As a teacher I believe that asking questions is a skill that all students need to be able to do. How many times have you said, “I didn’t know enough, to know what questions to ask”?
One of the things I try to share with my students is the love of learning. I love research, I am always learning things that surprise me. I have been pairing pictures with the Question Formulation Technique developed by the Right Question Institute http://rightquestion.org/about/strategy/ . I love the book “Make Just One Change”.
I have been featuring authors of children’s literature. I decided I would feature Robert May - author of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as my mystery photo. As I began looking for pictures of the author, I came across the picture I wanted to use in a post by Nate Bloom.
As I read his post I learned about the author of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and other Jewish writers who penned contemporary holiday music and stories. The juxtaposition provides a tantalizing layer to these literary treasures.
I took the picture, put it in a powerpoint slide. Broke it into quadrants - placed four text boxes filled with different colors over the picture. Animated each square to reveal part of the picture each time I clicked. The kids developed questions they wanted to know about the picture. The rules are: write down every question as the person says it. You can not judge the questions, or stop and discuss or answer them. Each time I revealed part of the square the kids asked more questions.
I left the section with Rudolph’s head for the last piece to be uncovered. My students are getting better at asking deeper questions. This week we will explore May’s biographical information. I wonder what questions they will have after reading about Robert May?
Like every good Paul Harvey fan - "And now you know the rest of the story."
