Teacher: “Write a paragraph that describes what you did this summer.”
Student: “How many sentences do I need?”
Teacher: “You need as many as it takes to give me a full idea of what you did this summer.”
Student: “Okay. One sentence will do. I didn’t do anything this summer.”
I’m sure you’ve heard this or something similar to it a zillion times. Part of what makes writing hard is that the blank page has an evil stare. It will stare back at us for however long it takes to activate our thinking or intimidate us into not thinking. Teaching writing is teaching thinking…and because there are multiple types of thinking (critical thinking, creative thinking, analytical thinking, etc.) and multiple purposes for thinking (thinking to solve a problem, explore an idea, make a decision, etc.), writing is hard. Of the myriad ways we teach students to think in each of our disciplines, one of the best thinking tools we can teach is the art of questioning. Tapping into students’ natural curiosity will help them write in deep and compelling ways – or at least find a way out of their writers’ block.
Two Very Helpful Resources for Getting Something on the Page – and Making it Substantial
#1 Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding – Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins
Essential Question:Is there ever a “just” war? Not Essential Question: What key event sparked World War I? Essential Question: How strong is the scientific evidence? Not Essential Question: What is a variable in scientific investigations? Essential Question:What is the impact of rest and inactivity on the human mind, body, and spirit? Not Essential Question: What did you do this summer? This book helps teachers design questions that speak to the crux of important issues in each discipline. It’s definitely a book you want on your shelf.
Click HERE for further exploration.
#2 Make Just Once Change: Teach Students to Ask their Own Questions – Dan Rothstein and Susana Luz
This book provides a step-by-step strategy for helping students design good questions based on a teacher-generated question focus (QF). The question focus should NOT be a question. The purpose is to have students ask questions based on the QF. Design the QF based on your lesson objective or essential question. The QF can be a visual or audio snippet or just a short statement.
Question Focus (never a question): A boring, inactive summer. Possible Student-Generated Questions: What makes summers boring? What does it mean to be inactive? What does boring mean? What does it look like when I’m bored? If my summer was boring, how did I contribute to it? Why didn’t I do anything this summer? Whose responsibility is it to entertain me? What does it mean to be entertained? Is it even possible to do nothing during an entire summer? How do I know? What does doing nothing look like? What didn’t I do?
I’m sure you see where this is going. If we ask good questions and teach students to ask their own good questions, we have a fighting chance at helping students fend off the blank page’s evil stare.