Questioning the Author
Definition:
"Questioning the author is a strategy that engages students actively with a text. Rather than reading and taking information from a text, the QtA strategy encourages students to ask questions of the author and the text. Through forming their questions, students learn more about the text. Students learn to ask questions such as: What is the author's message? Does the author explain this clearly? How does this connect to what the author said earlier?" (Reading Rockets, 2014).
Steps to Implement this Strategy:
"Questioning the author is a strategy that engages students actively with a text. Rather than reading and taking information from a text, the QtA strategy encourages students to ask questions of the author and the text. Through forming their questions, students learn more about the text. Students learn to ask questions such as: What is the author's message? Does the author explain this clearly? How does this connect to what the author said earlier?" (Reading Rockets, 2014).
Steps to Implement this Strategy:
- "Select a passage that is both interesting and can spur a good conversation.
- Decide appropriate stopping points where you think your students need to delve deeper and gain a greater understanding.
- Create queries (questions to encourage critical thinking) for each stopping point.
- Ex: What is the author trying to say?
- Ex: Why do you think the author used the following phrase?
- Ex: Does this make sense to you?" (All About Adolescent Literacy, 2014)
Benefits of this Strategy:
- Increases students questioning skills.
- Increases a student's understanding of the text by actively engaging them in the reading.
- Students learn to critique the author, (Reading Rockets, 2014).
Video 1: This video shows a class discussion using the Question the Author (QtR) strategy. The beginning of the video shows a teacher reading a passage from a book to his class. The teacher stops part way through the passage to ask the students some questions which sparks a class discussion. The teacher does not ask what the author is thinking so much, but what are the characters thinking. This video is a very good example because the entire class is engaged in the discussion. They are all raising their hands; they all want a chance to participate. After a couple questions, the teacher reads another passage from the book, and continues the QtR process again.
Video 2: This is a short video showing only a couple examples of Questioning the Author. In this video students are sitting in a circle on the floor, reading a passage from the text book aloud. When they get to a stopping point, the teacher ask a few follow-up questions to initiate some thinking and class discussion. Although some students answer, there is not as much class participation in this video as there is in the video 1.
Writing Component:
The writing component for this strategy is easy. In order for this strategy to work, the teacher needs to generate some critical thinking questions or queries. Having students write out the answers to these queries as they go through the text and class discussion would be a great writing component. The writing would assess the students comprehension of the material as well as their involvement in the discussion.
Writing Standards Addressed:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
Sources:
Question the Author. (2014). In Reading Rockets. Retrieved July 17, 2014, from
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/question_the_author.
Question the Author (QtA). (2014). In All About Adolescent Literacy. Retrieved July 17, 2014, from
http://www.adlit.org/strategies/19796/.
The writing component for this strategy is easy. In order for this strategy to work, the teacher needs to generate some critical thinking questions or queries. Having students write out the answers to these queries as they go through the text and class discussion would be a great writing component. The writing would assess the students comprehension of the material as well as their involvement in the discussion.
Writing Standards Addressed:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
Sources:
Question the Author. (2014). In Reading Rockets. Retrieved July 17, 2014, from
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/question_the_author.
Question the Author (QtA). (2014). In All About Adolescent Literacy. Retrieved July 17, 2014, from
http://www.adlit.org/strategies/19796/.