Questioning Phase
Educational journals are rich with an instructional caveat many
in our field ignore: A student’s ability to question effectively is
not innate or pre-wired at birth, but a faculty that must be overtly
demonstrated and cultivated by the teacher (Canter, 2003). Since
this opening segment is the most critical of all the elements in
the Internet Inquiry framework, I spend a few weeks exposing
my seniors to three-story interrogative levels before I even
introduce them to the psychology/self-help series I draw their
project questions from. As they read the novel Ellen Foster, I
compose problems at the recall, comprehension, application,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation rungs on Bloom’s ladder,
making certain to identify the question stems and the what, why,
how adverbs used in each type. Then I have my teens write and
share their own tiers of inquiry in connection with a second
parallel reading, the Vietnam fiction piece The Things They
Carried. In this way, they are sufficiently prepared to tackle the
more difficult narrowing down of research ideas that come with
Evelyn McFarlane’s popular series of coffee table books. First
published in 1995, her If Questions for the Game of Life, Would
You…? And, How Far Will You Go? works were sold under one
advertising slogan: Break out this little beauty to stimulate
conversation in awkward social settings. However, her musings
so perfectly mirror the alternative cognitive and emotional
mindset of at-risk youth that they have a direct classroom