Adolescent Literature

Questioning

Questioning is a critical strategy that helps readers make meaning of literature by promoting critical thinking about what is being read.

Questioning occurs as a natural part of the classroom routine as teachers encourage students to pose, discuss, and answer questions. Questions can be generated by the reader, a peer, the teacher, or curriculum developers. Any one of these kinds of questions can be answered by the student individually, after discussion with others, or in collaboration with a peer. While most questions require having the text available, some might not.

Questions with different purposes can be asked and answered before, during, and after reading. Before students read, they often use questions to activate prior knowledge, make predictions, and wonder about big ideas that are not answered in the text. During reading, students form questions to compare and generalize, identify the theme, and clarify meaning. After they read, students use questioning to locate information, understand and remember events and characters, and identify the theme.

Questions—whether before, during, or after reading—can have different qualities. Check out the examples at the following web site: www.springfield.k12.il.us/resources/languagearts/readingwriting/tchrques.html

Four Types of Questions

There are four key types of questions:

"Right there" questions (text explicit). These are literal questions where the answer is in the text itself.
"Think and search" questions (text implicit). The answer is implicit in the text but the student must synthesize, infer, or summarize to find the answer. Think and search questions tend to be more open-ended without set answers.
"Reader and author" questions (text implicit or experience-based). The answer needs the reader to combine his or her own experiences with what the text states, i.e., the knowledge presented by the author.
"On my own" questions (text implicit or experience-based). The reader needs to generate the answer from his or her prior knowledge. The reader may not need to read the text to answer, but the answer would certainly be shaped differently after reading the text.

Want to find out more about how to use questioning strategies? Select from the navigation menu to the left or from the links below.

To access additional resources on questioning, select the Links button on the top navigation.