rounds of questioning discussion

So I'm looking through my students' questions that they jot down as they read Out of the Dust in explore groups, and I'm so thankful that students are asking and answering these questions as a first round before bringing the "cream of the crop", the higher quality, deeper questions.  Not that the questions they jotted down are "bad", they're just more about unknown words or miscomprehensions.

A few things I'm starting to think about...
1) having question masters prioritize one question per discussion, putting it in the think tank and leading Seminar with these questions.  Tried it on 2/12 by giving question masters one post-it after or as they were having their discussions.  Here's what was prioritized, put up in our think tank, and the first two were discussed during Seminar (the Qfocus was "the homeless family at Billie Jo's school"):

-Why is Billie Jo so eager to not let the baby go if that's not one of her family members.
-Why did the family leave the baby and thay had went to west.
-Why did the people move into the school
-Why didn't the homeless family go to a shelter?

We had a really good conversation around the first question, with students debating if and why the baby reminded Billie Jo of Franklin, her baby brother who died soon after being born. 



The second question was a productive discussion as well, first DQ had to revise and improve his question because he misunderstood that the family left the baby behind.  We talked about how many migrants tried to leave the Dust Bowl, especially to get to California.

On the following day 2/13, I gave them their Qfocus before dismissing them to their Explore Groups "Billie Jo and the Piano", and emphasized that question masters prioritize questions and put them into the think tank.  I was disappointed because several groups skipped the "question reflection" and "discussion" sections of the Explore Group schedule.  I understand they're excited about getting to their jobs, but it's important to have this discussion about questions because it clarifies misunderstandings and enriches their understanding which makes the products they produce in their explore group jobs better.  So I called them into Seminar early, and modeled how a question master would lead the discussion and prioritize the best question to put up in the Think Tank.  This connects to what was my second goal/push:

2) having question masters lead discussions in their groups around the questions from their questioning ladders

We'll see how they do today...