The Power of Questions

This past Friday I attended a workshop with the educational consultant, Diane Cunningham. I have attended a few of her workshops and classes over the past few years and always walk away with valuable information. This session was on supporting student questioning. We explored four different questioning strategies.

Questioning is important in the classroom because we want students to ask questions and have their questions drive learning because questioning is a key skill of critical thinkers and promotes ownership and engagement.

When I am teaching both middle school and on a college level I might share a video for students to view and discuss. I have students create a chart in their ELA Notebooks or give them an organizer that requires them to jot down what they see, what they think, what they wonder. This strategy is great to use with images, videos, and even primary sources or text.

This thinking routine is from Project Zero (Harvard Education) and encourages students to make careful observation, stimulate curiosity, and set the stage for learning or inquiry.

Another questioning strategy that I use often is QFT from The Right Question Institute. The QFT process requires students to produce as many questions as possible in a specific amount of time about a quote, image, statement or problem. Back in 2018 I wrote a blog post about the QFT method titled, “THE ONE WHO FORMULATES THE QUESTIONS OWNS THE LEARNING.” The cofounder of the Right Question Institute, Dan Rothstein argues, “The rigorous process of learning to develop and ask questions offers students the invaluable opportunity to become independent thinkers and self-directed learners.”

Rothstein and Santana have their own Question Formulation Technique (QFT) –  four rules for producing questions:

1. Ask as many questions as you can.
2. Do not stop to judge, discuss, edit, or answer any question.
3. Write down every question exactly as it was asked.
4. Change any statements into questions.

Not only is this a great strategy for students to showcase their wonderings, but it can lead to a discussion about Convergent Questions and Divergent Questions. Convergent questions focus on a correct response whereas divergent questions allow for more than one plausible and reasonable answers.

Questions have been the subject of hundreds of studies, as this Edutopia article refers to Kathleen Cotton’s research. Here are some of her most insightful takeaways in this short quiz:

1. Which is more effective for fostering learning?

A) Oral questions posed during classroom recitation

B) Written questions

2. Posing questions before a reading should be done with students who are:

A) Older/better readers

B) Younger/struggling readers

3. Increasing the use of higher-order questions to _____ percent improves student-to-student interactions, speculative thinking, length of student responses, and relevant questions posed by learners.

4. Should wait time differ when asking lower- vs. higher-order questions?

ANSWERS Answer 1: A, oral questions Answer 2: A, because young/struggling readers often read only the parts of the text that help them answer the questions. Answer 3: 50 percent. Answer 4: Yes. Wait time should be about three seconds for lower-order questions, and longer for higher-order questions.

When students are working in book clubs or literature circles I aways assign a different discussion director for each meeting. The role of the discussion director is to create questions around the big ideas or themes in the reading to help initiate a lively discussion about the text. Again, students are in charge of creating their own questions and sharing their thoughts, ideas, insights, and wonderings.

The one questioning strategy that was new to me was the question matrix designed by Andy Milne. Students are provided with the question matrix and an image, text, video, even an infographic and have to brainstorm the different questions using the stems on the question matrix. Diane had a poster size of the question matrix on the wall for students to add sticky notes with the question stems based on images viewed.

Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Innovation states, “Questions stimulate discussion and creative and critical thinking, as well as determine how students are thinking. Questions help students retain material by putting into words otherwise unarticulated thoughts.”

• Questions can diagnose student understanding of material.
• Questions are a way of engaging with students to keep their attention and to reinforce their participation.
• Questions can review, restate, emphasize, and/or summarize what is important.
• Questions stimulate discussion and creative and critical thinking, as well as determine how students are thinking.
• Questions help students retain material by putting into words otherwise unarticulated thoughts.

Who Said It: A Carousel for the Classroom

It was a few years back when I came across an image on social media with quotes from Shakespeare and Hip Hop. Then I found one that was Batman or Shakespeare. Recently @mrsorman posted Green Day or Whitman? I love these quotes for a classroom activity. My students are kicking off a mystery unit and I have immersed them in video and print texts of iconic murder mysteries. I thought Agatha Christie or Wednesday Addams would be perfect to use as a hook for this unit.

