closed, do you think it's closed?
Me: I dont want to say.
Donte: I disagree with you because if they got spikes on the bottom of their shoes, how do they jump?
Me: Let's stick to whether the question is open or closed. It's closed because../. How can we make it open?
Kayla: Why do they have spikes on the bottom of their shoes?
Donte: How do they...
Deavion: I wonder if...
Me: What are astronaut's shoes made of?
Jaymon: Yeah, and it looks like the moon is made of lava. What kind or rock is it?

Me: it sounds like you guys want to ask more questions. Donte, can you work on the diagram for next time about why we see half moons? Let's start reading the next few pages of the book and ask questions.

We then went on to start reading the guided reading book with a focus on asking questions. Kayla wonders why it says that though the first Apollo mission succeeded, it did not put the first man in space. Donte infers that it must have been a different space program that was first.

Donte took the space book with him on our bathroom break. In the hallway, Donte raised his hand to show me the part of the book that says the USSR sent up the first spaceship with a human on board, Yuri Gregarin. He also realized that there was a difference between being the first to orbit the moon, and the first to orbit Earth. I wanted him to ask what the USSR was, but I didn't push it when he didn't ask. It's amazing how questions just lead to more questions, it's like the renewable resource of learning!

quick note about Donte's comprehension

Today at the end of independent reading Davontae shared a cool insight on Lunch Lady. he noticed a frame with a visual clue of the assistant principal finding a robot arm (foreshadowing). This was cool because you could see that Davontae was gathering and synthesizing information around the plot and what he predicted might come next. Whether through pictures or words, this is a critical part of the reading process.
But what was cooler was that Donte raised his hand eagerly to say that Hector had been making a robot for the science fair (suggesting that this could be where the robot arm was from). Which was true! Donte hasn't read that book for weeks, and he was able to recall that tiny detail! Things that Donte reads seem to be sticking with him more, now it's just about how we get him to synthesize, order, and arrange all those things that stick in his mind. What goes on in Donte's mind? How is it organized? How does he structure his thoughts?

