Topic: Questions in Response to Literature

10-second review: Teachers should make up their own questions rather than begin with questions in the anthology.

Title: “When Teachers Talk and Students (Sometimes) Listen.” P. Sanders. English Journal (November 1974), 80-81. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: The author suggests that teachers develop a planned set of questions to ask students after reading a piece of literature instead of using the canned, scattershot questions from the anthology or other commercial sources that seem to have no plan or sequence.

Comment: I use an alternative to teachers' or textbooks' questions on literature. Have the students generate and answer their own questions.

Novel
1. Students read for five minutes near the beginning of the novel. What have they learned? What questions do they have? Record the questions using key words.

2. Students read for five minutes in the middle of the novel. What have they learned? What questions do they have?

3. Students read for five minutes three-fourths through the novel. What have they learned? What questions do they have?

4. Students read for five minutes near the end. What have they learned? What questions do they have?

5. Teacher and students organize the list of questions into questions of fact (can be answered in the text), questions of interpretation (Why? and How?) and questions of criticism.

6. The students read to answer the questions. They then discuss the answers to the questions.

7. Go back to see which questions in the anthology or other sources were not covered and discuss them. How many questions in the anthology did the students anticipate?

Short Story
1. Students read one sentence on each page or in each column. What have they learned? What questions do they have?

2. Students read one paragraph on each page or in each column. What have they learned? What questions do they have?

3. Students read the first sentence of each paragraph throughout the story. What have they learned? What questions do they have?

4. Teacher and students organize the list of questions according to whether they are questions of fact (can be answered in the text), interpretation (Why? and How?) and criticism.

5. Students read to answer the questions.

6. Discuss.

7. Go back to see which questions in the anthology or other sources they have not asked and discuss them.

Whenever I used this technique with my students, they became so involved in the novel or short story, that, frankly, they would not shut up. They were their questions and they wanted to know the answers. RayS.

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