A Question about Questioning

From the desk of Amanda…

I’m a rule follower.   This is a good thing if you’re riding in a car with me, but sometimes following the rules can be a bad thing.  Let me explain what I mean.

When I was still teaching, I followed the rules.  Whatever my principal said to do, I did—even if it meant doing something I didn’t really understand.  That brings me to my story of questioning “Questioning“.

When my principal said, “We’re going to focus on teaching comprehension strategies,” I did it.  Questioning was one of the first strategies I tried.  I can remember my anchor lesson like it was yesterday.  I read aloud Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco.  Let me paint a picture for you…

“Today we are going to practice asking questions as we read.  I’m going to read a book called Pink and Say.  We are going to ask questions before, during, and after reading.  You have 3 colors of sticky notes on your desk.  The blue ones are for questions you have before reading, the yellow ones are for questions you have while you are reading, and the pink ones are for questions you have after reading.”

(I was really proud of my color coordinated sticky notes.)

I continued…

“We’re going to practice this because good readers ask questions before, during, and after reading.”

So students started firing away questions at me before we read:

• Why is it called Pink and Say?
• What are the two boys doing?
• Why are they dressed kinda’ funny?

They furiously scribbled on their blue post its and I eagerly put them on our anchor chart.  This was easy for them.  They liked it.  WHAT?!?

Then as we read, the questions continued…

• What’s a belly hit?
• Why do they talk so funny?
• Is Say gonna’ die?
• Why did they kill his mama?

Yellow post it notes became covered with pencil-point gray.  I excitedly grabbed the notes and added them the chart.  I had to pass out EXTRA sticky notes.  What was going on here?  My students were actually engaged in a reading lesson?!?

We finished the book and there were still questions…

• Why do people send children to fight in wars?
• Is there really anything so important you should die for it?
• How did Pink feel before he was executed?
• Did Say feel guilty for living when Pink was killed?

We added our pink notes (although it was difficult to get the kids to stop writing questions) and the chart was done.

“Great job students!  We are good readers.  We asked questions before, during, and after reading.”

After the lesson, I was really excited because my students had been so engaged, but I still didn’t “get it”. I JUST DID NOT GET “QUESTIONING”.  Other than having a good time, how had this helped my readers?  What did their questions tell me?

What I know now (and folks it took me a while to figure this out) is this:  The first step in teaching students to ask questions looks just like what I did that day with Pink and Say.  The goal of the lesson is to help students develop and strengthen their inner voice—you know—that ongoing dialogue good readers have with the text.  A lot of students don’t have this happening and a lesson on teaching students to ask questions as they read is step one in developing a voice that thinks and wonders as we read.

Following the rules that day (by teaching what my principal said to teach) didn’t make me instantly understand questioning at a deep level.  But it did get my students and me to embark on a journey to meaningful, thoughtful, and purposeful reading and teaching.

I’ll write about step two (using questions to develop metacognition and assess student thinking) in another blog, but go ahead and give step one a try!