high guided reading group progress

So as I mentioned earlier, I've been frustrated with the ennui I sensed from Amaya, Alex (absent today), Brandon, and particularly Zeke during guided reading recently. Today guided reading with these guys went so much better! We started by sharing our answers to the question they prioritized last time: "How did Brian survive 3 days without food?" Zeke suggested that he drank water instead of eating food. Brandon didn't have an answer prepared.
Amaya: Brian had too much stuff on his mind so he wasn't hungry.
Me: Tell me more.
Amaya: He was thinking about the divorce and the secret and was too busy trying to solve the secret to think about food.
Zeke: I disagree. He thought about food and when you think about food it makes you want to eat it.
Me: Do you have text evidence?
(Zeke was able to find text evidence in the book after a minute that proved that Brian had been fantasizing about food.)
Me: Zeke you're right but do you think that the whole thing with the secret might have taken his mind off food?
Zeke: Even if he's got a lot on his mind, he's got to eat to survive. That's what people do.
Me: Amaya what do you mean he's trying to solve the secret?
Amaya: He doesn't know the secret of why they had the divorce. MISCONCEPTION: HE DOES KNOW.
Me: Do you have text evidence?
Amaya finds evidence from the passage where Brian has a flashback to when he saw a strange man in his mom's car.
Me: What do you guys think about that? A VERY OPEN QUESTION, IN MY MIND I'M TRYING TO DIRECT THE CONVERSATION TOWARDS THE NATURE OF THE SECRET, AND WHO THE SECRET IS BETWEEN, BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE OBVIOUS ABOUT IT.
Zeke: I still don't think he's thinking about that right now cuz he's on the island trying to figure out what he's going eat. MISCONCEPTION: BRIAN'S ON A LAKE, BUT HE'S ON THE SHORE, NOT ON AN ISLAND
Amaya insisted that this secret might have distracted him.
Amaya: He might be thinking about his mom's reasons for the divorce.
Me: What are the reasons for his divorce?
Zeke: Maybe his mom didn't like the dad anymore.
Amaya: Brian saw another man in her car. I think she fell in love with someone else. GOOD INFERENCE, I WONDER WHY SHE THINKS THAT BRIAN DOESN'T KNOW THE SECRET ABOUT WHY HIS PARENTS GOT DIVORCED?
Me: I agree with Zeke that it's more likely he survived for 3 days without food by drinking lots of water because I know that people can survive for weeks without food, as long as they have water. But I really appreciated Amaya's response because I'm wondering why when he's in the middle of the wilderness and starving, he's still thinking about the divorce?
Amaya connects Brian's dwelling on the divorce with her own thoughts when her parents divorced (for privacy reasons, I am not transcribing anything she said).
Zeke: He might not be thinking about it that much cuz he's hoping people will find him.
Amaya: I wonder if he's gonna find the hatchet? I think it's going to make him miss his mom even more. From the cover I think that when he puts the hatchet on it makes him feel strong because his face looks calm on the cover.
Me: Why do you think he'll miss his mom more?
Amaya: His mom gave it to him as a present.
Me: Why do you think it makes him feel strong?
Zeke: It's a weapon that can keep animals from messing with him because I went on the computer and found out that the book takes place in the Canadian wilderness and there's lots of animals there.
Amaya uses the summary on the back of the book to answer the question. She reads: "Suddenly, Brian finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother has given him as a present -- and the dreadful secret that has been tearing him apart ever since his parents' divorce. But now Brian has no time for anger, self-pity, or despair -- it will take all his know-how and determination, and more courage than he knew he possessed, to survive."
Amaya: Wait...that sentence...I think that the secret's not between his parents, it's between him and his mom. THIS REALIZATION MAKES IT CLEAR THAT SHE HAD PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT THAT BRIAN'S PARENTS WERE HIDING SOMETHING FROM HIM, AND THAT WAS THE SECRET.
Me: Can you explain that? I'M EXCITED THAT WE'RE FINALLY BEGINNING TO TALK ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE SECRET, SOMETHING I WANTED TO GET TO EARLIER.
Amaya gives an answer too quickly for me to record, it doesn't make sense. But then she says: "It makes me wonder, what is the secret that's tearing them apart?" WOW, SHE REALIZES SHE JUST DOESN'T FULLY UNDERSTAND THE SECRET, WITHOUT ME TELLING HER THAT SHE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND. THIS FEELS IMPORTANT.
I jump in with questions to get Amaya to realize that the secret is that Brian saw his mom with another man.
Me: Why do you think the secret is tearing him apart? Why would a secret do that?
Amaya: He has to keep it from his dad and he doesn't like that.
Zeke says that he might also be really worried about what that man in the car might be like, especially if he becomes his stepdad.
Zeke: My question is that in the text it says he just saw the mom in the car. Is the secret really between him and his mom? It didn't seem that his mom told him who the man was. Did she really tell him who the friend was?
Amaya: No, he's got to keep it from his mom.
Zeke: Did she see him (Brian)?
Amaya: Probably not.
Zeke: How are you not even going to tell your kid about something like that? Oooh, this is probably another thing that tears him apart because his mom won't talk to him about this strange man. YES! I HADN'T EVEN THOUGHT OF THIS. HERE'S THE ZEKE THAT I KNEW WAS UNDER THAT BORED EXPRESSION THE LAST TIME WE MET IN GUIDED READING.
Amaya: This reminds me of my life with my mom seeing someone else. When I first saw him I got mad because I hadn't seen my dad for a long time and wanted to see him.
Zeke relates his experience meeting his stepdad and the emotions that went into it.

I closed the session really pleased with the places the conversation went. It was really hard for me to not control it and ask more direct questions about who Brian was keeping the secret from, but they were able to get there on their own. I did ask them questions, but I feel like the conversation really took off when I asked about why he still thinks about the divorce even in his dire circumstances. They really personally connected to the divorce, and they began to ask their own questions without prompting. It seems like this personal connection was the fuel behind the flurry of self-generated questions.

The moment when Amaya realized from the back of the book that the secret was something Brian was carrying, rather than his parents, was so awesome. That light bulb is so much more satisfying when you see a kid get there on their own, rather than you pushing the understanding onto them. I can't say what exactly she learned from that moment, maybe that it's important to ask questions to understand the text better, that you will eventually find many of your answers by talking about your questions and thinking about them as you read the text? Plus, she came away with much better comprehension of Brian's dilemma.

