Questioning Questioning Part 2

From the desk of Amanda…

Last week we talked about taking the first step in having students ask questions.  The goal with step one is just to practice asking questions so students can strengthen their inner voices—the simple act of being conscious and intentional about asking questions helps achieve that.

But we can’t stop there.  We have to dig deeper.  And so do our students.

So what are the next steps?  As teachers, we have to learn to assess what students’ questions are telling us about their thinking.  And students have to understand how their questions help them.  If these pieces are missing, then questioning becomes a task that engages children but not a strategy that supports their comprehension.

Now for the hard part…because remember, I did NOT get questioning for a LONG time.  The only way I was able to understand how this strategy helps my students was to figure out two things:

• What kinds of questions did I ask?
• How did those questions help me?

So I started paying attention to my inner voice instead of just telling students to listen to theirs.  My inner voice told me a lot.  Here’s what I learned:

Sometimes my questions helped me clarify confusion and apply a strategy to help myself.  Here are some examples:

• Confusion:  What does ‘quixotic’ mean? 
• Strategy:  I better try to figure it out so I can understand this sentence.  Let me see if I can think of a word that might be a synonym that would make sense.
• Confusion:  Wait a minute, how does artificial sweetener trick our brains?  I’m not sure I got that. 
• Strategy:  There was a lot of scientific information in those few sentences.  I better reread and go a little more slowly to try to understand all this new information.

These questions let me know a couple of things about my thinking:  First, I was monitoring my comprehension (that’s a good thing) and second, my questions prompted me to apply strategies to clear up my confusion.  So if questioning helped me do this, it could also help my students.  OK…now this is making some sense.

As I continued to listen to my inner voice, I noticed that sometimes my questions gave me a purpose for reading and kept me engaged.  The best example of this came from my recent reading of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Questions raced through my mind nonstop as I read:

• What are The Hunger Games?
• Who will be picked to participate in The Hunger Games?
• Will Katniss end up with Peeta or Gale?
• Can Haymitch be trusted?

I was so interested in finding answers to my questions, that I could not stop reading and I stayed very focused as I read to seek out those answers.  “Hmmm…”  I thought, “I bet my students are doing this and don’t even realize it.”  I can teach them how to listen for these questions to give themselves a purpose for reading.

Finally, I realized questions helped me deepen my understanding as I read.  An example of this also occurred as I read The Hunger Games.  At one point in the trilogy, Katniss (the main character) describes Plutarch (another character) by saying, “Eyes always on the forest instead of the trees.”

As I read those words I wondered, “What is the author really telling me here?  Let me think through this…”  My question ultimately helped me infer that Plutarch was always thinking about the ultimate goal (emancipation aka the “forest”) instead of individual victories.  It also helped me understand he was willing to sacrifice people to make his goal happen.  (This of course led me to another question which was, “Is it ever ok to send people into a battle where you know they will die?”)  So you can see how the initial question led me to thinking about the text at a much deeper level.

Once I was aware of the way I was using questioning, I was better equipped to assess the kinds of questions my students asked and help them see how those questions supported their comprehension.  I hope that if you (like me) have had some questions about “questioning” that this helps you help your students.

Happy questioning!