Questioning and Prompting to Enrich and Deepen Classroom Conversation Summer Summit August 22, 2017

Questioning When, Where, How do we question students? Ideally, what do we want to hear when students respond to questions? Why do we question? What kinds of questions do/should we be asking? When we ask more questions, what happens? When we ask more HOT questions, what happens? Socrates…Why is Socrates’ method of questioning effective? Principals, evaluations, good teaching, Socrates – all demand HOT questioning – but what is it?

Close Reading and TDQ’s Common Core asks students to gather evidence, knowledge, and insight from what they read TDQ’s require knowledge of the text to be answered. Considering the Gettysburg Address, are these TDQ’s? Why did the North fight the Civil War? Have you ever been to a funeral or grave site? Lincoln says that the nation is dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.” Why is equality an important value to promote?

Text Dependent Questions: Defined “Text-dependent questions, as the name denotes, are questions designed around a fiction or nonfiction piece that prompt readers to use the actual text to respond. These are questions designed to compel students to examine and analyze the author’s work at a sophisticated level to decipher surface and hidden meanings.” From Mapping and Designing Units to the ELA Common Core, 6-12 by Kathy Glass

Close Reading 3 Course Meal Text Dependent Questions: Appetizer: Key Ideas and Details Meat/Tofu and Potatoes: Craft and Structure Dessert: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

TDQs typically do one of the following… Analyze paragraphs on a sentence-by-sentence basis and sentences on a word-by-word basis to determine the role played by individual paragraphs, sentences, phrases, or words Investigate how meaning can be altered by changing key words and why an author may have chosen one word over another Probe each argument in persuasive text, each idea in informational text, each key detail in literary text, and observe how these build to a whole Examine how shifts in the direction of an argument or explanation are achieved and the impact of those shifts Question why authors choose to begin and end when they do Note and assess patterns of writing and what they achieve Consider what the text leaves uncertain or unstated Achievethecore.org

Close Reading Process Read for the flow and the gist Use text-dependent questions to probe Author’s arguments How characters/events interact Language choices Text structure Annotate and Discuss to record and trace the development of your thoughts

Let’s Try It! Read “The Chicago Fire” and highlight phrases that stand out to you; note the key ideas and details – the gist of the text Review the TDQ’s: What do you notice? What surprises you about the questions? Where do they fit in our 3 course meal? How do they support student comprehension and then analysis? Now – Try your own. Using the Template and your Unit One Text, Create 5 TDQ’s based around our 3 course meal

Ideas for Introducing the Passage Avoid conducting pre-reading activities; allow students to experience the text on their own. Give brief definitions of words in which context clues do not reveal meanings. Set the stage for the lesson by posing an essential guiding question and stating the title and author. Prepare students for complexity.

In Summary: Text-Dependent Questions 10 Specifically asks a question that can only be answered by referring explicitly back to the text being read. Will linger over specific phrases and sentences to ensure careful comprehension and analysis of the text. Will help students see something worthwhile that they would not have seen on a more cursory reading.