The other moment that was really cool was when Zeke started questioning whether his mom knew that Brian knew, and then inferred that Brian was also being torn up because he knew his mom was trying to keep that man secret from him. Brilliant. I didn't think about it that way, probably because my personal experience is different than Zeke's. This feels like very fertile ground, but I don't want to kill it with a writing prompt (that feels forced). How do I extend thinking on this theme in a natural and nurturing way that keeps ownership on their terms and enthusiasm high?

One important note is that this conversation doesn't go anywhere near as interesting without Amaya's divergent (and perceptive) answer about the divorce being on his mind. The openness of the questioning protocol definitely demonstrated its utility here. Interesting how Zeke kept pulling away from this for awhile, but eventually convergent thinking emerged when they began thinking about the nature of the divorce and its effects on Brian (and their personal connections to this).

inquiry/research in guided reading groups

So, besides Socratic Seminar, I've also been trying to leverage the questioning protocol into the work of some guided reading groups. I first began trying it with my highest guided reading group because I've felt some apathy in their reading of the last few guided reading books. Right now we're reading Hatchet, which I chose specifically because I thought it would be a high interest book for my boys, but they never seem to want to read it on their own during independent reading, and I haven't found their conversations of the book during guided reading to be very comprehensive, insightful, or exciting at all.

So, at the beginning of this week we generated, categorized, and prioritized questions. They were able to go through this process quickly and succinctly. They ended up choosing a question about how Brian was able to survive for 3 days without food. I was pleased about how smoothly the process went and optimistic that when the group met again with me the following day, they would have excellent, insightful, well-researched answers to the question. Logistics were not in my favor however, because the next day I had to give a practice reading extended response, and the day after, I decided to pull my lowest guided reading group. I probably should have briefly met with the high guided reading group just to check in with them about their answers to the question and any further reading/questions they had done. I will meet with them this Monday. I do have a very good idea about 2 students' (Alex and Zeke's) answers because they stay with me after school a lot and I worked on their answers with them. At first they turned in very barebones answers. I think maybe partly because even though the questions are coming from them, since I'm telling them they have to answer the questions, it still feels like an assignment to them. Ideally I should just model for them how I research questions that arise as I read. I think I'm still too outcome-oriented, and this may strangle the life out of their inquiry before it even has a chance to sprout. I do need to change this approach I think. Anyhow, I pushed Alex and Zeke to find more specific, real world details about wilderness survival. They got more engaged when they realized they could use the internet to do research. The next day, I noticed that they went right to the computers during independent reading. Alex went to the book's website to look at extra features/information about the book. He also looked into ways that people can get their own food in the wilderness. He reported out at the end of independent reading about how people can fashion a fishing spear. Zeke researched where Hatchet takes place, learning facts about the Canadian wilderness. Both of them lingered by the computer table, continuing to research while we lined up, until I reminded them that they would be able to continue their research the following day. So it is possible to get them engaged in this inquiry/research process, I think I just need to scaffold it by pushing their focus into deeper and more interesting places to research, and modeling this process of questioning and research more consistently. This questioning protocol and the inquiry it begets really is a framework, a way of thinking, that I want to do a better job of fostering, it just takes restraint that I'm not used to exercising as the uber-controlling teacher I know I am sometimes.

I also wanted to reflect on how my lowest guided reading group reacted to the questioning protocol. As mentioned in earlier entries, it seems like the protocol has really excited them during whole class discussions. This excitement extended into their work with the guided reading book about space. They were eager to ask questions, and they came up with some great ones after we had only read a few pages:

My model: Why were they circling the moon for 24 hours?
Deavion: I wonder why the sky is blue on land but black in space? (question from visual of picture)
Donte: Why when you're on the moon it looks like half-earth? (question from visual of picture)
Deavion: Why does gas go in cars and fuel goes in spaceships? (semantics question)
Kayla: Why do astronauts have to wear helmets? (content question)
Jaymon: Why is Sputnik big like a basketball? (visual question)
Kayla: How many people can fit in Sputnik?

I find that a lot of these pictures are a lot deeper than the ones that my high guided reading group asked! Maybe this has to do with the genre of their book (science non-fiction) lending itself to deep questions, or at least a different sort of question than a realistic fiction book. I wonder how the types of questions, projects, and inquiry will vary depending on the book?