Whether you make your own (I use @Canva’s carousel templates) or purchase another teachers, you can use these in many different ways to engage active learning and critical thinking skills. Here are five ways to incorporate Who Said It? in your classroom this week:

1. Gallery Walk – Post the quotes around the room and have students walk around viewing and recording their answers. This technique allows students to be actively engaged as they walk throughout the classroom. Students can work together in small groups to share ideas and respond to the quotes or work independently and they provide evidence to support their answers.
2. Bulletin Board – Looking for a low stakes activity but visual eye candy for your classroom wall? Post all the quotes on a bulletin board and you might even post the answers underneath for students to check their guesses.
3. Station Rotation – This can be one of your stations or learning activities that students rotate through. Kick it up a notch as a hot potato game and use that plush hot potato. First, all members of this station sit in a circle. Then, squeeze the Hot Potato to start the music and pass the spud to the player next to you or even across from you. Toss the tater back and forth, up high, down low, around and around. When the music stops the person holding the potato takes a quote from the jar, reads it aloud and then provides an answer aloud. Play a few rounds to have other group members answer additional questions in the jar.

4. Online Game – Choose an on line game platform like Booklet, Kahoot, Quizlet Live, or Quizizz to test your students literary knowledge. This can be played as a hook or bell ringer to start class or use as a wrap up after discussing elements of mystery.

5. Silent Debate – To help students practice argumentative writing, students can select a quote or randomly choose a quote and then have to defend their answer by writing a short response with two pieces of evidence to support their claims.

If you would like a copy of this Who Said It deck, please email me. There are about twenty quotes in total.

4 Ways to Utilize Padlet for Active Learning

Padlet is trustworthy and versatile virtual post board that can be shared with students either in class or as an extension to learning. The most common uses for Padlet include a discussion board, pose a question for warm ups and exit slips and all students respond. Here are four ways that I have been using Padlet in order to create more learning experiences that put students at the center sharing their knowledge and understanding.

Using Padlet as a curation tool helps students access materials in which to examine, respond, and reflect. I first came across this use of Padlet as a digital gallery for reading and writing when I was taking a writing workshop with Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. All the mentor texts of a memoir unit were posted on a Padlet and participants were allowed to choose the one that captured our attention. Teachers can allow students to choose which mentor texts to examine and study the craft moves and then write in the same style of the mentor text. Students can then talk in small groups what they noticed, learned, and even share their writing pieces for additional feedback.

Similarly, the teacher might use a Padlet for a scavenger hunt and post a topic or topics and have students curate images, text, and videos to support or illustrate the topic. When students are studying film shots, after a mini lesson on different film shots students were challenged with curating images to represent each of the shots.

Creating a digital gallery and then having students reading and respond to the text helps collect and collaborate on textual analysis. When students were studying propaganda in dystopian fiction and history I created Padlet of propaganda. Students read, viewed, and or listened to each Gallery item. Then, students chose a Critical Thinking Prompt to analyze and examine the texts presented in this Gallery. As always, student responses (comments) must include TEXTUAL EVIDENCE to explain the connections and analysis that you used to support your claims. There was even a bonus.

BONUS: Use the Google search engine to identify images, drawings, news articles, quotes, EVEN connections to Animal Farm that connect or draw parallel between one of the featured Gallery Items and your research. Click on the (+), to add your research/contribution to the Gallery Wall. 

Lastly, if you are someone who conducts literature circles and or book clubs in your classroom, having students post their discussion highlights and insights on a Padlet helps to gather what students are reading and discussing in the book chats. Students can lead the discussions rather than a teacher posting the question and students responding. The key is that student voice and choice are at the forefront.

There are countless other ways for teachers and students to use Padlet for learning and showcasing understanding. If educators want student to use higher order thinking skills like evaluate, analyze, and synthesize, here are four ways you can promote higher order thinking using Padlet to elevate your lessons.

#FETC2023

I am always excited to talk and share about hyperdocs, playlists, and choice boards. These differentiated and personalized learning opportunities for students are utilized with each unit I teach in 8th grade English. I am sharing my slide deck for #FETC23 in New Orleans for my Mega Share presentation on Monday, January 23rd. Participants will learn about hyperdocs, playlists, and choice boards and the capabilities these blended learning teaching strategies have to offer.

