1. Questioning
A Workout for the Brain

2. “Questioning is an active sport than can be done lying on the sofa
“Questioning is an active sport than can be done lying on the sofa. Instead of exercising the reader’s legs, he’s exercising his brain. But that great workout will come only if he’s engaged and interacting with the page.” S.Zimmermann, 7 Keys to Comprehension

3. “The most important questions don’t seem to have ready answers
“The most important questions don’t seem to have ready answers. But the questions themselves have a healing power when they are shared. An answer is an invitation to stop thinking about something, to stop wondering. Life has no such stopping places. Life is a process whose every event is connected to the moment that just went by. An unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road.” Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

4. Does Questioning Really Help Me Exercise My Brain?
Read the passage. As you read,
pose questions you may have in
the margin.
Share your questions with a partner.
How did questioning help you
better understand the passage?

5. “Questions lead readers deeper into a piece, setting up a dialogue with the author, sparking in readers’ minds what it is they care about. If you ask questions as you read, you are awake. Diving in with questions—even those that are unanswerable—enriches the reading experience.” Susan Zimmermann, 7 Keys to Comprehension

6. Why Teach Questioning?
According to Cris Tovani, readers who ask questions when they read assume responsibility for their learning and improve their comprehension in four ways:

7. 1. By interacting with text.
When assigned difficult nonfiction, students often grumble that their mind wanders and that they can’t remember what they have read.
Readers who intentionally ask questions establish a purpose for their reading and tend to be more focused. Students are more invested in the material because they own their questions.

8. 2. By motivating themselves to read.
Readers who are taught how to question a text are more likely to grapple with meaning in order to find answers to their questions.
Questioning fosters curiosity and encourages the reader to stay with the material. As readers look for answers to their questions, they find the reading more interesting.

9. 3. By clarifying information in the text.
Clarifying questions (those asking who, what, why, when, and where) help the reader understand elements of plot, character, and setting. In order to think more deeply about a text, readers must clarify simple confusions and fill in missing information.
Readers who ask clarifying questions are not necessarily literal thinkers. Clarifying questions may indicate that a reader needs more support to clear up confusion.

10. 4. By inferring beyond the literal meaning.
It’s difficult to infer without first wondering about something. Expecting the students to infer before they question a text is unreasonable. Inferential thinking is born out of questions the reader has about the information stated indirectly in the text.
Questioning helps readers go beyond literal meaning in order to engage in inferential thinking.

11. Are You Ready for the Workout?

12. Do you… If you answered yes to any of the above…
ask too many questions?
fail to wait long enough for answers?
move to someone else if a student doesn’t answer quickly enough?
try to do everything at once?
always seem to call on the same students?
listen only for the answers you are expecting?
allow discussion to become a ping-pong volley of questions and answers?
fail to teach students to ask their own questions?
If you answered yes to any of the above…

13. Then you’re a candidate for this training!!!

14. Who Owns the Questions in Our Classroom
Who Owns the Questions in Our Classroom? The answer should simply be: THE LEARNERS DO!

15. How Do We Teach Students the Craft of the Game?

16. Training Tips

17. Tip 1: Good readers should be encouraged to ask questions
Tip 1: Good readers should be encouraged to ask questions. In many traditional classrooms, the teacher is solely responsible for asking the questions. Although the teacher may be asking high-level, thought-provoking questions, it doesn’t mean that the answers will be high-level and thought-provoking.

18. Tip 2: Good readers ask questions when they learn something new or read something unfamiliar. Asking questions facilitates learning, and new information often leads to more sophisticated questions I Read It, but I Don’t Get It

19. “Real-world questions are things you really wonder about
“Real-world questions are things you really wonder about. They affect a lot of people. School questions are easy to answer and just affect people who don’t understand what’s going on.” Amanda, grade 12 Cris Tovani, I Read It, but I Don’t Get It

20. Tip 3: Good readers are curious about the world around them
Tip 3: Good readers are curious about the world around them. Asking questions and wanting more information gives them a reason to read I Read It, but I Don’t Get It

21. Tip 4: Reading material that the reader values and wants to understand encourages questions.

22. “Teachers have a choice
“Teachers have a choice. We can choose to cover the curriculum or we can choose to teach students to inquire. If we choose to cover the curriculum, our students will fail. If we teach our students to inquire, we will have a well of information from which to teach and our students will have a purpose for learning. It is our obligation to renew our students’ curiosity and guide them toward inquiry.” Cris Tovani, I Read It, but I Don’t Get It

23. Tip 5: An environment should be established that nurtures wonder and promotes active questioning instead of passive answering.
Instituting a question of the day
Charting questions on a question web
Reading newspaper and magazine columns
Reading question books
Stephanie Harvey, Nonfiction Matters
Holding classwide discussions
Reading aloud
Coding text
Identifying burning questions
Playing question games

24. Tip 6: When teachers model their own questions and demonstrate the power of inquiry, students will be invested in the course. Many students come to class to sit quietly and let the teacher just give them the information. Let the students become a part of this important work.

25. Tip 7: It is beneficial for the teacher to model questioning with short texts over several days, making a clear distinction between reading aloud and thinking aloud.

26. Tip 8: Good readers ask questions before, during, and after reading.

28. Tip 9: Good readers mark text to hold their questions so they can return to them later. It also helps readers establish a purpose so that their minds don’t wander as they read Cris Tovani, I Read It, but I Don’t Get It

29. Tip 10: Good readers need to know that there are two types of questions: thin questions asked to clarify information (a factual question with just one answer) and thick questions which address large, universal concepts and are open-ended (an interpretive question with many possible answers).