They were so excited to answer the questions, they kept having to remind themselves of the rule about no judging or discussing questions during the generating process. I told them they could answer the questions on their own when they left the guided reading table. In the hallway Kayla said, "I already answered all the questions, it was so easy." Now, I'm pleased with the enthusiasm and initiative. I'm guessing the quality of the answers will be lacking in much the same way as the higher group, and I'll need to model for them how use research tools like books and the internet to improve the quality of inquiry. We shall see...

socratic seminar after cycle 1 of questioning

I wasn't able to upload the videos, but below are the transcriptions. Each video is centered around one of the prioritized questions we used to jumpstart discussion during Socratic Seminar. My cooked notes are in ALL CAPS. I also put in parentheses next to each person's name whether I thought they were low or high readers. This is a rough, vague sketch of course, but I think it helps illustrate how the lower readers dominated the discussion.

Video 1
Deavion (low): I wonder why byron and buphead don't pay attention in class. My answer is that they might think it's boring
Kayla (low): I agree with you because sometimes people in this classroom sometimes they may be juvenile delinquents because they don't be paying attention to what the teacher says and they have to flip their cards SHE'S CONTEXTUALIZING THE BOOK WITHIN HER LIFE (THE CLASSROOM)
Amaya (high): probably all they want to do is bad things and pick on people
Donte (low): i think they don't pay attention because since they went to juvenile they think they bad and stuff MISCONCEPTION ABOUT TERM: CONFLATING PLACE WITH PERSON
Jaymon (low): i think they think cool and juvenile delinquents but they really aren't inside WHAT DOES HE MEAN BY NOT COOL INSIDE? IS HE SAYING THEY'RE INSECURE?
Kayla: people be doing that because they think they cool and everything but they really not WHAT AN IDENTITY REVEALING THING FOR A GIRL LIKE KAYLA WHO HASN'T ALWAYS BEEN A GOOD GIRL TO SAY
Rashad (high) asks Deavion to explain more about his answer RASHAD IS LOOKING TO PUSH THE DISCUSSION DEEPER
Deavion: maybe they just go to school to talk to their friends
Kayla agrees again: because sometimes people do be thinking it's cool to talk to their friends but it's really not, it's cool to learn
me: why don't we start a new question?

Video 2
Jaymon: why Byron being nice to Kenny but at first in the story he wasn't? I think because when Kenny had came into the classroom and read to the whole 5th grade and he was only in 4th that made Byron proud because that made everyone think the same way about Byron. INTERESTING IDEA THAT HE'S INFERRING THAT BYRON WANTS PEOPLE TO THINK HE'S SMART (SHOULD I HAVE JUMPED IN HERE AND ASKED HIM TO EXPLAIN?)
Kayla: I agree with you because he was proud of Kenny
Rashad: I agree with you because in the story because when they were about to beat Kenny up Byron stopped them and let them walk with them. AGAIN RASHAD DEEPENS THE DISCUSSION BY GOING INTO THE TEXT FOR EVIDENCE
Me: Let's try to get new voices and call on people we haven't called on before I'M GROWING CONCERNED THAT THE SAME 5 PEOPLE (WHO BESIDES RASHAD TEND TO BELONG TO THE LOW GUIDED READING GROUPS)
Alex (high): I agree with Jaymon's first part of his answer but not the second because i think byron was having trouble with things and when kenny read that really helped him. but Jaymon what was the other part of your answer?
Jaymon: He came in the whole 5th grade room and read to them.
Alex: I disagree with you about him being nice to them because he was still being kind of mean to him because in the story it said that he said when it was about LJ and he had asked about the question he was still being mean to them. TRYING TO COMPLICATE THE DISCUSSION BY POINTING OUT THAT DISCUSSING BYRON SHOULD NOT BE DONE IN ABSOLUTES
Riana (high): I disagree with you because that's not really a part about Byron is being mean for his question VERY CONCRETE BUT CORRECT COMMENT ABOUT LIMITING THE DISCUSSION AROUND THE RELEVANT PART OF THE TEXT
Alex: No but he (Jaymon) said Byron wasn't being mean to him anymore but he sometimes byron could be mean
Jaymon: but im saying that was in the past though because remember...what's that called?
Donte: flashback
Jaymon: yea flashback that was a flashback because remember when he said that it was good to have a new friend not like LJ because LJ was stealing all his dinosaurs, that was in the past
Alex: Oh yeah, my bad.
Kayla: I disagree with you Alex because like some type of thing like you said (pointing to Jaymon) it was in the past and he talking about why was he being nice to Kenny but at first he was being mean to him.
Me: Ok good, let's get a new topic