Hyperdocs and playlists are Google docs/slides/drawings filled with hyperlinks to a variety of structured learning opportunities. HyperDocs and playlists can be a useful tool for in personal learning, distance learning, and even blended learning opportunities for unit of study and multi-day lessons. Hyperdocs and playlists promote a self-paced structure that enable students to take charge and choose different activities that align with the learning objective of the Hyperdoc or playlist.

Teachers can enhance their teaching toolbox to support the diverse learners in the classroom with hyperdocs, playlists, and choice boards. I will also share digital platforms and apps to support the diverse learners to create meaningful classroom experiences that promote reading, critical thinking and digital literacy. So, it is up to educators to provide students with a plethora of tools and strategies so they have the opportunity to choose which will best help them reach their learning goals.

Below is a list of different playlists, choice boards, and hyperdocs I have created for my middle school student and share in the slide deck above. Feel free to make a copy of these and adapt for your own classroom use. Please be sure to credit those whose materials you are using, adapting, and borrowing. 

Humanities:

Anti Asian Hate Now & Then: Parallels W/Japanese Internment & WW2 

WW2 & The Holocaust

World War II Military

The History & Fiction of Hunters on Amazon Prime

19th Amendment Centennial

Literature & ELA:

Animal Farm Week One & Week Two 

Raymond’s Run Hyperdoc

Ransom of the Red Chief Hyperdoc

Poetry Choice Boards

Mystery Writing

Movie Viewing & Media Literacy:

Black Panther Origins (Pre-Viewing Guide) & Viewing 

Black Panther Movie Analysis Choice Board

Twilight Zone

Getting to Know Your Students:

Get to Know You Think Tac Toe (Choice Board)

Anatomy Of A Scene Literacy Analysis Assignment

One of my favorite New York Times series is Anatomy of a Scene, “A video series where directors comment on the craft of movie-making.”

Julie Hodgson of the The Learning Network at The New York Times writes “In these short clips, film directors narrate a scene from one of their movies, walking viewers through the decisions they made and the effects they intended them to have. These videos demonstrate to students how to step outside of their personal reader-to-text experiences and examine literature from a wider lens — to see a story, memoir, essay or poem from the perspective of its creator.” 

As my students finish reading graphic novels and I thought it would be awesome to have students create their own scene analysis video break down for readers. I first introduced students to the film series and we watched about four in one period – each episode is no more than three minutes. Then, we used a window notes template to record things we learned about the scene, details the director shared, and how this illuminated our understanding about characterization and theme.

As a class we brainstormed the process of making our own Anatomy of a Scene:

1. Choose a key scene in the text.
2. Complete the graphic organizer to analyze and deconstruct the scene.
3. Use the script template to help write our the key ideas to be presented.
4. Curate the images and types of shots to help visually understand the literary analysis.
5. Record Anatomy of a Scene using Screencastify.
6. Post completed video project on class Padlet.

The New York Times Learning Network has made this worksheet to help students analyze a scene in literature or movie.

Below is the assignment I posted for students on their playlist.

Here are some of my favorite Anatomy of a Scene (Note there are more than 300 of them):

Going Vertical in ELA

I am currently reading Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics: 14 Teaching Practices for Enhancing Learning (Corwin, 2021) after three recommendations. The book organizes “each chapter by exploreing one of the 14 optimal practices, beginning with a deep dive into what are the institutionally normative practices that permeate many classrooms around the world. It reveals how each of these practices is working against our efforts to get students to think, and then it offers a clear presentation of what the research revealed to be the optimal practice for each variable, unpacking it into macro- and micro- practices. These descriptions are punctuated by excerpts from the data, anecdotes from teachers, photographs from real K–12 classrooms, and responses to frequently asked questions (FAQ).” Each chapter provides micro and macro moves that I have been considering and implementing into my classroom. The first thing that I did was to decenter my classroom and randomize the seating daily. Every day, students sit with different classmates. Desks are arranged in pods of three. This has been the first game changer since there is no front of the classroom anymore and I am teaching from every direction. Secondly, I have no complaints about seating or collaboration.

