2. Right There Q’s
• Point to answer in Text
• Who?, What?, When?,
Where?
• Recall details of Text
3. Dig Deep Into Text
• Can’t point to answer in one
place in text
• Ask Why? or How?
• What is…significance or
meaning?
• Pose Comparisons
• Ask you to Interpret, Infer,
Predict
4. Go Beyond the Text
• Q. NOT specifically
connected to one
particular text
• Bring up BIG IDEAS
• Make connections
This is the PowerPoint I used in the second mini-lesson on questioning. In the first lesson, I defined the three levels (“layers”) of questions, using a clip from the first Shrek movie (the “ogres are like onions” clip) to grab attention and set up metaphor of peeling an onion to peeling the layers of a text to “dig out” deeper truths of a text.
We reviewed the three layers of questions learned in previous class.
Lead a discussion of the importance of questioning a text:
Understanding the text on a deeper level
Developing critical thinking skills
Generate writing topics
Explain how deep questions improve Lit Circle discussions—moving beyond superficial discussions of a text. Also, they lead to “Big Ideas” for writing topics.
The questions on the next several slides were generated by students in the first lesson on questioning. Lead a discussion on how these topics give students “Big Ideas” to talk and write about.
Read aloud a text and have students generate questions. I introduce a page titled “questions” in students’ writing journals and explain this is a place they can begin a list of questions which will become topic ideas for future writings.