Wilhelm+Chapter+6

= **__Chapter 6:__** //Considering the Intelligence Behind the Text: Helping Students Inquire by Reading with the Author in Mind// =

Chapter Six is about the reader connecting with the author and finding the true meaning behind the author’s writings. Wilhelm writes about Authorial Reading because he found highly engaged readers to be "motivated by taking up relationships with the authors" (Wilhelm p.132).

Authorial reading is a way to think about communicating and connecting with the author. When books are written, authors have “a set of expectations of us” (Wilhelm p. 133). The best way to utilize authorial reading is through inquiry. Inquiry allows the reader to try to understand and look for the true purpose the author is trying to convey to the reader. It also allows the reader be the audience the author imagined when he/she wrote the text.

The point of authorial reading is “to respect the author and her text, and after comprehending it, to grant it the seriousness of reflection and evaluation so we make what we learn from that conversation our own. In this way, authorial reading is learning centered” (Wilhelm p. 135).

Two questioning schemes that will be looked at further in depth in the chapter is Questioning the Author and Hillocks’ questioning hierarchy. These not only work well for authorial reading, but for inquiry as well. Both of these schemes help students to connect with the author and be the reader the author intended the reader to be. It's essential to read respectfully of the author, then make our own judgements because "critical inquiry and authorial reading requires us to evaluate and to move beyond our interpretations" (Wilhelm p. 134).

QtA (Questioning the Author)
Beck and McKeown (2006) developed Questioning the Author (QtA) as a way to help students recognize that the text that they are reading is the author’s thoughts. Students are taught to struggle with the text to construct meaning because the author’s main goal in writing the passage is to challenge the reader to learn something. QtA uses two question types to facilitate discussions: **Initiating Query and Follow-Up Query**. Beck and McKeown use the term query because they want to differentiate from traditional questions which involve spitting back facts. They want students to take it a step further and construct meaning from the passage.

**Initiating Query** is used to open up the discussion. Samples of these include: (1) What is the author trying to say here? (2) What do you think the author wants us to know? (3) What is the author talking about? (4) What’s the important message in this section?

**Follow-Up Query** is used to guide students to combine and connect ideas. Sample questions include: (1) So what does the author mean right here? (2) That’s what the author said, but what did the author mean? (3) Does that make sense with what the author told us before? (4) How does that fit in with what the author told us?

When developing a QtA lesson, the teacher reads through the text identifying points in the text either in which the students may struggle or may contain important information. At these key points, the teacher develops queries. During the lesson, the teacher orally reads the text while students listen. The teacher stops at the pre-determined spots and has the students either discuss a query or choose a query from a list. Click here for a sample QtA introduction lesson.

Using QtA to Promote Authorial Reading:
Since Authorial Reading essentially is designed to get at the heart of what the author meant to be understood through the avenue of his text, QtA is a natural strategy that leads students to Authorial Reading. One natural way to practice Authorial Reading is to focus on the author, his writing, and his life. Readers ask questions which focus on why he composed his text the way he did, his background, and what influence his background has on the text.

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Hillocks' Questioning Hierarchy:
The Hillock Questioning Hierarchy (1980), created by George Hillock, includes seven levels of questions that navigate students through understanding literal and inferential content in a text in order to grasp its abstractions. There are two types of abstractions: **authorial generalizations** and **structural generalizations**. Authorial generalizations refer to themes about the world being expressed in the work and inform personal action, while structural generalizations refer to how the text was constructed to express those ideas and allow students to transfer various ways of reading and writing on their own. Hillocks' hierarchy is more involved than QAR (Questions- Answer Relationships) as it creates a relationship between **factual questions** and **inferential questions**. Hillock divides factual questions, which deal with information that is "right there", into three types of questions that ask for: basic stated information, key details, and stated relationships. He divides inferential questions, which deal with thinking and searching, into two types of questions that look for: simple implied relationships and complex implied relationships. To connect all of these elements, students should be asked hierarchy questions __after__ reading.

Using the Hierarchy to Assess Student Understand Levels:
Hillock's Hierarchy is the only hierarchy to work as a hierarchy. Students must be able to complete level one before completing level two, etc. By asking different question types, teachers can assess where students begin to have trouble with comprehension. Knowing what the students struggle with lets teachers adapt how they are stating questions.. The seven levels are 1) Basic Stated Information, 2) Key Details, 3) Stated Relationships, 4) Simple Implied Relationships, 5) Complex Implied Relationships, 6)Authorial Generalization, and 7) Structural Generalization.



Simplified Hierarchy Adaptation: The Questioning Ladder: pgs 148-149 in Wilhelm Text
This section of the chapter refers back to the previous, taking Hillock's Hierarchy to a different level by adapting it to younger students. Instead of calling this method a "hierarchy" you can call it a "questioning ladder." Also, instead of using the terminology of the seven levels as discussed, they have different names, but still work from the facts to creating knowledge and mastery. Instead, you can say 1) Obvious Information 2) Key Detail 3) Explained Relationships, "How Come?" 4) Connect Some Dots/Playing Detective 5) Connecting LOTS of dots and playing SUPER detective 6) Walking in the Author's Shoes (structural generalizations was left out of this ladder). There is a great example in our text on pg. 149 of the questioning ladder being used for the book, //Frindle.//