I use Costa's levels of questioning in my own classroom. There were just too many levels with Blooms... I teach a program called two sections of a program called AVID, which heavily emphasizes inquiry as a key essential to learning. This program also uses Costa in its curriculum
The way that I teach it to my sixth graders, who are LA students, is by first introducing right there, author and me, and on my own questioning. We discuss this, and then I show them an image of a house with three levels that contain key words that you will see with level 1,2 and 3 questions. We then read the story "Rainbow Fish," and I use a sorting activity to determine the levels of questions that I found online from another teacher's page. Then, they start writing their own level 1,2 and 3 questions for this story. We classify questions that are present in our textbook as well as on the CST. Then, we try "ratcheting up" questions from common fairy tales. The AVID Curriculum uses Cinderella, and I totally love it. They come up with excellent level two and three questions with this. Then, when we go into literature circles (I do lit. circles a little differently-- all students do a sheet that takes pieces from each role), they have a category that is divided into two: the left hand side is where they write level one questions, and the right hand side has level 2/3 questions. That way, when lit circles start they already have a clear understanding of the type of question that can really get a conversation going. I also use two different symbols for annotating: one is Q: which must be a level 2/3 question and the other is ? which is to clear up a point of confusion. These Qs get used for Socratic Seminar, which I love. Finally, I really try to work on getting them asking level 2/3 questions in their reader's response journals (Nancie Atwell based) every time they write to me. Let me know if you have any other questions. Annie --- On Mon, 5/12/08, Bill IVEY <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Bill IVEY <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [LIT] Ideal Middle School > To: "A list for improving literacy with focus on middle grades." > <[email protected]> > Date: Monday, May 12, 2008, 9:59 AM > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > >There are two other key elements that I wish were in > place at our school: > >The first is direct instruction of key critical > thinking and questioning > >skills- examining Bloom's or Costa's levels of > questioning and putting > >them to use, Socratic Seminar, Philosophical Chairs, > Dialectical > >Journals, Literature Circles......If we were able to > address these in a > >way that each year taught specific skills so that we > knew what students > >would come out of 8th grade with it would be amazing. > > Hi! > > That is so exciting. I'd love to know more details > about how you do this - > I've tried to work with Bloom's in the past, but so > far haven't really > been able to make it as accessible to the kids as I would > like. Thanks! > > Take care, > Bill Ivey > Stoneleigh-Burnham School > > > _______________________________________________ > The Literacy Workshop ListServ > http://www.literacyworkshop.org > > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