The next pivot I made in my classroom was teaching vertically. Liljedahl states in the book, “One of the most enduring institutional norms that exists in mathematics classrooms is students sitting at their desks (or tables) and writing in their notebooks. This turned out to be the workspace least conducive to thinking. What emerged as optimal was to have the students standing and working on vertical non- permanent surfaces (VNPSs) such as whiteboards, blackboards, or windows. It did not matter what the surface was, as long as it was vertical and erasable (non-permanent). The fact that it was non-permanent promoted more risk taking, and the fact that it was vertical prevented students from disengaging. Taken together, having students work, in their random groups, on VNPSs had a massive impact on transforming previously passive learning spaces into active thinking spaces where students think, and keep thinking, for upwards of 60 minutes.” This means that the more time students are able to stand, think, and actively engage with the material the better.

How does this translate in the ELA classroom when students are reading, writing, thinking, speaking and listening versus completing math problems? Here are four different ways to shift learning vertical that I have been utilizing to optimize learning.

Gallery Walk – This discussion technique allows students to be actively engaged as they walk throughout the classroom. They work together in small groups to share ideas and respond to meaningful questions, documents, images, problem-solving situations or texts. Use a Gallery Walk at any point in the lesson to engage students in conversation, I tend to use them at the beginning of a lesson to showcase and examine mentor texts and model writing/reading passages. Teacher can also use gallery walks after reading a text to discuss ideas, themes, and characters. Gallery walks can be text based on visual texts.

Grafitti – Similar to a gallery walk, items are posted around the room: images, questions, ideas, concepts, or scenarios. Large sheets of paper or chart paper are placed on the walls of the classroom. Students write their responses, draw pictures and record their thoughts on the given topic on the graffiti wall. Students are encouraged to use colored markers to make the wall interesting and to identify each student’s work/response.

Use a Gallery Walk and the Graffiti format for students to get feedback on their work.  Hang student products, such as drawings, visual representations, poster projects, and or one pagers. Students, individually or in groups, rotate around the room and provide feedback to the creator of the work. Students are required to record one thing they like about the work displayed, one thing they wonder about it, and one thing the creator could do next or improve.

Four Corners – Students are presented with a controversial statement or are asked a question. In each of the four corners of the classroom, an opinion or response is posted. Students express their opinion or response by standing in front of one of four statements, and then talking to others about why they have chosen their corner. Four Corners promotes listening, verbal communication, critical thinking, and decision-making.

Question Trails – My reading specialist and colleague introduced me to these on your feet activities last year and I am obsessed. A question trail is an engaging activity that allows students to move around the classroom and complete different tasks. Students follow the “trail” of multiple-choice questions that will show what they have learned from unit of study, a text, or reading. Question trails can be collaborative or individual. It is really up to you the teacher to make that choice. The basic premise of the question trail is for students to understand the material the teacher has provided. The students answer a series of multiple-choice questions. If the questions on the trail are answered correctly, students will be prompted to move to the next question. If students answer a question incorrectly, they will end up at a question they have already answered which means they will need to backtrack to see where they made an error. They will need to determine where they went wrong. To learn how to make your own question trail you can visit Creative ALS Teaching.

Tomorrow when my students walk into the classroom we will begin class with a gallery walk of questions about feedback for them to read and respond to on big chart paper. Then students will watch Austin’s Butterfly and take notes about what effective feedback is and is not. We will discuss as a whole class what good feedback look and sounds like before we meet with writing partners to get feedback on the writing we are working on. There are a few teaching moves that I am implementing from Thinking Classrooms to allow students to actively engage in the lesson and use their mind for thinking deeply.

CASL/CECA 2022 Conferences Takeaways

The CASL CECA 2022 Conference is organized by the Boards of Directors of the Connecticut Educators’ Computer Association and the Connecticut Association of School Librarians. This year’s conference recognizes and celebrates the confluence of educational technology and the preparation of our students for the future with a focus on literacy, social emotional learning, and 21st Center Skills. CASL CECA gathers technology integration specialists, library/media professionals, educators from all walks of life, and IT support personnel who share their ideas, news, expertise, products and productions.   The conference provides a wide variety of professional development and activities in the form of: presentations, hands-on workshops, round-table discussions, speakers, exhibitors, and our annual recognition awards.

