Participants—district instructional leaders, principals, and teachers—will understand how to use key questioning strategies, exploration of ideas and writing instructions to support the National Core Standards for all middle school students.

1. Questioning
Exploring
Writing
in the Middle School

2. Introduction
Welcome!
Are you looking for something that is not just a
middle school language arts program?
Great Books Roundtable is for you!

3. Program Overview
Great Books Roundtable preserves the features
that have made Great Books programs unique
and exciting for more than forty years—a focus
on the Shared Inquiry™ method of learning
supported by high-quality literature.

4. Sample Unit – ―Wolf‖
We are going to use
―Wolf‖, with the video
that depicts a middle
school classroom
working on pre-
discussion activities,
discussing the
selection, and
completing post-
discussion activities
including writing.

5. Questioning, Exploring and Writing
in the Middle School
• PREREADING QUESTIONS
• Please tell us who you are and what
interests you in Questioning, Exploring
and Writing in the Middle School?
1. ______________________________
2. ______________________________
3. ______________________________
4. ______________________________

6. Skills
Roundtable provides a superb
framework for teaching the skills of
•Reading Comprehension
•Critical Thinking
•Speaking
•Vocabulary
•Writing

7. The Teacher’s Role
• As a Shared Inquiry leader, you do not
impart information or present your own
opinions, but guide participants in
reaching their own interpretations.
• You do this by asking thought-provoking
questions and by being an active
listener.

8. Questioning
• TEACHERS -The key to a great
discussion is learning how to ask
questions
• STUDENTS – It is more important to
question answers than to answer
questions

9. 4 Types of Questions
• Factual
• Interpretive
• Evaluative
• Speculative

10. Questioning
The SI Method distinguishes four levels of questions
• Factual – Only one correct answer based on evidence
from the text
• Interpretive – More than one answer that can be
reasonably supported by evidence for the text
• Evaluative – Ask you to decide if you agree with the
authors point of view in light of your own experience
• Speculative – Requires you to make a judgment based
on information from outside the text

11. Types of Questions
One answer Factual Needs text
evidence
Two or more Interpretive Needs text
answers evidence
Two or more Evaluative Needs text +
answers personal
knowledge
Two or more Speculative Leads one to
answers make a
Judgment

12. Questioning
What types of questions are these
for the story “Wolf”?
1. What kind of dog is Wolf?
2. What are some animal instincts you recognize in your pet?
3. What influences you more genetics or upbringing?
4. Where in the story does Eisley act similar to Wolf? Different from
Wolf?
5. According to the author, what kind of power does the remote past
have?
6. Why does Eisley tell Wolf that there is something in us that we
both had better try to forget?
7. _______________________________________________?
8. _______________________________________________?
1-F 2-S 3-E 4-I 5-I 6-I 7-__8-__

13. What makes a good
interpretive question?
• Genuine doubt about the answer(s)
• Care about the question
• Discussible
• Clear
• Specific to the selection

14. Why Interpretive Questions?
• Allows for different opinions to be accepted or
rejected without judgments
• Builds critical thinking skills by leading
students to
 develop ideas
 offer evidence from the text
 respond to the opinions of others
• Allows for a student centered discussion
sharing ideas from quality literature
addressing great ideas and issues effecting
middle schoolers

15. Interpretive Questions
What makes an effective interpretive
question?
• Doubt
• Interest
• Evidence
• Clarity
• Specificity

16. Interpretive Questions Need…
Doubt
(yes, no different answers) – Are there times
when the power of the distant past confronts
our present circumstances?
Interest
Why does Eisley tell Wolf that ―there is
something in us that we had both better try to
forget‖?
Evidence
At the end of the story, why does Easley call
the bison fossil ―our bone‖?

17. Interpretive Questions Need
Clear
Is Easley saying that people as well as
animals are what we and ―and can not
be otherwise because of the shadows?
Specific
Why does Easley tell us that ―even to me
the shadows had whispered – to me,
the scholar in his study‖?

18. Sequence of Questions
• OPENING QUESTION (1 question)
• Introduces and explores ideas, topics, and themes
• FOCUS QUESTION (1 question)
• Examines a central point of the text
•
• CLUSTER QUESTIONS
• Establishes relevance revolving around the focus question
• Interprets a passage, explore a quotations, etc.
• FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS (asked of students to probe and clarify)
• ―Are you saying that...‖
• ―Where in the text did you find support for that?‖
• ―What do you mean by...‖
• ―Tell us more about...‖
• ―Do you agree with Sally when she says……‖

19. Great Books Shared Inquiry
An active and collaborative
search for answers
to questions of meaning
presented by a text

20. Leader’s Steps in Preparing a Selection
1. Read twice and take notes
2. Turn notes & reactions into questions
3. Test for answers and evidence
4. Revise your questions, if needed
5. Select questions for SI Discussion

21. Step 1:
Read the text and take notes
Mark anything that you:
• find puzzling (?)
• think is important (*)
• feel strongly about (!)

22. Step 2:
Turn Your Notes into Questions
• Character motivation
• Unusual language
• Important details
• Ambiguous words/phrases
• Making connections

23. Step 3:
Test for Interpretive Questions
• How many answers do I come up with?
(two or more)
• Where do I find evidence to support
these answers?
(back to the text)

24. Step 4:
Revise Your Questions
What makes an effective
interpretive question?
• Doubt
• Interest
• Evidence
• Clarity
• Specificity

25. Step 5:
Select Questions for Shared Inquiry Discussion
• Group questions that deal with the
same problem of meaning
• Choose a focus question
• Form a cluster of related
interpretive questions

26. Teacher’s Preparation
• STUDY THE STORY
• FORMULATE QUESTONS
• REVIEW RULES
• USE A SEATING CHART
Focus Question: ______________________
Answer: _____________________________
What do you mean by______? What do you think of ___’s_idea?
AGREE DISAGREE
QUESTIONS NEW IDEAS
Have you heard an idea you disagree with? Where do you find that in the text?

27. Discussion of Wolf

28. Writing
• Writing is thinking on paper. Knowing what you think and
how to back it up is the first step
• SI Discussion prepares students to explore ideas and
conclude an evidenced point of view
• Writing then becomes how to construct that on paper.
• Roundtable included a full featured writing component on
CD ROM

29. Roundtable Features
• High-quality literature
• In-depth reading, critical thinking, and writing
activities
• Teaching and learning in stages
• Differentiated instruction
• Common Core and 21 Century Alignments
• Assessment options
• Standards-and research-based learning
• Renowned professional development

30. Benefits
For Teachers . . .
• Paradigm shift in the way you teach
• Integration of 21st century skills in your class
• Integration of the reading and writing
processes
• Meeting of Common Core and state standards
• Assessment of students in order to meet AYP
• Flexibility to differentiate

31. Benefits
For Students . . .
• Improves reading comprehension, critical
thinking, speaking and writing skills
• Growth as independent learners and thinkers
• Participation in a collaborative classroom
• Development of cognitive, emotional and social
intelligences
• Opportunity to learn and practice 21st century
skills

32. Materials
Roundtable leader Materials include:
•Leader's Edition
•Audio CDs
•CD-ROM
•Activity Instruction Cards
•Roundtable Road Map
•Posters and Bookmarks
(The materials also include a student anthology)

33. For More Information
For more information contact
Marg Mortimer
Marg.Mortimer@greatbooks.org
800-222-5870 x7123
or visit our web site at
www.greatbooks.org/roundtable