30. Verbs That Lead to Open-Ended Questions
Compare
Contrast
Evaluate
Connect
Show
Ask why
Design
Classify
Examine
Analyze
Relate

31. Questioning Pyramid Answer: -may not exist -comes from inference
-comes from extensive research
Challenge
-comes from examples throughout the entire text
- may be debatable
Enhance
Clarify
-is found in the text
-comes from schema
-”Yes/No”
-one word
-correct answer
Literal
No Questions
Questioning Pyramid

32. Tip 11: Good readers understand that answers may be found in the text, in my head, and in another source. Also, questions may be ponderable questions or clarifying questions.

33. Tip 12: Supporting students with prompts when conferencing with them promotes self-questioning.
What will happen next?
How will the character solve his/her problem?
What have you learned that’ll help you understand a character, a decision, or a conflict?
What did you learn from the pictures? diagrams? charts?
Did you read the captions?
I like the way you raise questions and read on to explore answers.

34. Tip 13: Adhering to the following strategies promotes effective questioning in the classroom.
Establish eye contact
and cue student’s
responses
Allow student
questioning
Move closer to
students who don’t
respond
Remember “wait time”
Ask “follow-ups”-
Why? Do you agree?
Can you elaborate? Can
you give me an example?
Call on students randomly
Withhold judgment

35. Equipment needed for a successful workout
Short pieces of text—poems, newspaper articles, snippets from a textbook, picture books—that invite curiosity
Graphic organizers and charts to make the learning visual

36. I Wonder...

37. Direct quote and page number
I wonder… 1. 2. 3. 4.
I Read It, but I Don’t Get It

38. Cris Tovani, I Read It, but I Don’t Get It
What’s Your Thinking?
What are you wondering?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What do you think might be a possible answer to your question?
What connections can you make?
Cris Tovani, I Read It, but I Don’t Get It

39. Name:
Read “Man at the Well.”
2. As you read the piece, you will have questions. Jot the questions you have in the margins where the questions arise.
You should have at least three questions.
After finishing the piece, write a response. It should be at least a paragraph long with no less than four sentences.
4. Notice the questions you asked. Write the three best ones below and then decide where the answers to the questions could be found: in the text, in the reader’s head, in another source. a) b) c)
5. What do you know about: war, Vietnam, the elderly, bullies? Jot down background knowledge you have about any of the above topics I Read It, but I Don’t Get It

40. Comprehension Constructor for Questioning and Identifying Confusions
As you read the text complete the following:
Record three questions from your reading that you think are interesting. a) b) c)
Highlight places in the text that are confusing.
After you finish reading, record what you remember.
Did you find any answers to your questions? Write down what you found out.

41. Survey
Question
Read
Recite
Review

42. Stephanie Harvey, Nonfiction Matters
Question
Answer
How cold can the thermosphere get?
2. What is the difference between an updraft and a downdraft?
It can get down to
-200 degrees or lower.
2. An updraft goes up and a downdraft goes down.
Stephanie Harvey, Nonfiction Matters

43. What I Know
What I Want to Find Out
What I Learned

44. Why was it called the Underground Railroad?
Question Web
Why was it called the Underground Railroad?

45. Concept Ladder Janet Allen, Tools for Teaching Content Literacy

46. QAR Questioning
Right There 1. 2.
Think and Search
On Your Own

47. Cornell Note-Taking System
Questions Answered by Notes
Notes
Summary of Notes
(1-2 sentences)
Janet Allen, Tools for Teaching Content Literacy

48. Questions…Questions…Questions
Name: __________________________ Date:___________________
Text: ___________________________________________________
What are three questions that this text answers?
____________________________________________________
What questions do I still have after doing this reading that are not answered right in the text? (Try to think of three questions.)
Nancy N. Boyles, Constructing Meaning

49. “If only I could ask the right question.”
Einstein was fully aware that his greatest task was not providing answers but coming up with profound questions, seeking the right question, which would open up new realms of inquiry.

50. The Question IS the Answer
“Without strong questioning skills, you are just a passenger on someone else’s tour bus. You may be on the highway, but someone else is doing the driving.”
Jamie McKenzie

51. “Once you have learned how to ask relevant and appropriate questions, you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.”
Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner

52. Bibliography – Questioning
Allen, Janet. Tools for Teaching Content Literacy. Portland, ME:
Stenhouse Publishers, 2004.
Boyles, Nancy N. Constructing Meaning Through Kid-Friendly
Comprehension Strategy Instruction. Gainesville, FL: Maupin
House, 2004.
Gallagher, Kelly. Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts,
4-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2004.
Harvey, Stephanie. Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing, and
Research in Grades 3-8.York, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 1998.
Harvey, Stephanie and Anne Goudvis. Strategies That Work:
Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding. York, ME:
Steinhouse Publishers, 2000.
Keene, Ellin and Susan Zimmerman. Mosaic of Thought: Teaching
Comprehension in a Reader’s Workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinmann,
1997.
Robb, Laura. Teaching Reading in Middle School: A Strategic Approach
to Teaching Reading That Improves Comprehension and Thinking.
New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc., 2000.

53. Tovani, Cris. Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Content
Comprehension, Grades Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers,
2004.
Tovani, Cris. I Read It, But I Don’t Get It: Comprehension Strategies
for Adolescent Readers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2000.
Wilhelm, Jeffrey D. Strategic Reading: Guiding Students to Lifelong
Literacy Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001.
Zimmerman, Susan and Chryse Hutchins. 7 Keys to Comprehension: How
to Help Your Kids Read It and Get It! New York, NY: Three Rivers
Press, 2003.