the 1st student to say "this is an applying question" !

Today, when I was doing a read aloud on simple machines, Emon raised her hand and said: "I have an applying question.  You know when we were learning about horses pulling wagons [from our unit on trains that I taught several months ago]?  Was it hard for them to pull the wagons because of all that food?"  Of course, we had to carry the discussion further and bring in friction, but I was excited nonetheless that Emon was able independently categorize her question as she was asking it. 

a spontaneous, self-generated question-based discussion

I know that title makes no sense, but it's happening!  We were learning about the wheel and axle in Expedition, and I wasn't planning on having a large discussion, or really any discussion at all.  The plan was to introduce simple machines, watch a video, take an interactive quiz, demonstrate using a wheel and axle, filling in their simple machines note-catcher, and then creating their own wheel and axles.  But after filling the note-catcher and before creating our own wheel and axles, we were launched into a very interesting discussion about wheel and axles.  Nyrissa asked: "I don't get it.  How do the wheels on a car stop rolling then?"  This launched us into a big discussion on how brakes are like wedges (door stops specifically) in that they utilize friction to obstruct motion.  I was diagramming the structure of a car, getting way into the topic, a lot more than I expected!  Then Omar asked: "Why is only the brake is only on the back wheel of a bike?"  I thought this was such an astute application question (I've been automatically categorizing questions according to Bloom's Taxonomy for a while now :-))  So we went back to diagramming and students sharing their thoughts.  It was so engaging for everyone, just the beautiful act of all of us constructing knowledge together.  It's why I love teaching.  And I don't think it happens if Nyrissa and Omar aren't asking questions.  And I'm not sure they ask those questions if we haven't been doing all this work on questioning and building an environment that values questions.  Yay!

Guided reading group Texas

Guided reading group Texas is taking the next step and researching answers to the questions they prioritized about their non-fiction text on spiders.  I was very impressed with how seriously they were working together.  I couldn't hear a lot of their conversation because I was working with guided reading group New York, but their engagement was as strong as Tennessee's was.  I think they were processing the text much more, and hopefully more deeply.  I think this question/research process can be effective for lower students too...

questioning ladder success with guided reading group New York

Vianey is leading guided reading group New York with questions from the questioning ladder, and the students are really responding!  The questions do follow the progression of lower to higher order thinking, and as we move up the ladder, the discussions are getting more and more complex.

Vianey's Questions:

Step 1: Obvious Information
-What does Wayside school look like?
-Who are the main characters?
-How was Wayside built?

Step 2: Key Detail
-What happens on a normal school day at Wayside?

Step 3: Stated Relationships
-Why did Calvin take the note if there is no Ms. Zarves?

Step 4: Connect Some Dots/Play Detective
-What lesson did they learn in Chapter 16?
-Why doesn't Rhondi like her teeth when everyone says they're adorable?

Step 5: Connect Lots of Dots/Play Super Detective
-What are three ways Wayside changes over the story?
 -How do the characters change throughout the story?

Step 6: What is the message Louis Sachar is trying to tell us?

Step 7: no questions

Students had good discussions about all the questions Vianey posed, but the Step 6 question really blasted off into an interesting conversation.  Here are some transcript notes:
Tommy: Some people are different and have different talents
Omar: It's good to be different.
Me: Why do you think it's good to be different?
Donnell: Everyone's unique.
Me: So what?  Why's that important?
Donnell: If you copy off of people, everyone would do the same thing.
Vianey: If everyone did the same thing, life would be boring and when you meet new people it's interesting because they're different.
Tommy: One time I was talking about this with my mom because if everyone had the same talents, you wouldn't be able to learn to do something else.

I think that this conversation showed they were understanding what Stories from Wayside School is really about, not just on the micro level of what happened, but on a macro level of what the theme and message of the story was about.  I wish they would have used some examples of episodes and events from the story to support their macro view of the text.  Nevertheless, that is a mini-lesson for the future.

Afterwards I asked them: What did you notice as we went through the questioning ladder?
Vianey: as we went down our thoughts got deeper
Donnell: questions got harder as we went from step 1

I was very encouraged by this session for several reasons.
1) Vianey really took the questioning ladder and ran with it.  I think she was able to come up with much more interesting and complex questions than she would have if I had just told her to generate questions and then categorize them according to Bloom's and prioritize.
2) I thought that the guided reading group as a whole was really starting to get a feel for how to use the questioning ladder, and the value it added in terms of helping students ask deep questions that lent themselves to rich discussion.  I'm hoping this group will take the role of question master in many of their literature circles and model how to use the questioning ladder.

tennessee is leading the way using questions to structure a research project

They actually worked on the project while I was absent yesterday!  And, Nyrissa told me today: "Hold on Mr. Welch, I'm not ready to publish.  I need to revise still."  I'm so impressed with their motivation and high expectations they have for themselves.  That Nyrissa would be self-motivated to revise is a new phenomenon indeed! 

