Wilhelm+Chapter+7

Chapter

 Reading and Inquiry in the Content Areas:  Using Questioning Schemes to Promote Deep Disciplinary Learning

**Introduction & Issues of Engagement and Competence:**

"Inquiry puts students in touch with the original works and with the actual activity of practitioners." Chapter 7 is meant to give teachers ideas for their classrooms, so that their students become experts in the critical inquiry of all subjects. And they will not do this the old way of doing just busy work! The author begins by telling a story about how when his daughters were younger, they used to have a pretend language. They thought it was fun and cool to speak their invented language; however, one day he heard the girls saying they would never want to speak “math language” or “science language.” Why are these subjects typecasted? What goes wrong when teaching them?

Teachers have a big challenge: to MOTIVATE students. In order for them to be motivated, they need to be able to make connections. They need to get motivated, hook them and move them along on a //continuum of engagement.// This continuum is: Interest, Engagement, Commitment, Interpretation/Internalization, Application, Generation, Communication, and Evaluation. Teachers need to get their students to want to be a member of the club of historians…scientists…or mathematicians. They need to want to SPEAK and DO these subjects! J

QAR and Math:

It was exciting to read in the Wilhelm text, that QAR (question-answer relationships) can also be utilized while teaching science, math, and social studies in the classroom. Too often, teachers are looking for the “right answer” to a math problem rather than focusing on mathematical thinking and the real-life application. According to the Wilhelm text, “ among the greatest recommendations for using the QAR scheme with math is that it encourages a personal connection to the problem, reflection upon one’s problem-solving processes, and a connection to issues in the world that the problem and strategies can help to address (p. 155).” There are 4 QAR types of questions that can be applied to Math: Right There Questions, Think and Search, Author and Me, and On My Own.

**Right There Questions:**
 * Students determine the facts in the text.
 * Students understand the details in the text.
 * Students determine the unnecessary information given in the text.


 * Think and Search: **
 * Students look for patterns in the information.
 * Students determine the proper operation that is needed to solve the problem.


 * Author and Me: **
 * Students decide how solving the problem could be useful in their lives.
 * Students apply proper operations.
 * Students look for alternate ways of solving the problem.
 * Students compare answers, check work, and determine effectiveness and efficiency in solving procedures.
 * Students create a hypothesis and then test their theory.


 * On My Own: **
 * Students consider real-world applications of the procedures they used in solving the problem.
 * Students identify situations in their daily life in which they would apply the strategies they used.

__ **Example of a Math story problem: ** __ Angela went to the candy store and bought 5 candy bars and 3 suckers. Candy bars are $.50 each. Suckers are $.25 each. Licorice was only $.75 a package. Angela only had a $5.00 bill. How much did she spend and how much change did she get back?

**Right There Questions:**
 * How much does a candy bar cost?
 * How much does a sucker cost?
 * How much money did Angela have to spend?
 * How many suckers and candy bars did Angela buy?


 * Think and Search: **
 * What information do I need to solve this problem?
 * Would I add or subtract to find out how much Angela spent in all?
 * Is there any information that is not needed?


 * Author and Me: **
 * Would I buy candy bars from this store again OR can I find a better price somewhere else?
 * How could I keep track of sales on candy bars and suckers so that I know where to shop?


 * On My Own: **
 * Would I buy candy with my own money?
 * How often do I buy candy and how much do I spend?
 * Should I start checking the paper for sales on candy?
 * Should I start clipping coupons for candy sales? Who usually has the best sales on candy?

**QAR and Science**



**For the QAR section of Chapter 7, Wilhelm discusses the technique a middle school science teacher uses in his classroom. Students read an article, taking them back to 1901 ****to discover an earthquake account in Utah. The students were first prompted along to identify the "right there" information, then Dug (the teacher) followed them into a deeper understanding of ****the experience and earthquake destruction. This is a graphic organizer showing the types of QAR questioning paired with the questions Dug used in his classroom.The purple text explains each kind of question and the black text puts the QAR questioning technique into play. **


 * **Right There ** **The answer is in ONE place in the text. It can be found by rereading, scanning, or looking for key words. ** || **Think and Search ** **The answer is several places in the text. The answer can be found by skimming, rereading, looking for important information, or summarizing the text. ** || **Right There ** **“Mr. Long came to Salt Lake City, and reported the earthquake. But in what town did he experience the earthquake?” ** || **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">Think and Search ** **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">“How do the key details about the effects of the earthquake help us estimate its intensity?” ** ||

[] is a great link to explore different examples of QAR with different subjects.
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">Author and You ** **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">The answer is not in the text, so you have to use prior knowledge and what the text says. You can answer these kinds of questions by predicting, rereading, and activating prior knowledge. ** || **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">On My Own ** **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">The answer is not in the text. To answer these types of questions, students must make connections, draw inferences, and activate prior knowledge. ** || **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">Author and You ** **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“What tells you that this might not have been the most severe earthquake on the scale?” ** || **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">On My Own ** **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 15px;">“Looking at the high mountains that we live next to and the fault-line map, what should we do to prepare for the earthquake that will definitely occur in our lifetime?” **  ||

Questioning Circles and Science: **"Why are we learning this?"** ** "I will never use this information!" **These are just two sayings students say about topics in different subject areas. With the Questioning Circles, these questions are easily answered. In Wilhem's text, Denise (a teacher) applied the Questioning Circles to her science class. There are three different types of questioning: Pure Questions, Shaded Questions and Dense Questions (Me/Text/World).