Video #3
Olajuwon (high): How did Byron become a juvenile delinquent? My answer is he probably had did something bad. I THINK THAT OLAJUWON HAD TROUBLE READING HIS WHOLE ANSWER BECAUSE HE WAS MISSING A FEW WORDS, WHICH IS WHY IT SOUNDS FRAGMENTED
Donte: I agree with you, I think he did something to the police. INFERENCE WITHOUT TEXT EVIDENCE
Davontae (high): I disagree with you (Donte) because in the story it said you become a juvenile delinquent when you turn 13. CORRECT TEXT EVIDENCE
Riana: I disagree with you (Davontae) because they because they never said that Byron just turned 13 NOT TRUE and I disagree with Donte because they never said anything about Byron and the police. TRUE
Youngan (high): I think that he trying to just be a showoff or something. I think he has some friends that are juvenile delinquents.I think he's trying to show off. GOOD INFERENCE, I WONDER WHAT CLUES TOLD HIM THIS?
Josh (high): I think he's trying to be like Buphead because if he was getting in trouble and getting suspensions and stuff maybe Byron would try to stay home from school. I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE LAST PART OF THIS COMMENT
Jaymon: I agree with Olajuwon and Josh, and I disagree with Donte. The reason I agree with Josh because I think he start being a juvenile delinquent when he had met Buphead because Buphead was a bad influence on him. GOOD INFERENCE, AGAIN I WISH I KNEW WHAT CLUES LEAD HIM TO THIS CONCLUSION?
Alex: I had wanted you to tell more (Olajuwon) about doing something bad. GREAT QUESTION TO TRY AND PUSH THE DISCUSSION FURTHER
Olajuwon: come back to me I WONDER WHY HE HAD TROUBLE ARTICULATING THIS? HIGHER KIDS SEEM TO HAVE MORE DIFFICULTY SPECULATING/PARTICIPATING AT ALL IN THIS FORUM. PERHAPS THERE'S A BETTER END RESULT FOR QUESTIONING THAT WOULD ALLOW THEM TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES BETTER?
Briyonna (low): I agree with Jaymon and I kinda disagree because in the story it said Byron was always trying to pick on Kenny with Buphead so I think that Buphead is the one who always be getting Byron to pick on Buphead. MIXED UP THE CHARACTER NAME AT THE END, SHE MEANT TO SAY KENNY INSTEAD OF BUPHEAD
Khalil (high) (laughs)
Me: What's so funny Khalil?
Khalil: She said Byron is trying to pick on Buphead. CLEARLY ENGAGED, FACT CHECKING. THE HIGHER KIDS SEEM TO FACT CHECKING A LOT. IS IT BECAUSE I'VE CALLED ON LOWER KIDS TO START EACH DISCUSSION, SO IN THAT WAY I'VE PREDETERMINED THE HIGH AND LOW KIDS' ROLES IN THE DISCUSSION? IS THERE A HIGHER PROPORTION OF LOWER KIDS INVOLVED BECAUSE I'M CALLING ON THEM TO START THE DISCUSSION AND THEN THEY'RE CALLING ON THEIR FRIENDS WHO TEND TO BE LOWER TOO? ON THE OTHER HAND, OLAJUWON'S NOT LOW AND HE STARTED THIS DISCUSSION...

