Engaging Readers & Writers with Inquiry

by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm

What makes a good relationship? How does flight influence behavior for humans and birds? Is it ever permissible to lie? Reframing our units and lessons with questions such as these makes learning more exciting for students. Wilhelm debunks the myth that teaching through inquiry is hard. He shares practical, easy ideas for turning state standards into engaging authentic questions that propel students toward deep understandings. Includes sample lessons, discussion techniques, and questioning schemes for all the content areas.

Genres: Education, Teaching, Professional Development, Nonfiction, School

176 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2007

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's books like this which remind me why I got into teaching. Reading it got me just as excited as I am every September to try something new.

Ironic, in a sense, as this book is centered on inquiry, and I ask plenty of questions every day. What I realize now, however, is that I ask them without a detailed game plan, without building from simple to more complex, without always considering my ultimate destination and how best to get there.

What's more, the book has shown me the paramount importance of "front loading" every unit and every book with "guiding questions" that relate not only to the world, but to students' lives. A guiding question for Romeo & Juliet (which Wilhelm uses as a rather thorough example) might start with, "What is a good relationship?" or "What factors ruin or threaten relationships?" Such questions would be the touchstones the teacher and students return to throughout the unit, but there's much more.

For instance, Wilhelm provides numerous formative activities built on inquiry and shows how you can guide students from simpler questions (what's there in the text) to more complex (what must be inferred) to more complex still (generalizing about author's intent as well as author's use of structure to accomplish intent).

Wilhelm provides examples from Grades 3/4 all the way to high school, and he reassures the reader that all of these ideas can be fashioned to suit any age. And although most of the examples come from language arts, Wilhelm also shows its suitability across the discipline, offering examples from math, science, and social studies.

I will spend the remainder of this year tinkering with units to make them inquiry-based, using various ideas from this rich text. And this summer, I hope to really dig in and ready my entire curriculum for an inquiry makeover in 2008-09. I'm already convinced this will make my students more enthusiastic by making it more relevant to their lives in a way that's both personal and structured. Can you say "win/win"?

[Dana Schroeder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wilhelm challenges teachers to rethink their approach to teaching by creating inquiry based units focusing on student centered activities. Wilhelm begins his book by providing various examples of inquiry based units that grab learners' attentions with provocative questions that represent real world problems. The author walks the reader through the reframing of existing curriculum into inquiry units which includes identifying an essential question and enduring understandings, create a final project that encourages student ownership and practices essential skills, and create a backwards plan for implementation.

There are many, many, ideas and techniques explained throughout the book--some of which I had heard of before and others that were new to me. I especially liked the various questioning techniques. At times, however, I wished Wilhelm's writing style was a bit more precise. This a read I feel I need to read again to completely grasp and perhaps be coached through the techniques.

[Emily Cottle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing. A teacher gave us a copy of one chapter in class, and it was excellent. Unfortunately, it was the only good chapter.

[Ren · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are an educator, you may have, at some point, heard the phrase: "The person doing the work in the classroom is the one that is learning." Too often, I've been guilty of being the sage on the stage, standing and delivering information while expecting students to be able to turn that information around and do something worthwhile with it independently.

This is not how students retain information much less find the validity in it. And it is the very definition of insanity, to teach in that authoritarian style, hoarding knowledge to ourselves, and expecting students to learn, apply it in meaningful ways, or give a damn.

Wilhelm takes a look at what successful teaching should look like in the 21st century Amercian classroom; and it's perhaps what educator and philosopher Paulo Freire might have envisioned when he spoke out against the banking model of education.

The inquiry model is the "only model that promotes democracy" (29), and is described as "a wondrous roadtrip in which teachers and students take a collaborative journey toward disciplinary understanding. Exact destination unknown, but road maps and resources are valued, and specific navigation strategies are learned along the way. Teaching is authoritative (not authoritarian), participatory, collaborative. The teacher acts as a mentor and a guide" (29).

The strategies and planning promoted in this book are refreshing and have reignited excitement of meeting student needs, getting them talking in a meaningful, meaning-making ways, and promotes the kind of deep thinking skills students will need in the real world. Why not build citizens who can connect their thinking? Why not build students who can not only comprehend, but can see answers to questions such as "So what?" and "What now?"