Here are 5 key take aways from this rich conference:

1. Social Emotional Learning is front and center. Valerie DiLorenzo presented on “Libraries, Literature, and the Counseling Connection.” With her students, DiLorenzo created engaging, eye-catching posters to grab students’ attention and get them to want to read high interest books that tie in with neuro diverse, social/emotional, and/or mental health topics. She showed participants how to provide satellite “libraries” throughout your school community (physical and virtual) that connect students with potential life-saving and/or life-altering literature. Teq presented 3D printing with Tinkercad and lesson ideas for Social and EmotionalLearning (SEL) where students can create models that represent their emotions.

2. New Literacy is Essential. One of the biggest challenges facing our students today is how to navigate in a world of misinformation. Creation of a news media literacy curriculum in collaboration with Social Studies and English teachers is a way to enhance students digital citizenship and critical reading/thinking skills. Newslit.org and Checkology provide curriculum for educators to utilize with their students.

3. Passion Projects are Still Relevant. Personal Interest Projects PIPs are opportunities for students to explore something THEY are interested in and practice key skills like creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving. Students and teachers rave about these projects because they allow students to de-stress, utilize maker space and interact in the library. Using a scaffolded curriculum that supports students through the phases of designing, doing and sharing their projects Westport HS Librarians shared how these PIPs are opportunities for students to meet up, learn about different cultures, and ideas through their making and time together.

4. Go beyond Essays and PowerPoint’s for students to showcase their learning. Are you tired of students submitting GoogleSlideshows and Powerpoint presentations anytime you assign a project? Different options for student-guided projects such as BookCreator, NearPod, Google Earth, and more choices allow students voice and agency to take center stage in the classrooms. I presented about hyperdocs at the conference and shared multiple examples to help educators consider hyperdocs for more personalized teaching time and less lectures also providing multimodal learning opportunities and lots of choice.

5. Educators and Librarians working together is vital. Now that we have updated the library standards you will see how critical information literacy is for everyone. Explore the standards, familiarize yourself with the standards and you might already see how you are addressing these standards with your students because there is overlap between disciplines.

Teaching Point of View with Diane Arbus

Point of View is the standpoint from which a story is told. First Person is told from the view point of one of the characters using the pronouns “I” and “We.” Third person limited the narrator is an outside observer that focuses on the thoughts and feelings of only one character. Third person omniscient the narrators an outside observer who can tell us the thoughts and feelings of all the characters in a story. Third person objective the narrator reports the facts of a narrator as a seemingly neutral and impersonal outside observer.

I want students to be able to identify and write with different points of view. After a short mini lesson on point of view I give students a photography from Diane Arbus. Diane Arbus was an American photographer from the 1960s. She photographed a wide range of subjects including in New York City including, carnival performers, people with dwarfism, children, mothers, couples, elderly people, and middle-class families.  “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know,” she once mused.

Students look at the pictures and select one to write a narrative based on the point of view selected. You can make a copy of the activity here.

Another way to teach point of view is to view this short film “plastic bag” (2010) by Ramin Bahrani.

Follow up with these questions:

• Who is telling the story?
• How do they see the world?
• How is it different than how you see the world? How is it the same?
• Why does the filmmaker chose to tell the story this way?
• How does the filmmaker see the world?
• What message is being communicated?

A longer point of view activity might be to have students imagine they are a plastic bottle being thrown away in the trash instead of being recycled. Maybe you are a candy wrapper tossed in the hallway, a textbook full of scribbles or a library that can’t stand noisy kids.

• Create a story from the point of view of an object in your school that has a problem.
• Get into a group of 4-5 other students and brainstorm issues in your school. Choose one and develop a stance or viewpoint you want to take. What is the issue and how do you want to help.
• What object could help tell your story. What is the problem the object has? How can it be fixed? Perhaps you want to create a slogan or tagline to make other students aware of the problem and how they can help.
• Create a storyboard to communicate your message through actions and images. Who has the problem, how do they try and solve it? How can others help?

