questions from "Polar Bears and Global Warming" Qfocus

Initial Categorization (students from the top 3 guided reading groups were given 1 blue post-it each, students from the bottom 2 guided reading groups were given 1 orange post-it each):

 Final Categorization (after we discussed and possibly re-categorized questions in Socratic Seminar):

Some takeaways at a glance:
1) students were much more accurate with their categorizing this time around.  There were a couple of mis-categorized questions, but overall, and regardless of high or low reading ability, students were accurate.
2) 3 students actually generated applying questions, although 2 of them didn't realize it at first
3) Analyzing was again the most popular category of question, followed by evaluating.  The tank is pretty top-heavy, with very few understanding and remembering questions, which could suggest a number of things.  Maybe students had a good understanding of global warming and it's effect on polar bears, therefore they didn't need to ask remembering and understanding questions.  Maybe they felt challenged to ask higher level questions (although I gave no prompting, I only told students to choose the question that they felt was most important with the Qfocus).
4) Both the high readers' group and low readers' group have good parity and their questions are well-distributed among all 6 levels of thinking. 
5) High readers had a higher proportion of their questions be analyzing questions than the low readers.
6) Both high and low readers' initial categorizations skewed higher than their final (true) categorizations.

Their questions verbatim (the number of questions in some categories are not exactly identical to the number of post-its in the final picture of the fish tank; I think this is because in the heat of the discussion during Seminar, we just forgot to re-categorize certain questions):


 Remembering
-When did sentist discover global warming. (Tommy)

Understanding
-How do the ice melt so fast (Emon)
-How does the sun get in if everything is close? (Nyrissa)
-How does the sun light hust them if thay live on the top (DQ)

Applying
-how does riding bikes help Polar bears (Trae)
-Why is global warming effecting Polar Bears? (Darvell)

Analyzing
-Why won't the sientist try to get more ice in alaska. (Dameko)
-Why does Heat creat carbon dioxide that traps heat at mak global warming. (Syriah)
-Why do the Polar bears have to live in the cold. (Omar)
-Why are polar bears dieing? (Kamari)
-Why do we have carbon dioxide (Malik)
-If the tempature of the sun drops to 70 degrees F and on Earth we didn't have things that produced carbon dioxide and other gases would Global Warming exist? (Vianey)

Evaluating
-When all of the ice caps melt, will the polar bears eventually come to dry land? (Donnell)
-can Polar Bears find good home when the ice is melting? (Anyah)
-Will the Poler Bears sevaiv will they or will they not (Cyrus)
-Do polar Bears like there home? (Zion)

Creating
-How can I save the Polar bear (Kashira)
-Can we make things that move but do not ues gases (Demarrion)

To adequately discuss all of the questions, we had to break up our Socratic Seminar into two sessions on two separate days. 
On the 1st day, our conversation centered on Malik's question: "Why do we have carbon dioxide?" which he revised to "Do we need carbon dioxide?".  It was really interesting to hear students' synthesizing how carbon dioxide is a part of their life (in terms of how activities like driving in a car or playing videogames involve emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere).  Another facet of the conversation that Vianey's question ultimately dovetailed into was in what ways does carbon dioxide help make our life better (in terms of keeping the Earth relatively warm-the greenhouse effect makes the Earth warm enough to sustain life on Earth, the problem is that the greenhouse effect is becoming too strong as we pump more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere).  I thought it was positive to see that Malik revised his question during Seminar. 

On the 2nd day I was able to take more complete notes:
Kamari: Why are polar bears dying?
Tommy gives a fairly complete answer, connecting global warming to changes in the polar bears' habitat.
Kamari: Then I have another question: Why do polar bears have specific habitats?
Anyah: Polar bears have to live in the Arctic because if they don't they can't catch their favorite foods.
Darvell: Their bodies are made for extreme cold weather.
Dameko: Why won't the scientists make more ice in Alaska?
This leads to a great review of concepts that range from the states of matter, to the greenhouse effect.  It prompted a nice patch-up of some gaps in knowledge.
As we continue discussing questions, Dameko spontaneously corrects Syriah's categorization of her question, explaining that it's really an analyzing question.  I wonder at what point could students start to do what we're doing in Seminar autonomously?  Maybe I could add a session into our literature circle weekly schedule, when Question Masters (an official job in lit circles) could take their questions that they generated and lead a discussion around those questions...