These are the kind of students I would like to help build.

[Carmyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book quickly and truly feel I need to give it another go-round to take it all in. I felt that while on the whole there were really good ideas in here about how to alter the approach we so often take toward teaching material in our classrooms, it didn't really make me feel like I "got" how to implement their ideas. They spent time trying to make that clear and yet somehow I still felt I was missing something. I realize that true learning IS inquiry and so it's a very natural method of teaching. Unfortunately it's challenging from the teaching perspective (may be easier to tackle in a home school environment) and it takes time and real work to accomplish and even then the ideas may not work the first time. I think the daunting bit about this book is just that it's too much to try all at once. I think I'd need to try to change maybe a unit or a particular slice out of my curriculum and then begin to morph everything into an inquiry approach as I became more adept at it.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wilhelm's book is very useful for strategizing how to ask critical thinking questions and how to lead engagement without being too limiting or guiding for a student and shutting them off from a text. Wilhelm's book is a guide to guiding in that sense and how use questions to help a student learn to probe a text. The Inquiry-based instruction is not, in my opinion, a total methodology, it does open students up to more purposive readings and Wilhelm gives both practical and theoretical advice for how to do this. I agree with other readers, however, that Wilhelm overly self-references here and that is a frustrating.

[Carrie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful, thought-provoking read. FULL of great ideas and applications for all middle and high school teachers. This book will most certainly affect how I teach in my classroom. Great to pair with Jim Burke's What's the Big Idea?: Question-Driven Units to Motivate Reading, Writing, and Thinking."

[Rabbomar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another title I read in my Writers' Workshop last summer (2011) at UNT. The Inquiry-based Instruction provides the framework for students to learn to think. "Engaged readers converse with an author, characters, significant ideas, and one another." Readers read. Writers write. Teachers and students must both read and write.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book felt a little garbled around lists of possible questions to ask .... I never felt like I understood how students arrive at answers, only how they ask questions. Lots of self-referencing back to books Wilhelm has already written.

I was able to pull out a few decent lists of question-starters though and a couple of question-asking schema that I appreciated.

[Ann Yanchura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I usually LOVE Jeff Wilhelm's work, but I found this one to be heavy and hard to read. Inquiry is an important focus for our literacy teaching, but some of the urgency is lost in this book. It does, however, include some helpful sections, such as QAR and the questions for before/during/after reading.

[Sherrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every teacher who wants to engage their students and help them become critical thinkers should read this book! Amazing insights from an exemplary educator. It really inspires.. and makes you wish you had been taught this way too!

[Jill Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for those designing units with essential questions. Supports the notion of 30 second, 30 minute, and 30-year knowledge. Ex: In a social studies class, asking the essential question "Why did the North win?" would be 30-year knowledge.

[Cheri Linton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps, because I have been to a lot of workshops on inquiry learning I did not find anything new in this book. The format was helpful and easy to read. A good guide for teachers wanting to begin exploring inquiry learning.

[Elizabeth Drake · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid book that is an explanation of how inquiry-based learning works, how to teach using essential questions that guide your study of the material and connect the study to bigger context, showing kids why it matters. Not very in-depth, but a good starting place.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wilhelm engaged me with this book. I'm interested to hear others' takes on the book when the group convenes on Saturday.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Wilhelm's ideas for how to organize units. I'd like to do all of my units using an inquiry question the way he does.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the easy-to-read format. Helped me move my teaching into inquiry.

[Keri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Packed with ideas. I'll have to go back through this one again.

[Declan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the how-to manual for inquiry learning and thematic units. The author is both an constant practitioner and a researcher.

Incredibly helpful.

[Emilia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful but a bit dry. Took me about a month to get through.

[Marcie · Rating 5 out of 5]

practical - lots of classroom examples, question strategies and motivation

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for a Grad class. I liked all of the examples it offered. However it felt overwhelming with the amount of choices and suggestions at times. I feel like some of what was written needed to be clarified. Also I understand that some of the techniques were tested before being written about. However in my experience I could see many of them blowing up in my face and causing all sorts of classroom issues due to the structures.

[Matt Dague · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you’ve taught more than 3 years there is very little to gain from this book. My state government said I needed to take a reading education class so I had to read this book. I was given one new insight in one paragraph in the entire book.