Asking Questions to Extend Understanding

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Asking Questions to Extend Understanding
Sustained Collaborative Discussion

• Strategies to deepen meaning, extend
  comprehension, and enable higher-order thinking

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Teachers Questions

• Questions are guided by definite aims
• To test a students preparation
• To arouse interest
• To develop and deepen insights
• To strengthen learning
• To stimulate critical thinking
• To test achievement of objectives and
• To develop ideals, attitudes and appreciations.

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Good questions are

• Purposeful asked to achieve a specific purpose.
• Clear students understand what they mean.
• Brief stated in as few words as possible.
• Natural stated simply.
• Thought-provoking stimulate thinking
  response.
• Limited in scope.
• Adapted to the level of the class.

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Question-Answer Relationships

• To distinguish task requirements for various
  question types, Taffy Raphael(1986) devised a way
  to teach students what she called QAR, or
  question-answer relationships.

Adapted from work of Area 2 AIO, Dr. Jeannie
Gallo and Harley Till, Area 2 ARC
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Four Sub-Types of QAR

• Right There
• Literal questions
• Think and Search
• Drawing conclusion
• questions
• The Author and Me
• Inferential questions
• On Your Own
• Implied questions

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Right There Questions

• A literal question
• Students are told that, for these questions, the
  answer is right there in the book
• A detail type of question
• Where words used to form the question and words
  that answer the question are often right there
  in the same sentence

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An Example of Right There

• Suddenly, Jimmy saw the missing jewel
  hanging in the chandelier among the pieces of
  carved glass.
• Question Where did Jimmy find the missing
  jewel?

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Think and Search Questions

• These are questions that require a conclusion to
  be drawn.
• Teachers often tell children to be detectives
  finding and matching clues to reach a solution.
• The answer is in the text, but readers have to
  think search.

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Think and Search Questions

• The answer is in the selection, but you need to
  put together different pieces of information to
  find it.
• Words for the question and words for the answer
  are not found in the same sentence. They come
  from different places in the selection.

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An Example of Think and Search

• If the setting of a story was described in three
  different paragraphs, you would have to identify
  the parts of those paragraphs that provided the
  information about the setting.

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The Author and Me Questions

• Questions for which inferences must be drawn
  based on text details plus the readers prior
  knowledge.
• Information to answer the question comes from
  background knowledge, but, to even make sense of
  the question, the learner has to read and
  understand the text.

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The Author and Me Questions

• Prior Knowledge and information found in the text
  must be connected to determine the answer.
• Story Clues What I already know INFERENCE.

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An Example of an Author and Me Question

• In the text, the child reads Mother put peas and
  corn on the table.
• An author and me question might be What meal
  was the family eating?
• From the details given and the childs own
  experience, the child can determine that the meal
  was more than likely dinner.

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On Your Own Questions

• The answer is not in the selection.
• Responses require the reader to draw from prior
  experiences or feelings and make clear judgments.

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An Example of On Your Own

• If students are reading a passage on electricity,
  an On My Own question would be

How do you use electricity in your life?
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On Your Own Questions

• The question relates to the text, but can be
  answered even if the children have not read the
  text.
• All the ideas and information come from the
  students background knowledge.

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QAR Key Words

• Right There Think and Search
• Author and Me On Your Own
• Who is Summarize What do you
  think
• Where is What caused Prove
• List Contrast Apply
• What is Retell
  Create
• How many How did Initiate
• When did Explain Predict
• Name Find two examples Solve
• What kind of Compare What if
• Evaluate

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Types Levels of Questioning

• Low level Fact Recall
• Inferential Puts information together not
  explicitly stated
• Critical Evaluates and makes judgments about
  information in text

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Sustained Collaborative Discussion

• Our primary means of expression, of course, is
  oral language. Conversation is the easiest, most
  natural way to share meaning, and throughout our
  reading lives we may talk frequently with our
  friends and family members about the books we are
  enjoying.
• - Fountas and Pinnell, 2000

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Sustained Collaborative Discussion

• Classroom discussion
• Enhances understanding.
• Clarifies and refines meaning.
• Facilitates making connections, inferring, and
  synthesizing information, as well as the modeling
  of these strategies.
• Channels kid-talk productively into the
  curriculum.

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I Wonder Poems

• Serve to introduce a unit and find out what
  background knowledge students have about a topic.
• Activate background knowledge.
• Encourage asking questions.
• Spark curiosity in a topic.
• Serve as reminders that school is a place to
  honor and celebrate questions.
• - Tovani (p. 79-95).

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Create an I Wonder Poem

• Share questions about a topic or text and copy
  them down so students can see write down every
  question, validating them all.
• Model selecting questions from the list and
  adding new questions to create a poem.
• Allow students to use the list and their own
  questions to create their own poem.
• - Tovani (p. 83).

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I Wonder Poems

• Take five minutes and write an I Wonder poem
  around the topic of a long car trip with your
  family.

