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Beck et al. (1997) identify specific steps you should follow when using the QtA strategy.

STEP 1:

Select an interesting passage that will spark conversation.

STEP 2:

Determine appropriate pausing points to help students obtain deeper understanding.

STEP 3:

Create queries (open-ended questions designed to encourage critical thinking) for each pausing point.

  • What is the author trying to say?
  • Why do you think the author used the following phrase... ?
  • Does this make sense to you?

STEP 4:

Model this strategy.

STEP 5:

Ask students to practice this strategy by reading the passage you have selected and work through the queries you have created.

Potential Disadvantages of QtA

Instructional Strategy: QtA

Question the Author

Katie Parker

QtA Discussions

what really knocks me out

is a book

Modeling QtA:

Beck et al. (1997) present characteristics of query-driven discussions (as compared to question-driven discussions).

STUDENT RESPONSES

  • Longer, more elaborate answers
  • Use students' own language, rather than author's words

TEXT USAGE

  • A reference for connecting ideas
  • An ally in constructing meaning

DISCUSSION DYNAMICS

  • Student-to-student interactions
  • Exciting pace, student engagement
  • Process oriented
  • Some questions are student initiated

that, when you're all done

Teachers use modeling to help students learn what is expected of them in a specific environment.

As the teacher, you must demonstrate how a response should be given and how thoughtful thinking sounds.

Modeling should be used to introduce QtA and when it becomes obvious many students are confused or not able to elaborate on the queries provided.

Questions v. Queries

reading it

you wish the author that wrote it was

As discussion facilitator, it can be difficult to

  • ensuring that all students are given the opportunity to participate
  • handle the diversity of learner responses

a terrific friend of yours

Beck et al. (1997) identify major points of comparison between QtA queries and traditional questions.

QUESTIONS:

  • assess student comprehension of text information after reading
  • evaluate individual student responses to teacher's questions and prompt teacher-to-student interactions
  • are used before or after reading

QUERIES:

  • assist students in grappling with text ideas to construct meaning
  • facilitate group discussion about an author's ideas and prompt student-to-student interactions
  • are used during initial reading

How to use QtA:

and you could call him up

whenever you felt like it

J.D. Salinger

What is QtA?

QtA or Questioning the Author is a comprehension strategy that engages students actively with a text.

This reading strategy is used

DURING READING

Rather reading texts simply to obtain information, the QtA strategy encourages students to ask questions of the author and the text to build understanding.

Emerging from the constructivist approach to learning, the principle of actively building understanding is fundamental to the QtA strategy.

Below is an edited transcript from Reading Rockets' interview with Mo Willems.

When I design a character, it's very important to me that a four-year-old can reasonably draw that character, because I think that the book is only part of the experience. Reading is only part of the experience. I want those characters to become so alive that kids create their own comics and their own books, using my characters - in the same way that I started out drawing Charlie Brown and then developed my own characters. I'm designing this character to be as simple as possible, so that a four-year-old can draw it and at the same time, putting him or her in these crazy positions.

What is the author trying to say?

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