When reading over the difference between authentic and assessment questions it’s easy to see that assessment ones are more prominent within many classrooms. Authentic questions prompt thinking and challenge us as individuals. As a teacher it’s hard to ask questions that we don’t necessarily know the answer to. With this being said when looking through the different strategies poetry seemed to be the perfect outlet to encourage authentic questions. Everyone reads and responds to poetry differently so it’s a perfect place to start in challenging students thinking. On pg 119 in Strategies that Work it gives an example poem that a teacher used to take students questions and guide them to inferential thinking. In the strategy example students questions ranged from vocabulary to themes to abstract thinking. This got me thinking…. How come poetry can challenge students’ to think outside the box? And why is this automatically what we (or at least I did) think of when we want to encourage students to ponder and question beyond the text?
To respond to these questions I would first look at students’ as a whole class and then begin to focus in on specific students. Many times there’s a clear divide between students loving and hating poetry with very few in the middle. I think this is because it isn’t something that they’ve had a lot of experience with and is somewhat uncharted territory. I think that to get students’ to be able to answer and eventually ask their own authentic questions they need to be shown how and not let an easy way out. They need to become comfortable with there not necessarily being a right or wrong answer and is why some love or hate poetry as a whole. Poetry can be interpreted and analyzed in numerous ways regardless of what the author wanted to portray. I think sometimes teachers overlook using poetry as a model for this thinking because they underestimate students’ ability to think critically.
As previously stated it is the easy way out to only ask questions that students can give a yes, no, or specific answer for. Students aren’t necessarily ready or have precious experience with authentic questions and if introduced to would need time to become better acquainted with. In the long run using these types of questions benefits the students because they get to not only challenge their own thinking but others as well. It allows for deeper connections to form and develop into understanding. While I think poetry would be a good place to start and introduce students to authentic questioning it’s something that could definitely be branched out into different forms of literacy and can bring forth meaningful discussions.
I was one of the elementary students who had an extremely difficult time with authentic questions. I needed there to be a right or wrong answer, and I hated getting the "that's a good idea" response. I can see that many of my students would also have an extremely difficult time with open-ended questions that require critical, higher thinking. They are used to work sheets, book work, and quizzes. Students are conditioned to focus on finding the "right" answer rather than using their previous knowledge, intuition, and ideas to create an answer of their own.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in your idea of using poetry as a great strategy to help develop this skill. It would take a lot of practice and modeling, in my opinion. It is typical that students dread poetry because it is difficult to approach the text if they don't have previous knowledge of skills to analyze and critique. A way that you could introduce poetry and authentic questions relating to it would be to use song before written text. After all, songs are just poetry set to music. This would be less threatening and students may have greater input if we use a medium that they enjoy. You could move from popular music, to folk music, to lyrical poetry, etc. until you reach a more difficult text for them to form ideas around. My mentor teacher has used multi-view picture books, like Black and White, to introduce authentic questions, too. She asked the students to think about the story and its development as she read. I was extremely impressed with their thoughts and answers to her open questions. This activity makes me think that they would be more than capable of engaging in a conversation led by authentic questions, rather than assessment questions.
I completely agree with the fact that assessment questions are used much more often in the classroom than authentic questions. I believe it is simply human nature to expect every question to have an answer. We cannot expect students to know how to react and answer authentic questions without giving them much exposure and practice answering them and making their own questions. With that being the case, I believe it is something that can be constantly worked on in the classroom and a tool that children and adults can be working on throughout their lives. Authentic questions require a deeper level of thinking about topics and analyzing things rather than looking for simple surface information.
ReplyDeletePoetry is a wonderful way to practice authentic questions and exploring new ways of thinking in the classroom. I am very excited to start my literacy unit centered around poetry because I think it will end up taking on a life of its own. Once students see there is no right or wrong answer I think it will open up many students into sharing more and being more comfortable in stating their thoughts and feelings. That is one of the main reasons I believe authentic questions are so valuable, they do not make students feel like they are wrong or have failed in some way. The most important thing we want our students to do is be constantly thinking and questioning everything around them. Authentic questions allows for that to occur in a positive and non threatening way for all students. I look forward to how my unit will end up and the many different ways authentic questions will pop up from not only me as the teacher but also from my students asking one another different authentic questions.