If students are reading a book they might use this point of view checklist to help identify and analyze the point of view the text is written in.

What point of view is your text written from? Use examples from the text to support your answer.

How would the text change if it was written from a different point of view?

Whose viewpoint is missing from the text? What effect does that have on the text?

Create a journal entry for one day from the main character’s point of view. What information will you choose to include?

What can you infer about the author’s interest or attitude towards the topic in the text you read?

If the text was rewritten to be a news article, what details would have to be taken out to make it unbiased?

Choose two quotes that show the author’s point of view.

Here is one more video to help teach point of view.

Stranger Things Classroom Set Up

This year I wanted to set up my classroom with a Stranger Things theme. I found great items on Etsy, Amazon, and inspiration photos on Pinterest. Here is a tour of my classroom with links to the items purchased. Please note I am not being paid for any of these endorsements.

Let’s start with the blank wall where my co-teacher’s desk used to be. Since she has changed classrooms and I am sharing my classroom with my colleague who does not use a teacher desk like myself, we have a blank wall which I hung this photo backdrop purchased on Amazon. Add some fairy lights and it brings ambiance to the room. We are looking for a donated couch or inexpensive couch to place against the wall.

I have two large bulletin boards in the classroom. One I use to hang exemplar student work so I used black bulletin board paper to cover all the boards and then found these Stranger Things wall decals on Amazon to add some character elements from the show. I also love these Stranger Things grammar posters from the PIY Shop on Etsy for the back bulletin board. The PIY Shop has awesome posters and displays that I have used in the past like the Marvel grammar posters and diverse book middle school book characters.

I found this awesome antique cabinet that is perfect as a cell phone dock and picked up a new school supplies organizer at HomeGoods. I have a file folder for catch up work for students when absent. I keep all these items on a table by the door so that students can access what they need. I already have some Halloween decorations set up and the notebook is for a bathroom sign out.

The entire length of my classroom are bookshelves underneath the windows and this year I decided to arrange the books by color. We had a grant for books and I was able to order a dozen new titles to include with the units of study. Many have a humanities theme to parallel with the social studies curriculum.

You are probably wondering where all the desks are and how they are arranged. I have the desks arranged in a horse shoe and in the back two round high top tables and one high top table near the front.

More pictures coming soon.

Book Influencer Kit Summer Reading Assignment

Scrolling through social media I came across some posts where book influencers post images or video unboxing a publisher’s influencer kit. A book influencer is someone with more than 5,000 followers promoting books and reading. Publishing companies develop an influencer kit in order to market and promote a new book and title. An influencer kit includes a copy of the book, nicely designed press materials, and a few small gifts or products that complement the content of the book.

Oh, I would love to be unboxing some of these amazing publishing book kits!

The image above was posted by Abigail Owen on her website. The influencer book she showcases contained:

• The custom box that matches the cover art and is a piece of art all by itself, inside & out
• A custom temporary tattoo to match the cover, created by artist Amy Shane
• A collapsable hand mirror that says “Born to Rule” on the back (the tagline)
• A diamond art kit that is a skulls and flowers design
• The book itself!

Inspired by the images, I designed this book influencer kit summer reading assignment for my students. Students will create their own influencers box based on their summer reading. For additional fun, you can have them create TikTok like videos unboxing and showcasing the influencers kit for others. The objective is for students to make the book’s content come to life. Students will have to think of creative ways to pull the book’s content off the pages and into something fun and tangible. 

• Consider creating a print showcasing your favorite quote or phrase. 
• Make the package personal by including a letter or handwritten note. 
• Include products that will help a reader put the concepts in your book into practice. Maybe include bright glow in the dark stars if the protagonist is fascinated with the universe and the possibility of UFOs. Or atomic fireball candy if the book is Steve Sheinkin’s Bomb: The Race to Build and Steal the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. Even simple items like themed socks, buttons, and stickers can add a little something extra to your package.
• Design the box so that it is visually appealing. Choose colors and fonts that connect with the story.  

The influencer’s kit should contain 4-5 items including the book to market the book to other readers. 

I am so excited to see what my students put together.