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Discussion must be taught

• Elements of discussion
• Ground Rules
• Basic group interaction skills
• Basics of active listening
• Procedural routines
• Valuing personal response
• Supporting response with evidence
• Listening carefully and giving thoughtful
  consideration
• The language of response

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Discussion must be taught

• Thoughtful response to reading is learned
  behavior it is not inborn or intuitive.
• While some students may be more attuned to
  literature response than others, these
  differences are mainly due to their previous
  experiences in reading and the support they have
  had in sharing meaning with others.
• The teachers role is to help students deepen
  response and extend their ability to share
  response.
• - Fountas and Pinnell (p. 281).

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The language of response

• I agree because
• I disagree because
• I also noticed
• Id like to add that
• I didnt understand
• Say more about what you mean
• I dont understand what you mean
• Can you show where that is in the
  text/illustration?

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The language of response

• What is your evidence?
• Why do you think that?
• I think the author meant
• How do you know that?
• Were getting far away from the text.
• What does the author say that makes you think
  that?
• - Fountas and Pinnell (p. 282).

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Evaluation of Literature Discussion

• Everyone got a chance to talk.
• People spoke clearly.
• People looked at the speaker.
• People used signals to get a turn.
• The group worked as a team no one said, Hurry
  up.
• People in the group were polite and kind to one
  another.
• People commented on one anothers thinking.

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Evaluation of Literature Discussion

• People were reminded to show evidence for the
  points they made.
• Group members went to the text to show what they
  meant.
• People stayed on topic.
• The leader did a good job being patient.
• Group members gave details in their answers to
  questions.
• - Fountas and Pinnell (p. 269).

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Using Fishbowl to Teach and Evaluate Discussion

• Select a small group of students to participate
  in the discussion.
• Form an outer circle of observers around the
  inner group of participants.
• Provide elements of discussion to highlight
  criterion for evaluation.
• Debrief about what made the discussion work well
  and create a list of characteristics that make a
  good discussion.

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Read Aloud

• Mexico Next Right
• By Sandra Cisneros

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Our Fishbowl

• Volunteers will participate in a discussion with
  a facilitator around Mexico Next Right.
• Other volunteers will focus on one of three
  criteria to evaluate the discussion
• Language of response
• Qualities of effective literature discussion
• Types of questions used to facilitate the
  discussion

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How did discussion work?

• It was possible because
• Responses were valued.
• Responses were supported with evidence.
• Responses were listened to carefully and
  considered thoughtfully.
• The language of response was used.

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How did discussion work?

• It was difficult because
• Community has not been effectively developed.
• Discussion expectations were not explicitly
  outlined, modeled, and practiced.
• Discussion topic was generated by presenters, not
  participants.

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Faciliating Discussion
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Facilitating Discussion

• Provide positive comments that affirm students
  responses
• That was good thinking.
• I liked the way you backed up your thinking with
  your own experiences.
• That was a nice connection you made.
• I like the way you are listening to each other.
• I like the way you added to ______s comment.
• Youre really thinking.
• Youve got some good ideas.

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Facilitating Discussion

• Restate students ideas in a way that helps them
  clarify meaning
• Do you mean ?
• Could it be ?
• Maybe is trying to say that ?

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Facilitating Discussion

• Encourage students to provide evidence
• What makes you think that?
• Can you provide some details?
• What part of the story led you to that
  conclusion?
• I like the way you are providing details to
  support your thinking.
• I can see why you think that because you are
  providing evidence.

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Facilitating Discussion

• Guide students to elaborate and extend their
  thinking
• Can you say more about that?
• Please be more specific.
• Can anyone add to _______s comment/description/id
  ea?
• What else does that make you think of?

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Bringing it all together

• Sustained Collaborative Discussion
• Students need to engage in authentic discussion
  to enhance understanding, clarify and refine
  meaning, and talk about text.
• Students need to be given gradual ownership and
  control of discussion, after internalizing the
  guidelines of effective talk about text.
• Students need to be able to ask questions that
  will extend and challenge their thinking.
• Students should use discussion to extend meaning
  before, during, and after reading.

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When to Use Questioning

• Before reading
• Activate prior knowledge KWL
• Predict questions.
• Write I Wonder poems.
• During Reading
• Evaluate predictions.
• Create new questions.
• After Reading
• Evaluate predictions.
• Create new questions for further research.
• Evaluate readers comprehension authors
  intent.
• Create summaries (who, what, when, where, why).
• Compare and contrast within text and between
  texts.

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Strategies and Tools for Discussion

• Fishbowl strategy to model and teach
  strategies, ground rules, and guidelines
• Models for Organizing Group Discussion section of
  Fountas and Pinnell (p. 271-275)
• Ways to Have a Good Discussion chart, Fountas
  and Pinnell (p. 281)
• Evaluation checklist for discussion
• Debrief after discussions