How often throughout a class do we as teachers question students? My principal one time sat down and wrote every single question down that I asked my students in a 20 minute science block. I later found out that I asked 102 questions in a 20 minute block. The purpose of her doing this was to make us think about the questions that we were asking in class. Probably 75% of the questions that I was asking were basic recall questions. The same for our students. It's important that we get our students questioning while their reading. Student's should be questioning why things are happening, how could things change if certain things didn't happen. Student's should be questioning what's going to happen in the book, or what the book is going to be about. To help my students master this reading strategy of questioning I developed a science station to where students read an informational text and then they have to come up with FAT questions while their reading. They write their FAT questions on small post-it notes and stick it directly inside the book. When it's time to switch groups the student's leave their post-its in the book for the next group of student's who are coming to that station. Those students then have to write new questions, alongt wtih answering the questions the students before them left. Not only are student's questioning what they're reading, you also now have an active reading strategy going on in your classroom.
Fat Questions VS. Skinny Questions
1. Fat questions CAN NOT be answered with a simple yes or no answer.
2. Skinny questions can be answered with a simple yes or no answer.
Keep on having your student's write fat questions. It's not nice to call anybody fat, but they'll love that they can call questions fat. HAPPY TEACHING!
*Lindsey