Video 4
Antwanay (low): Is Byron going to teach Kenny how to be a juvenile delinquent? I think yes because Byron is supposed to be the role model but he is teaching Kenny to be bad like him so he can...WHAT DID SHE WANT TO SAY AT THE END? WHY DID SHE STOP? ALSO IT'S INTERESTING BECAUSE TODAY DONTE RAISED HIS HAND AFTER READING THE NEXT PART OF CHAPTER 3 AND SAID THAT HE THOUGHT KENNY WAS LIKE A ROLE MODEL TO RUFUS UNTIL HE MADE FUN OF HIM...SO DONTE IS TRANSFERRING CONTENT AND KNOWLEDGE FROM SOCRATIC SEMINAR AND APPLYING IT INTO HIS UNDERSTANDING OF FUTURE READING. SYNTHESIS!
Khalil: I disagree with you because in the story it didn't say nothing about Byron teaching Kenny to be a delinquent. FACT CHECKING AGAIN
Terran (high): I agree with you Khalil and I disagree with you Antwanay because in the story you didn't see BYron hanging out with Kenny for a while. TRUE, GOOD TEXT EVIDENCE
Kayla: I disagree with you and Khalil, I agree with Antwanay. I agree with Antwanay because he was trying to be a bad influence for Kenny because he's the older brother he's supposed to be the right way to be a person but he's showing him the bad way. and I disagree with you because what did you say? you said something? but he was trying to be bad, and trying teach Kenny how to be bad. SHE IS CLEARLY TAKING THIS BOOK PERSONALLY, FORMING STRONG OPINIONS!! SHE CONNECTS TO THIS BOOK IN SOME INTERESTING WAYS THAT I'D LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT
Class laughs at her assertiveness while speaking THIS ASSERTIVENESS IS NEW. THEY DEFINITELY SEE IT FROM HER AT LUNCH AND OUTSIDE OF CLASS, BUT NEVER IN CLASS
Jaymon: I had put the same thing (same question) My answer was Kenny was always following Byron and Buphead like when he had to go to school, when he would walk him to the bus and Byron didn't get on the bus, sometimes Kenny would go by himself. (Stops because he's distracted by all the people disagreeing)
Me: It's ok to put your thumb down, why don't you call on someone who disagrees.
Alex: I disagree because everytime when skips school he says that he always catches the bus and everytime Kenny walks down the street he walks home with him so he won't get in trouble.
Olajuwon: I disagree with you (Alex) because the time when we was talking about how he had missed school it never said he had catched back up with Kenny, we had predicted that. DISTINGUISHED TEXT EVIDENCE FROM OUR INFERENCES
Rashad: I agree with you and disagree with Alex because I think when Byron skipped school if he goes home by himself his mama is going to get mad at him because...(inaudible)


My reflections:
-Why didn't high kids participate more? Why did Zeke look so bored? I asked him about it afterwards and he said it was because he wasn't sure if his answers were right, if there was enough evidence. It fits with the narrative about high kids who are so used to being right, they aren't as inclined to take risks or make themselves vulnerable in a forum like seminar. This is a valuable thing I'd like him to learn, but how to facilitate this? Logically, since he had the chance to write out answers to his questions ahead of time, he had some scaffolding. I still think part of it is just that he was unmotivated, but why? Nothing to gain from the discussion? Not connecting to the book? Not the right questions? But he had the opportunity to create his own when we generated them earlier in the week! ARGH! How do I get the higher kids more involved? I think there's a definite dynamic between high and low kids. When I asked the class to reflect on the seminar, Amaya (high) expressed frustration because she believed some people just disagreed to disagree, without giving good text evidence. The higher kids seem to be more into synthesizing their thoughts with text, while lower kids seem more willing to put their thoughts out there. Would higher kids get more out of seminar if we split seminar into 2 groups, one high and one low? i think some of the higher kids wanted to be more involved but they just weren't getting called on. i need to step in more and call on them if i feel like they're getting ignored.

-Why did lower kids thrive in this discussion? What do they gain from this? Identity formation as thinkers, smart kids. Voice. Better comprehension. Better articulation (with practice- Kayla and Jaymon both struggle to read and speak fluently, even in this discussion, but they are practicing more and improving)

-How did questioning improve the quality of this Socratic Seminar? It definitely did, we saw a lot more inferring, a better focused discussion that was able to go deeper. I should probably have students complete a quick survey after cycle 2's socratic seminar, asking them what role questioning had in improving the discussion. does generating and prioritizing questions help them think about the text? discuss it? i wonder which kids would say yes and which would say no? I wonder what they'd be able to articulate about the role of questioning in facilitating deeper thought and discussion?

-Where do we go from here? Cycle 2 should see us get even better at questioning, will that result in an even better Socratic Seminar?

Prioritizing questions

Today was the day we prioritized questions. We did it in small groups. The enthusiasm and "success" varied greatly from group to group.

Table 2 (Olajuwon, Kayla, Khalil, and Alex) were very successful. They began right away by eliminating questions. When I asked them what their criteria for eliminating questions was, they said they eliminated questions that didn't make sense or questions that they already knew the answers to. I thought that they were clearly beginning to develop an understanding of what makes a good question.
The questions they chose were: "How did Byron become a juvenile delinquent?" and "Why was Byron proud of Kenny?"

