The Art of Inquiry: Questioning Strategies for K-6 Classrooms FROM THE PUBLISHER
Asking questions is one of the most essential functions of teaching. In The Art of Inquiry, author Nancy Lee Cecil shows teachers how to develop both their own questioning skills and those of their students. The author explains how to model provocative, open-ended questions, and provides many useful teacher- and student-directed questioning strategies. From these, children learn how to ask questions that enable them to construct their own meaning from what they read and experience.
The book is divided into two sections. Part I identifies the many types of questions and the thinking skills they promote (such as knowledge, comprehension, analysis, and evaluation), and discusses how to foster the free flow of questions and answers. Part II provides practical questioning strategies and activities (for example, Polar Opposites, Think Aloud, Self-Instruction, and I-Search) that stimulate the highest critical and creative thinking skills. The author also shows how asking the right questions can help children understand content, learn to ask effective questions of themselves, and make clear connections between diverse thoughts.