The Power of Student Generated Questions

(Originally titled “Let’s Switch Questioning Around”)

            “We are kidding ourselves if we think our questions alone turn students into critical thinkers,” says Cris Tovani (Commerce City, Colorado English teacher and author) in this Educational Leadership article. “Instead of spending time honing our questioning skills, it’s time we help students hone theirs. Giving students opportunities to practice questioning will help them way beyond the classroom. People who wonder set a purpose for themselves. They know asking questions will propel them to continue reading and learning… Asking questions gives learners control.”

            Teachers fire off as many as 120 questions an hour, and by middle school, many students have become expert question-answerers – and perhaps teacher mind-readers. The problem is that with many of these questions, teachers are looking for a single right answer, which leaves little room for original thought. Getting students asking their own questions changes this dynamic. “It’s a lot harder to fake an authentic question than it is to copy an answer from some Internet site,” says Tovani. Here are some strategies she recommends:

-   Using students’ questions to drive the next day’s reading and small-group conversations. “Students’ questions provide a great deal of invaluable formative assessment data that helps me adjust instruction,” she says.

-   Cruising around the classroom as students read and jot questions on their “think sheets,” checking in with individual students and collecting the papers of those she didn’t have time to talk with.

-   Being selective about which student questions she’ll answer. She responds to Who, What, When, and Where questions, but when students ask How or Why questions, she’ll respond with another question, for example, Why do you think that’s happening?

-   Sharing a text she’s been reading and annotating to show the questions she’s asking as she reads and explaining that some questions deserve more effort than others.

“I’m humbled by my students’ questions,” says Tovani. “Often they are better than mine.” They definitely help her differentiate instruction. “If students were all answering the same teacher-generated question, I wouldn’t be able to tell who got it and who copied.”

            Of course Tovani does ask her own questions of students, and she’s noticed that they fall into two categories:

Questions that create awareness:

-   What are you wondering about the book?

-   What are you noticing about how the author is using time? Jumping forward, flashing back, chronological? What purpose do you think it serves?

-   What background knowledge do you have about the book, topic, author, or characters?

-   Did you notice the title? Any ideas on how it connects to the piece?

-   What weird or unusual text structures are you noticing? Why do you think the author structured the chapter that way?

-   What predictions are you making?

-   What questions do you have? Which ones do you care about most?

-   Which character’s perspective are you connecting to most?

-   Are there any objects or colors that keep popping up?

-   How could you look at this information differently?

Open-ended questions that inform instruction:

-   Why do you think that?

-   What do you need?

-   Is this boring or are you stuck? Why? What have you done before to get unstuck?

-   Have you tried what we talked about in the mini-lesson?

-   What’s preventing you from working? What causes you to stop?

-   What might you try tomorrow?

-   What do you know now that you didn’t know before?

-   What’s going on in your head as you read? What is your inner voice saying?

“Let’s Switch Questioning Around” by Cris Tovani in Educational Leadership, September 2015 (Vol. 73, #1, p. 30-35), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1PHdPLP; Tovani can be reached at ctovani@hotmail.com.

Please Note: This article summary is an excerpt from the Marshall Memo, issue #601.  The Marshall Memo is an EXCELLENT resource for educators. Check it out at: marshallmemo.com