So, going back to the first day this all started, we'd been reading about the Chicago Fire and I wanted them to do a sort of research project to synthesize what they'd learned.  I had them generate and prioritize questions that they thought were important about the Chicago Fire.  I was honestly not that impressed with a lot of them.  They felt really random, and I know that it's bad to say because whether the questions I wanted to see or not, they are authentic student questions.  I guess my biggest problem with them is that they didn't reveal rich comprehension of the text, which in a sense is good because its feedback that tells me we need to review their comprehension of text.  But I'm interested in using a questioning ladder that helps them generate their questions in a more methodical, "from the ground-up" manner.  I had them focus on asking "remembering" and "understanding" questions first.  We generated a few together, I prompted them to think of these questions as questions people would ask just to get to know and understand some basic facts and details about the Chicago Fire.  Then I had them focus on asking "applying" and "analyzing" questions.  I prompted them to generate these questions by thinking about what questions people might have about why events happened the way they did.  Then I had them focus on generating "creating" and "evaluating" questions. 

This process was really helpful as a way to review and build knowledge together, it was effective because we established the fundamental knowledge points first, and then built from there to the places where students might infer and draw conclusions.  There analyzing questions were much richer and more meaningful because I think they connected to fundamental aspects of the Chicago Fire, not obscure or less germane ones.

Addendum: at the end of our guided reading session today Malik asked me if we're going to do this with each one of our books, I said why, do you want to?  and he said yes.  He explained: "because it's fun.  you get to work in a group with a lot of people that work together. and it's challenging" why?  "it's challenging because everyone has to cooperate and be active citizens."  Dameko: "I can add something.  in the end you have to chose if you want take your partners thinking and put it in your writing and its hard cuz you don't want them to feel bad if you didn't put it in your writing."

 I'm also using guided reading group Tennessee to mentor guided reading group Texas with the research process.

analyzing what and how they prioritized the dust bowl questions

2 days ago I was frustrated because the way many students prioritized the question about the Dust Bowl they wanted to research felt random.  Not too many chose questions I thought were most important.  On the positive side, many student chose questions that weren't their own.  Here's a break down of the questions they prioritized (they each chose 1 from the list that we had generated the day before), their rationales behind their choices are in italics underneath the questions they chose:

·      What can be done to protect houses from dust storms? 1

-Because if there is I want to give it to people so they'll survive (Vianey)

·      

Why is it so dark! 1

-Because if sand is the color tan how does it become black thats why. (Omar)

·      Why did they dig holes? 0

·      Why they can’t move from the city 1

--Because the houses want they by liveing in had dust in it.  Also the dust got in the people way. (Tynajah)

·      Why was the dust heavy, black and gets in the food and bad 1

-no response from Syriah

·      How can sand turn into a huge glob of sand 0 

·      How do dust bowls get created? 4

-So people know what created the dangerous dust bowl.  And so it won't happenend in a different state (Tommy)

--Because you're not going to understand dust bowls if you don't know how they get created. (Donnell)

-no response from Demarrion

-Because like what made it come and becuse I want to now and like what time of the day it comes (DQ)

·      How long does it take to develop a dust storm 1

-Because everything developes even you and me (Malik)

·      Do they have police, ambulances, and firefighters to protect them. 2

-Because if they house get on fire if someone die or have a baby. (Tremayne)

-Because I think it would be good to know. (Dameko)

--I chose this question because it's a instrsting to me. (Zion)

·      What is that thing that shot out smoke? 1

·      Did people make plans to get out 1

·      Did some of the people die 1

-Because I want to know if some of the kids had to live on there own (Trae)

·      

What kind of sickness do the have? 0

·      Could people breath because of the masks and why. 1

-Because if the dust bowl come and they have on masks.  And the people had said that you couldn't see or breath.  So coundlf they breath with the masks on or off. (Nyrissa)

·      How did the dust get in the house 3

--because on the movie they said dust were in house but get in wonder how did the dust (Emon)

-I prioritize the question because this question sounds like a good question and I want to learn how dust got in the house too. (Kashira)

·      Did the dust come from different states 1

-Because it might be hard to find the right answer so maybe you can find facts about the dust (Anyah)

-Because it is a good qweshtino because if this wasn't soupos to hapen did it come from other stat (anonymous)

·      Could you step out of the Dust bowl 0

The reasons behind their questions often bowl me over with their sincerity, the fact that really want to know the answers because it's important to them, or they feel it would be important for others to know (Tommy and Vianey).  How do I do their earnestness justice?  How do I respect their questions?  It's tough because finding answers isn't always easy.  Not many of the kids found answers to the questions in one of the few kid-friendly, informational readings on the dust bowl I was able to find online.  Maybe check the library?  Use reflection journals?  A class composition or book with our most important questions and answers?

