“You know, Ms. G, it’s a good thing this is my question, because if you had assigned it to me, I would have quit by now.”
With those words, I knew I had found a way to make inquiry and research work in a language arts classroom. Research is never easy, but my new challenge was to incorporate the use of inquiry into my instruction.
While taking a graduate class at a local university, I had the pleasure to participate in activities sponsored by the Elementary Science Integration Projects (ESIP). I understood their ideas with a focus on science and the use of inquiry in science instruction, but I really did not see where a language arts teacher could host the kind of investigations they wrote about and demonstrated. However, it was my task to try.
So I began with a “Question Board” where we could place any question that might arise while reading and I modeled with my own wonderings.
For instance, as my sixth grade students were reading Greek mythology, I would ask, “I wonder what King Tantalus did that deserved his eternal punishment?” Or, “How are the modern Olympics related to the ancient ones?” These questions would be written on a post-it note and placed on the laminated Question Board.
Students began to add their own – sometimes they would ask a story question and I would respond that it sounds researchable, put it on the question board. As we read more myths, they began to relate the Gods’ names to familiar celestial objects and to wonder where that connection came from. That sounded like a great research question, so it was added to the board.
When it came time to do our curriculum-driven research, I could teach the research process with the motivation of the students’ genuine topics of interest. The students taught me that when you really want to know the answer, the difficulties of comprehending informational text, note taking, and documenting sources is less intrusive.
And that is why Mickey’s comment, made at the end of a frustrating day scouring the Internet and informational texts, told me we were on the right path – maybe language arts was the exact place for inquiry as a tool for richer comprehension and greater motivation.