Table 6 (Adonis, Kim, Anjahna, Donte) seemed unmotivated and uninspired by the task. They chose a question that didn't make sense: "I wonder why Byron went to juvenile delinquents?" I think they were confused about the term, which tells me that for the next cycle, I need to do a better job of solidifying their knowledge of key terms within the Qfocus before having them generate questions.

Table 5, and Terran in particular, had some confusion differentiating closed and opened questions, which means his understanding of types of questions is still developing. That's ok because since this is just the first of many questioning cycles, there will be time to solidify understanding in this area. Deavion in table 5 said that he thought they should choose the question that was talked about most in the book.

I also experimented with the questioning protocol in guided reading with my highest guided reading group. One student in particular, Zeke, had been unenthusiastic with this book, which surprised me since it seemed like it would be so engaging for a young male reader. I did see the questioning engage him in the book differently. He was definitely more active and motivated in the discussion. The Qfocus I gave them was: survival. Here are the questions they came up with:
-Why isn't he trying to do nothing, if he's seen movies about how to survive?
-Why didn't he pack a lunch or a first aid kit?
-Why doesn't he have a phone?
-How did Brian survive 3 days without any food?
-Why did Brian think he was going to die?

After they finished generating questions, they were able to categorize all the questions as open without much of a hitch. Then they prioritized the questions, which was interesting.

Brandon wanted to prioritize the question "How did Brian survive 3 days without any food?" At first they focused on answering the question, and I had to redirect the conversation around the merits of a question. This might be something that's not intuitive for even the highest students? But once I redirected, they went with it. Alex thought this was a good question to prioritize because "you can agree or disagree a lot...it's a question we can all ask questions about and say yes or no." Zeke countered by suggesting that they prioritize the question: "Why didn't he have a phone?" He explained this by saying that it was a good question because "There could be many different reasons why he didn't". Alex countered by saying: "I think it's not (a good question) because a phone is not as serious as food." This thinking shows that Alex was thinking about which question related most relevantly to the qFocus of survival. In the end, Amaya summarized why they chose Brandon's question: "It's a good question because it adds up to how he's able to survive." They were motivated and excited to answer the question as independent reading finished, let's hope they bring lots of good ideas to discussion tomorrow (I'm calling them to the table again for guided reading). I'm also considering letting them research survival methods more if they're interested...

Thoughts while reading Tatum's "Teaching Black Adolescent Males"

"Monitoring reading data too easily can become a scorecard of achievement. This can lead teachers to select a text based on the requirements of standardized tests or limit instruction to test-preparation practice...Effective teachers of black males understand that they must go beyond reading instruction. They understand, as my own teachers did, that focusing only on skills and strategies does little to address the turmoil many black youths experience in America, and it may do little to improve their reading achievement...They understood that the texts placed before me had to address some of the psychological and emotional scarring that results from the day-to-day experiences of being black, male, and poor in America. My teachers wanted to help me develop an identity that would be useful outside the walls of my school." (pgs.24-25)

This excerpt makes me think not only about how students may get more out of reading instruction that is relevant to student lives, but that teachers are better teachers when they see a connection between the content of their instruction and their students' lives. I think this is why The Watsons go to Birmingham is my favorite whole class novel. I see that students connect to in a different way, that they identify with characters and situations in rich and meaningful ways.

But I do think that effective instruction of black male readers still needs to incorporate the skills and strategies that help students maximize their comprehension and thinking around the text. I think that this is where I got stymied with comic book club. Students were able to connect and be entertained by what they read, so their engagement and enthusiasm for reading improved. But without targeted instruction around processes that highly literate readers employ, I don't think that their engagement in the text was leveraged as much as it could have been to ingrain good reading practices. So I'm trying to find a middle ground here where boosting engagement can improve comprehension, and vice versa. I think these two areas definitely support each other, and I think a very organic area for enriching this connection is inquiry. Inquiry could be a very powerful lynchpin because it facilitates students to further explore what engaged and excited them in the text. Basically, well-facilitated and scaffolded inquiry should push students to naturally extend their love of texts into deeper thinking and new types of learning. Inquiry also helps students make deeper, more meaningful connections between the text and their own lives, in the spirit that Tatum was describing.