- These questions are questions given to the students based on me, text and world. Students only focus and answer questions that deal with each subpart. Example:
 * Pure Questions: **
 * "What kind of medical treatment did you receive when you had a virus?" - Me
 * "What happens when a virus enters your body?" - Text
 * 'What kind of viral infections threaten the world today?" - World

- These questions are given to students who have to think of two variables when answering.
 * Shaded Questions: **
 * "What vaccinations have you had?" - Me and text

- Students relate themselves to what they have read in their textbook or artical.
 * "Do you face the same risk from viral diseases as adolescents did 50 years ago?" - Me to world

- Students compare themselves with the world based on learned knowledge.
 * "What impact did the smallpox virus have on Native Americans?" - Text to world

- Students learn by reading what has happened/what could happen in the world.

- These types of questions include "Me, text and world." A student must take into account themselves, the text they read, and the world when answering these questions. Questions like these are HOT questions.
 * Dense Questions (Me/Text/World): **
 * "Given what we know from the text and history, should people diagnosed with a deadly virus like HIV be quarantined from others and why?"

- Students need to have factual knowledge, knowledge about the world, personal opinions, and also know how to present their evidence.

[]is a link sharing a visual of the overlapping questions for a questioning circle from Jeffery D. Wilhelm.

Reviewing Whole Units With a Questioning Scheme

Questioning circles are a way to review units and prep students for final projects. Teaching partners agreed at the end of using the questioning circle, "The students "know" this stuff, and they know it the way we want students to know something. They know what they know and they know how and why they know it!" (Wilhelm, p161) This is every teachers dream.

**Rethinking "Coverage" and Textbooks** Teaching is no longer just covering the material. The power of inquiry is a proven technique to ensure students learn the material and can apply it. There is quality research to support the use of inquiry. Many statements are supportive of inquiry such as more engagement, retention of information, deeper understanding, application of knowledge, and higher test scores.

Below is one example of how a teacher and his class used the Questioning Circle for reviewing their unit on Civil Rights. (Wilhelm, p. 162) **Text** : In our readings, who denied others' civil rights? What reasons, social and cultural pressures, etc. could explain why civil rights were denied? **Me and Text** : How would I rank the pervasiveness of the reasons people have been denied civil rights throughout history? **Me** : In what instances have my own rights been violated? How did I react and what happened as a result? How could I have reacted differently for a different effect? **Me and World** : How does my exercise of civil rights compare to that of my peers in other parts of the world, or at other times in history? **World** : In what ways are people today across the world having their rights violated? **Text and World** : How can governments use a historical understanding of civil rights to promote civil rights in other countries not under their control? **Center on Dense Question** : How do and will social and cultural forces affect my personal efforts both individually and as a part of larger movements to preserve and promote civil rights for myself and for others?

These circular questions allow the learner to "think" through the subject and truly connect to the topic. This deepens the learning and understanding of the subject matter.

//The Textbook as One of Many Tools// Inquiry contexts change how textbooks are used. Inquiry forces textbooks to be used as a resource, not as the entire curriculum. Classes utilize other texts and resources. The resources envelope a new look at education; now prior experience and student activities hold as equal in the scheme of learning as the old standard textbook. "Earnest Boyer's Carnegie Commission report (1983) said this: 'Most textbooks present students with a highly simplified view of reality and practically no insight into the methods by which the information has been gathered and the facts distilled. Moreover, textbooks seldom communicate to students the richness and excitement of the original works.' (p. 143)" (Wilhelm, p163)

** Concluding Thoughts: ** "Traditional information-driven approaches zap the energy of teaching and learning, and undermine the capacity of students to apply what they learn to their lives in ways that will continue to increase their competence." (pg. 153) We know that traditional ways of teaching, isn't believed to be the best way of teaching. Wilhelm has given us many practical ideas on how to get our students engaged and motivated about what they are learning. Not only will the students learn more, but it is believed that the teachers will become more engaged in the teaching too. When students are engaged, that will be the motivation to learn more. We will be able to break away from trying to motivate them through awards, grades, and prizes. By using inquiry such as questioning schemes and real life applications, students are more likely to be motivated and begin to get excited. They are naturally engaged because they are interested in what they are learning.

[] is link to the study guide of __Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry__, written by Jeffery D. Wilhelm.