Several students mentioned also that they asked a question because it seemed like in order to understand the dust bowl, they had to understand this question (Donnell)

Also, their research turned out a lot stronger than I had felt it was as we were doing the activity.  Despite the limitations of our source material (a PBS documentary and a short reading on the Dust Bowl), I was very impressed with how they were able to make accurate inferences even with incomplete information.  Out of 17 responses:

3 students found direct (and correct) answers from the video/text

6 students used helpful details from the text to make correct inferences to answer their question

3 students made correct inferences to answer their question without citing helpful details from the text

3 students made incorrect inferences to answer their question

3 students were unable to answer their question at all

results of student survey 12/10/12

Questions	yes	no	Student Explanation	My Analysis
1. Do you like asking questions as you read or learn during expedition?  Why or why not?	8	0	Yes ·      You mite lean more ·      It helps you understand more ·      The answers help me think deeper ·      I like adding more to my questions ·      I learn a lot of new thinks ·      I want to stay informed on science and history
2. Do you like researching answers to the questions you ask?  Why or why not?	5.5	2.5	Yes ·      You can get more infomashon about what you are researching ·      You can find out your questions ·      It’s fun ·      It tells me a lot of others stuff that I did no no ·      You find out a lot of things ·      If I can’t get the answers then I should research the question if I really don’t know the answers No ·      You get all mixed up and most often they give you the answer your not looking for ·      You can’t find an answer ·      You might get the wrong answer	Interesting to see Kashira defining research as something you do when you can’t find the answer yourself, almost like research is a third party The “no” answers all make sense with what happened when we researched during expedition last month.  It was frustrating to not find the answers we were looking for.  I need to teach my kids that this is okay, some questions you have to store away as “unanswered” and appreciate them for this.
3. What is the best thing about asking questions?			·      You can lean someting from someone ·      You can learn something that yo didint know ·      You get to learn more about that thing ·      At the end when you do research you become smarter ·      You can sometimes write down someone questions ·      You can find out something by asking ·      You can find out the answer later ·      You can really look it up or think in your head	Social Research Personal impact
4. What is the worst thing about asking questions?			·      Nothing ·      You won’t get enouf work done ·      Well have to think about the question you ask ·      Sometimes you won’t be able to find an answer ·      Maybe putting to much in you answer ·      That you have to write them down ·      It’s hard to generate them ·      I really don’t know what is the worst thing about asking questions because I like asking questions	Yay! I can relate to this response, it does kind of take you out of the book to stop and write down a question Preoccupation with answer Difficulty of process
5. What is the best thing about researching answers to the questions you ask?			·      You can lean more by…looking it up or you can get info about it from pepol ·      So that you understand it ·      That you can learn more about that. ·      You get smarter and might be able to teach someone something new ·      You can maybe get the right answer ·      It gives you a lot of informions ·      Once your done your fully informed on your subject ·      You can learn a lot from the questions you ask and write them down	Social Learning Personal impact Preoccupation with answer
6. What is the worst thing about researching answers to the questions you ask?			·      Thaer is nothing wrog about restching ·      It can take to long ·      I don’t have one ·      Your question might be too long and might be hard to shorten ·      Maybe doing the worng thing ·      Sometime it doesn’t when you tipe it in or something you get it wrog ·      It’s hard to find a way to shorten your question and make it equal to the main idea ·      Maybe you can’t find the answers to them some times	Yay! Preoccupation with “wrong” answer Revising difficulaties – interesting that they’re familiar enough with the process to realize it’s importance and begin to articulate some of the difficulties with it Time
7. What are some examples of good questions that you’ve generated?			·      What is a dolfine doing in the swamp ·      One is about how much do the cowboys get paid ·      What does the tiger mean to Rob ·      How do you become a pioneer? And how can you brun bullfo chips ·      How do pioneers get there house ·      In the Chicago fire did Mrs. O’Leary die? ·      About Junie B. Jones like how can she do better in school	Lower-level questions Higher-level questions
8. What do you think makes a question a good one?			·      If it’s something you like ·      It has to have something to explain about ·      I think a good question should make you think deeply and it should take research ·      Sometimes adding beaitls [details?] ·      That you can get a lot geart question [?] ·      One that challenges yourself ·      It makes it a good question if you judge or if you make up a question	Student sees connection between a good question and ownership of that question/interest in the topic These responses suggest the connection between “good” and rigor Kashira is trying to suggest that good questions are evaluating or creating questions
9. What have you learned from the questions you researched?			·      Like in what does a cowboy eat for lunch I leand that thay eat cilly beans ·      They get paid only $1.00 doller a day ·      Pioneers didn’t really have time for school ·      Sometimes they will give you more things for your questions ·      That you know a lot of things ·      If you try your best you might always get a better grade ·      It’s a smart thing to do and just try it out
10. Do you like asking questions during reading or expedition			Expedition ·      I can learn more from my parners ·      Expedition because that my favite subjest ·      Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing so I ask somebody in expedition Reading ·      Reading because I can empathize with characters even more ·      I like asking question more during reading because I don’t get some stuff in reading so that’s why reading	They seem to see there’s more opportunities to socially interact with questions during expedition